A self-employed hvac technician doing 28 billable hours per week with typical overhead of $2,380/month needs to charge at least $89/hr just to break even — and $111/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.
Quick-fill by trade
Monthly Overhead
$2,380/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 — 28 hrs/week
Hours you actually spend on the job charging a client. Not total work hours.
Based on a 40-hour work week, 12 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
$110.27/hr
Anything below this and you are working at a loss.
Stop Leaving Money Behind
Shocked by your rate? Most contractors realize they're working 10+ hours a week for free because of slow, manual estimating. Suparate's AI app captures every material cost and labor minute automatically — so you never bill below break-even again.
See How Suparate Works →Common Questions
Different trade? Use the full calculator with all options.
← Back to Contractor Rate Calculator