Abstract In this paper, we consider the simplified Levenberg–Marquardt method for nonlinear ill-posed inverse problems in Hilbert spaces for obtaining stable approximations of solutions to the ill-posed nonlinear equations of the form F ( u ) = y {F(u)=y} , where F : 𝒟 ( F ) ⊂ 𝖴 → 𝖸 {F:\mathcal{D}(F)\subset\mathsf{U}\to\mathsf{Y}} is a nonlinear operator between Hilbert spaces 𝖴 {\mathsf{U}} and 𝖸 {\mathsf{Y}} . The method is defined as follows: u n + 1 δ = u n δ - ( T 0 ∗ T 0 + α n I ) - 1 T 0 ∗ ( F ( u n δ ) - y δ ) , u_{n+1}^{\delta}=u_{n}^{\delta}-(T_{0}^{\ast}T_{0}+\alpha_{n}I)^{-1}T_{0}^{% \ast}(F(u_{n}^{\delta})-y^{\delta}), where T 0 = F ′ ( u 0 ) {T_{0}=F^{\prime}(u_{0})} and T 0 ∗ = F ′ ( u 0 ) ∗ {T_{0}^{\ast}=F^{\prime}(u_{0})^{\ast}} . Here F ′ ( u 0 ) {F^{\prime}(u_{0})} denotes the Frèchet derivative of F at an initial guess u 0 ∈ 𝒟 ( F ) {u_{0}\in\mathcal{D}(F)} for the exact solution u † {u^{\dagger}} , F ′ ( u 0 ) ∗ {F^{\prime}(u_{0})^{\ast}} is the adjoint of F ′ ( u 0 ) {F^{\prime}(u_{0})} and { α n } {\{\alpha_{n}\}} is an a priori chosen sequence of non-negative real numbers satisfying suitable properties. We use Morozov-type stopping rule to terminate the iterations. Under suitable non-linearity conditions on operator F, we show convergence of the method and also obtain a convergence rate result under a Hölder-type source condition on the element u 0 - u † {u_{0}-u^{\dagger}} . Furthermore, we derive convergence of the method for the case when no source conditions are used and the study concludes with numerical examples which validate the theoretical conclusions.