A self-employed flooring contractor doing 30 billable hours per week with typical overhead of $1,680/month needs to charge at least $64/hr just to break even — and $80/hr to hit a 20% profit margin. Adjust the inputs below for your specific situation.
Enter your real monthly costs and see exactly what you must charge per hour — just to break even. Then add your profit margin.
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Monthly Overhead
$1,680/moFixed costs you pay every month — whether you work or not.
Desired Monthly Take-Home
What you want to actually pay yourself each month, after all overhead.
Billable Hours — 30 hrs/week
Hours you actually spend on the job charging a client. Not total work hours.
Based on a 40-hour work week, 10 hours per week are non-billable — driving, quoting, material runs, admin. These are real costs you must cover in your rate.
Profit Margin — 20%
The buffer above break-even. Industry standard is 20–30% for contractors.
Your Numbers
Your Minimum Billable Rate
$80.00/hr
Anything below this and you are working at a loss.
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Different trade? Use the full calculator with all options.
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