Forty on the clock. Thirty billed.
Bill enough. Every hour.
Paid time and billable time are not always the same. Enter your overhead, wages and billable share to explore an estimated hourly rate.
Four numbers you know.
Estimate your shop rate.
Overhead, wages and the hours you can honestly bill. The rate falls out of them, and every assumption is a slider you can move.
Your assumptions
Example inputs, rounded results and 50 working weeks. Overtime is not calculated separately; employer costs are included only through your burden input.
Estimated rate from your inputs
$121an hour
Modeled cost per hour $97
Where every billed hour goes
- Labor
- $66
- Overhead
- $31
- Profit
- $24
The clock, and the part of it you can bill62% billable
- 6,000
- paid hours a year
- 3,720
- hours you can bill
- $89,280
- estimated annual surplus
Worth knowing
At 67% billable time instead of 62%, the estimated rate becomes $113, with your other inputs unchanged.
No hidden multiplier.
Here is exactly what it did.
Six steps, in order, with all three judgment calls named.
- Techs, times hours a week, times fifty weekspaid hours a year
- Times the share of the clock you can billbillable hours a year
- Wage plus payroll burdencost of an hour on the clock
- Times every paid hour, plus a year of overheadestimated annual cost
- Over the billable hoursmodeled cost per hour
- Divided by one minus your marginestimated hourly rate
Example: 62% billable time
The default is an editable example, not an industry average. Include the time your shop actually bills and account for paid time spent driving, collecting parts or doing other work.
Example: 28% payroll burden
This input represents employer costs above wages, such as payroll taxes, workers’ comp and benefits. The tool does not calculate those costs individually; replace the example with your own estimate.
20% margin, divided in
Adding twenty percent to your cost leaves you 16.7%, because margin is a share of the price and markup is a share of the cost. Dividing by 0.8 is what actually leaves you a fifth of the invoice.
What it can’t know. This is a rounded planning estimate based on 50 working weeks. Every paid hour uses the same entered wage; overtime premiums are not calculated automatically. Use a blended wage if needed. Taxes and benefits are represented only by your payroll-burden input. The result is not a verified break-even rate or a market price.
Then write it down once.
Put the rate in your price book.
Save labor rates, services and parts costs in your price book. Use those entries when building estimates and invoices, and review or adjust the prices before sending.
Services and materials in one book
Parts costs saved beside the price
Editable AI starter drafts for your trade
Questions about the hourly rate finder.
The ones a skeptical owner asks, answered straight.
Why is the rate so much higher than what I pay my tech?
Two reasons, and they compound. You pay for every hour on the clock but you only bill some of them, so the unbilled ones are carried by the billed ones. And every dollar of rent, insurance, software and truck payments rides on those same billable hours.
What counts as overhead here?
Everything you pay whether or not a truck rolls: rent, insurance, software, phones, truck payments and fuel, marketing and office wages. Leave the techs’ wages out. They are counted separately, because they grow with the crew and overhead mostly does not.
Why divide by one minus the margin instead of adding it on?
Because margin is a share of the price and markup is a share of the cost. Cost times 1.2 gives a 16.7% margin; dividing by 0.8 gives 20% before rounding. That result only accounts for the costs entered into this model.
I price flat rate, not hourly. Is this any use?
Yes. Multiplying the estimated hourly rate by the expected time can help build the labor portion of a flat-rate price. Add materials and any other job costs, then review the complete price; the calculator cannot guarantee that a job will be profitable.
Is anything I type here saved?
No. It runs in your browser, there is no account and nothing is sent anywhere. Close the tab and it is gone.
Your rate, every time.
Price every job from the same book.
Your services, your materials and your rate, on every estimate and invoice.
Try it free for 15 days. No credit card required.