What you actually have to charge per hour
Not what the shop down the road charges. Your number, after the truck, the insurance, and the hours nobody pays you for.
At 5 billable hours a day you spend about 720 hours a year working without being paid for it. That time is already priced into the number above. It has to be.
This is arithmetic, not advice: your pay plus a year of overhead, divided by the hours you can bill. It does not include tax, materials or profit. Treat it as the floor you cannot go under, not the price you should quote.
Questions about the math
Often because the estimate uses too many billable hours. Driving, quoting, parts runs, and invoicing can reduce the hours available for paid work. Use your own recent time records instead of an industry assumption; a small change in billable hours can materially change the rate you need.
Only time a customer is paying for. If you are driving to the job, picking up parts, writing the quote, chasing the invoice or standing on a cancelled call, that hour is real work but nobody is paying for it. Count a normal week honestly rather than estimating.
No. It is deliberately the floor, not the price. The result covers your own wage plus the cost of running the business, divided by the hours you can bill. Tax, materials, and any profit on top of your wage all sit above this number.
Compare it to what you charge today. If you are under it, you are funding the difference yourself. Either the rate goes up, the overhead comes down, or you find more billable hours in the same day — those are the only three levers.
Miss a call, lose a job. Try Call Catcher free for 7 days.
Card required · Cancel anytime · $199 setup waived for new signups