Electrician Rate Calculator
Work out the hourly rate your business has to charge to break even, and the rate that earns your profit margin. The result updates as you type.
Updated
Enter your billable days, hourly wage and target profit margin to see your rates.
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Use these rates in your quotesExample only — use your own numbers
How the rates are worked out
- Wage with burden: the hourly wage plus the labor burden percentage.
- Overhead per hour: yearly overhead divided by billable days, hours per day and billable techs.
- Break-even rate: wage with burden plus overhead per hour. It covers cost and nothing else.
- Target rate: the break-even rate divided by one minus your target profit margin.
- Day rate, minimum charge, trip fee and diagnostic fee: the target rate times the hours you set for each.
Amounts are calculated in whole cents and rounded once at the end, so the figures on this page add up the way a spreadsheet would.
Where the starting numbers come from
The labor burden of 50% comes from pricing threads in electrician forums, and the half-day minimum charge (4 hours) is common practice. Neither is a rule. The overhead rows start empty because only you know what your insurance, truck and tools cost. Replace every default with your own number.
Once you know your rate, price each job from it in your quotes. For sizing wire and conduit on the job, see the wire size calculator.
Electrician rate questions
- What is labor burden for an electrician?
- Labor burden is what an employee costs you on top of the hourly wage: employer payroll taxes, workers' compensation, insurance, benefits and paid time off. It is usually written as a percentage of wage. In the example, a $45.00 an hour wage with a 50% burden costs $67.50 an hour, so the burden is $22.50 an hour. The 50% default comes from pricing threads in electrician forums; it is a forum sample, not a rule. Use the actual figure from your payroll and insurance bills.
- How do I calculate a break-even hourly rate for an electrician?
- Add the burdened wage to the overhead you must recover in each billable hour. In the example that is $67.50 of burdened wage plus $47.81 of overhead, which is $115.31 an hour. Below that rate every hour you bill loses money before any profit.
- How do I work out overhead per hour?
- Total your yearly overhead (insurance, vehicle, tools, license, office, marketing, phone, accounting) and divide by the hours you can actually bill. The example has $76,489.00 of overhead and 1600 billable hours (200 days, 8 hours a day, 1 tech), which is $47.81 an hour or $382.45 a day. With more billable techs the same overhead is spread over more hours.
- Why is the target rate higher than the break-even rate?
- Break-even pays your costs and nothing more. The target rate adds the profit margin you want. A 20% margin on the price lifts the example from $115.31 to $144.13 an hour, and the day rate for 8 hours is $1,153.06.
- What should my minimum charge, trip fee and diagnostic fee be?
- Price them in hours at your target rate. A half-day minimum of 4 hours is $576.53 in the example, a 0.5-hour trip fee is $72.07 and a 1-hour diagnostic fee is $144.13. The half-day minimum is common practice among electricians, not a requirement; change the hours to fit your market.
- Are these numbers right for my business?
- They are examples only. Every figure on this page depends on what you enter, and the defaults are starting points. Replace them with your own overhead, wage, billable days and margin.