What should I charge for this job?

For contractors, handymen, landscapers, cleaners, painters and other service businesses. Enter the job's hours and costs, your monthly overhead and the margin you want. Everything is worked out in your browser. Nothing you type leaves this page.

The job

Hours on the job, everyone

Add up the hours of everyone who works on it: a crew of 3 for 8 hours is 24.

Labor cost per hour

What each hour of work costs you: wages and payroll costs, or what you pay yourself.

Materials and supplies

Other job costs

Equipment rental, dump fees, permits, subcontractors.

Monthly overhead

Rent, insurance, vehicle, phone, software, advertising: costs you pay whether or not you're on a job.

Billable hours per month, everyone

Hours customers pay for in a typical month, added up across everyone who works (you and your crew), not every hour worked.

Profit margin you want

The share of the price that is profit. Markup or margin? below explains the difference.

Your price

Price to quote: $0.00
Profit: $0.00
Labor: $0.00
Overhead for this job: $0.00
Total cost: $0.00
Markup on cost: 0.0%
Earned per hour on this job

This is your price before any sales tax.

Your overhead comes to $0.00 for each billable hour.

Adding 20% on top of your costs would be a margin of only 16.7%.

Want this as a spreadsheet with a printable estimate? →

Markup or margin?

Markup is what you add on top of your costs. Margin is the share of the price that ends up as profit. They're easy to mix up, and mixing them up costs money.

Say a job costs you $1,000. Add 20% on top and you charge $1,200. Your profit is $200, which is only 16.7% of the price.

To keep 20% of the price as profit, divide the cost by 0.8 (that's 1 minus 20%): $1,000 ÷ 0.8 = $1,250. Your profit is $250, which is 20% of $1,250, and the same as a 25% markup on your costs.

That's why the calculator asks for the margin you want and shows the markup it equals.

Why overhead goes in every job

Overhead is what it costs to stay in business whether or not you're on a job: rent, insurance, your vehicle, phone, software, advertising. It never shows up as a line on a customer's bill, so every job has to carry its share, or it comes out of your profit.

Spread it over the hours you bill, counting everyone who works: monthly overhead ÷ billable hours per month = overhead per hour. If your overhead is $2,400 a month and you bill 120 hours, that's $20 an hour. A 16-hour job then carries $320 of overhead, on top of its labor and materials.

Job pricing as a spreadsheet

Want this as a spreadsheet with a printable estimate and your logo? We're deciding whether to build it. Email hello@webhatchdesigns.com with "Job pricing" in the subject and we'll tell you when it's ready.

Tell me when it's ready

Need a spreadsheet built around your business? WebHatch Designs builds them.

Questions

Does the price include sales tax?

No. It's your price before any sales tax. Whether sales tax applies to a job depends on where you work and what the job is, so check that separately.

Why billable hours, and not every hour I work?

Because overhead has to be paid from the hours customers pay for. Driving, quoting, ordering and paperwork take time nobody is billed for. If you work 160 hours a month but bill 120, spreading $2,400 of overhead over all 160 hours gives $15 an hour, and you'd come up $600 short every month.

Can I use it for any trade?

Yes. It works for any job you can count in hours and costs: painting, cleaning, lawn care, repairs, remodeling and the rest. The numbers are yours; the calculator only does the arithmetic.

Do you keep what I type?

No. The calculator runs only in your browser and sends nothing anywhere.

Also free

Paid on a 1099? The tax set-aside calculator works out how much to save for each quarterly estimated payment.

How the price is worked out

Overhead per hour is your monthly overhead divided by your billable hours. The job's cost is its labor (hours times labor cost per hour), materials, other costs, and its hours times the overhead per hour. The price is that cost divided by 1 minus your margin, so the margin you choose is the share of the price left as profit. The margin stops at 90%.

This is a pricing calculator, not financial advice. It works out a price from the numbers you enter. What the market will pay for the job is yours to judge.

About us

Salt City Sheets is made by WebHatch Designs, a small studio in Hutchinson, Kansas that builds websites and spreadsheets for small businesses. Questions or problems: hello@webhatchdesigns.com.

Privacy

The calculator never sends anything: what you type stays in your browser. This site sets no cookies and runs no tracking. If you email us, we use your address only to answer you.