Labor Rate Calculator

The rate that matters is built from your numbers, not your competitor's website. Three inputs, honest hours, done.

What you want to take home as pay, before tax.
Vehicle, insurance, tools, phone, software, marketing. Solo trades commonly run $20,000–$50,000.
Not 2,000. Driving, quoting, and admin are unbilled. Most solo operators bill 1,000–1,400.
The buffer that buys the next truck and absorbs callbacks.
Break-even rate
$96/hr
Your billing rate
$115/hr
Day rate (8 hr)
$920

Why billable hours is the number that lies

Everyone divides by 2,000 hours; nobody bills 2,000 hours. Driving between jobs, quoting, picking up materials, invoicing, and chasing payment are all real work that no customer pays for by the hour. A full-time solo tradesperson or freelancer typically bills 1,000–1,400 hours a year. Using the honest number is the single biggest correction most people need to make; it usually moves the answer up 40–60%.

Sanity-check the output

Compare your result against what your trade actually bills in 2026 in the Trade Pricing Report. If your break-even lands above your market's band, the fix is overhead or billable hours, not wishful pricing. If it lands far below, you have room you are probably not using.

Embed this calculator. Free to embed on your site or blog with the link left intact: <iframe src="https://invoicecraft.net/tools/labor-rate-calculator?embed=1" width="100%" height="640" style="border:0;border-radius:10px;" title="Labor Rate Calculator"></iframe> <p>Calculator by <a href="https://invoicecraft.net/tools/labor-rate-calculator">InvoiceCraft</a></p>

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