Income target, overheads, weeks, hours and billable share in, your minimum charge-out rate out. Works for plumbers, sparkies, chippies, every trade. Free, no email.
Ute, insurance, tools, phone, software, rego, super.
Quoting, driving and admin are not billable.
$157/hr
Your minimum charge-out rate. A 7.6 hour day invoices $1,192.
Built from 1136 billable hours a year (46 weeks x 38 hrs x 65% billable), covering $120,000 income plus $35,000 overheads ($136/hr break even), with 15% margin on top.
For comparison: an award wage employee costs the boss roughly $55 to $70 an hour all-in. Your rate has to carry the whole business, not just the wage.
Guide only. GST, licensing, apprentice costs, materials markup and your local market all shift the real number. Check the figure against your actual books, and talk to your accountant before repricing your work.
The common way to set a rate is to look at what the bloke down the road charges and knock a bit off. That wins jobs and quietly loses money, because his overheads are not yours and neither is his billable week. The honest maths runs the other way: decide what you need to earn, add what the business costs to run, divide by the hours someone actually pays for, then put a margin on top so the business itself makes something.
The defaults here, $120k income, $35k overheads, 46 weeks, 38 hours and 65% billable, already produce a rate that surprises most sole traders. Slide your real numbers in and look at what a 7.6 hour day has to invoice. If your current rate is under that figure, every busy week is costing you money.
Typical charge-out rates run $90 to $160 an hour in metro areas, with specialist and emergency work above that. But the right number for you comes from your own maths: income target plus overheads, divided by hours you can actually bill, plus a margin. That is what this calculator does, and for most sole traders it lands well above what they currently charge.
Because your wage was built on someone else billing you out at two to three times it. As an employee the boss covered the ute, insurance, tools, super, leave, and the hours between jobs. Run your own book and only 60 to 70% of your week is billable, so every quoted hour has to carry the quoting, driving and admin hours around it plus every overhead.
Hours you can put on an invoice. Time on the tools at a client's job, basically. Quoting, driving between jobs, chasing invoices, ordering materials and doing the books are real work but nobody pays for them directly. Most sole traders sit around 60 to 70% billable, which is why the calculator defaults to 65%. Track a fortnight honestly and you will know your real number.
No, it is the business's pay. Your income target pays you for the hours. The margin pays for the business to exist tomorrow: replacing the ute, slow months, bad debts, price rises, and eventually a second pair of hands. A business that only ever pays its owner's wage is one broken gearbox away from trouble. 10 to 20% is a normal, defensible range.
You just worked out what an hour of your time is worth. A missed enquiry costs a job's worth of them. Our AI receptionist answers 24/7, quotes from your price list and books the job while you stay on the tools. Ring the demo line and hear it yourself.
