Free tool
What does an hour of your crew actually cost?
Not the wage. The wage plus the employer half of payroll taxes, workers’ comp, paid time off, the truck, the tools, and the hours you pay for that never reach an invoice. Most operators are bidding against the wage and wondering where the money went.
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Your numbers
Fill in what you know. The answer updates as you type, and blanks count as zero, so a partial fill still gives you a floor rather than nothing.
A name or a role. Only used to label the result. Nothing is sent anywhere.
From your payroll register. The actual rate, not a rounded one. Salaried, divide by 2,080.
Days per year, including holidays you pay for. Leave at 0 if you do not offer any yet.
Your annual federal unemployment tax for this employee, from Form 940 or your payroll provider's tax summary, divided by their paid hours. It is a small line. Leave it at 0 if you do not have the figure to hand.
Your assigned rate, from your state unemployment account. New employers are usually assigned a starting rate rather than earning one.
Dollars per $100 of payroll, off your policy declarations page for the class code this employee works under. Rates differ by trade and by state.
One truck's monthly cost (payment, insurance, fuel, maintenance) divided by the techs on it, divided by their monthly billable hours.
Annual tool and equipment budget divided by 2,000 hours. $3,000 a year is $1.50 an hour.
Your share of the monthly premium divided by 173 hours. 0 if you do not offer it.
Share of paid hours that land on an invoice. Drive time, shop time, and warranty callbacks are not billable. Start at 80% and correct it once you have time entries.
What an hour costs you
Put in an hourly wage and the answer appears here. Everything else makes it more accurate.
Where this worksheet came from
This is one of six printable worksheets in the pricing strategy playbook, reproduced here in full and for free. The other five price a job up from the burdened rate, track gross margin by service line, model a commission before you offer it, total your overhead per billable hour, and convert markup to margin. You can read all of them in the example pack without an account.
This calculator does arithmetic on numbers you supply. It is not tax, accounting, insurance, or legal advice, and it does not tell you what to charge. The only figures it supplies rather than asks for are the employer share of Social Security and Medicare, and those are stamped with the year they are from and linked to the source. Everything else comes off your own payroll register, your own policy declarations page, and your own Form 940.