Corbelworks · Shop-Rate Tool

Job Profitability & Break-Even Calculator

Find the billable rate that actually covers your labor, taxes and overhead — then price any job to a real net margin instead of guessing. Built for electricians, plumbers, HVAC, landscapers, cleaners, and any small crew that bills by the hour.

Everything runs in your browser. No numbers are sent anywhere, nothing is stored, works offline once loaded.

1 · Your shop numbers

Enter averages for one field employee. The math scales to your whole crew below.

What you actually pay per hour, before taxes/benefits.
$
Payroll taxes + workers’ comp + benefits, as % of wage. Trades commonly 25–40%.
%
Share of paid hours you actually bill a customer for. Drive time, quoting, admin and rework are not billable. Real-world 55–75%.
%
2080 = 40 hrs × 52 wks. Subtract unpaid time off if relevant.
Count only people who do billable work (include yourself if you turn wrenches).
Rent, trucks & fuel, tools, software, phones, insurance, office/admin pay, marketing. Not field wages or job materials.
$
The profit you want left after all labor and overhead. 10–25% is typical for trades.
%

2 · Check a specific job

Uses your break-even rate above to see whether one quote actually clears a profit.

Total you’ll invoice, including materials you re-bill.
$
Total on-site billable hours for the job (all crew).
What you pay suppliers, before any markup.
$
Permits, dumpster, subcontractors, equipment rental, disposal.
$
Method, formulas & sources

The break-even rate

Your true cost per billable hour has two layers — and both are usually underestimated.

  • Fully burdened wage = base wage × (1 + burden%). Burden is the money you spend on an employee beyond their wage: the employer share of FICA (6.2% Social Security + 1.45% Medicare = 7.65%), federal/state unemployment (FUTA/SUTA), workers’ compensation, and any health/retirement benefits or paid time off. For most trades this lands between 25% and 40% of wage.
  • Cost per billable hour = fully burdened wage ÷ utilization%. You pay for every clocked hour, but you only invoice the billable share. If someone is billable 65% of the time, each billed hour has to carry the cost of the other 35% (drive time, quoting, warranty callbacks). This single step is the most common reason a "profitable-looking" rate loses money.
  • Overhead per billable hour = annual overhead ÷ (paid hours × utilization × employees). Rent, trucks, insurance and admin don’t bill themselves — they’re recovered across the hours you actually sell.

Break-even billable rate = cost per billable hour + overhead per billable hour. Charge exactly this and you make $0 profit; charge below it and you lose money on every hour.

Markup is not margin (the expensive mistake)

To keep a net margin of m, the price is price = cost ÷ (1 − m), not cost × (1 + m).

  • Margin = profit ÷ price. Markup = profit ÷ cost.
  • Example: a $100 cost marked up 20% sells for $120 — but that’s only a 16.7% margin ($20 / $120), not 20%. To actually keep a 20% margin you must charge $100 ÷ 0.80 = $125 (a 25% markup).
  • Pricing "cost plus 20%" when you meant "20% profit" quietly underprices every job. The calculator above always uses the margin formula and shows you the equivalent markup.

Single-job profit

  • Labor + overhead cost = labor hours × break-even rate (this already absorbs overhead at your planned utilization).
  • Total cost = labor+overhead + materials + other direct costs.
  • Net profit = price − total cost. Net margin = net profit ÷ price.
  • Profit per labor hour = net profit ÷ labor hours — useful for comparing jobs of different sizes.

Sources & assumptions

  • FICA employer rate 7.65% (6.2% OASDI up to the annual wage base + 1.45% Medicare): U.S. IRS, Publication 15 (Circular E), Employer’s Tax Guide, and SSA payroll-tax rate tables. FUTA/SUTA and workers’ comp rates vary by state and class code.
  • Margin vs. markup and break-even (fixed cost ÷ contribution margin) are standard managerial-accounting definitions — e.g. Horngren, Cost Accounting: A Managerial Emphasis; U.S. SBA small-business pricing guidance.
  • Utilization / realization as the driver of true labor cost is standard in professional-services and field-service costing.
  • Defaults shown are illustrative placeholders, not benchmarks for your business. Burden %, workers’ comp and tax specifics differ by state, trade and payroll setup — confirm your real numbers with your bookkeeper or CPA. This tool is an estimator, not tax or accounting advice.