What should your day rate be?

Put in your own numbers. About 5 minutes. Nothing is sent anywhere: the sums run on this page, on your device.

Currency

Your result

Fill in sections A–D and your rate appears here.

A What you need to take home

Owner pay you want per year Before tax, what you want to pay yourself.

B What the business costs you each year

Leave a line blank if it doesn't apply.

Van or vehicle Payments, fuel, servicing.

Insurance

Tools and kit

Phone and software

Accountant

Everything else Workshop, storage, training, bank fees.

Business costs per year: —

C How many days you can actually bill

Weeks you work per year

Days you work per week

Share of those days you actually bill As a percentage.

Not every working day is paid. Quoting, admin, travel, bad weather, sick days and holidays all come out of it. If you're not sure, ask yourself how many days last month you actually invoiced.

Billable days: —

Billable hours in a working day For your hour rate.

D Your margin and today's rate

Target profit margin The share of the price the business keeps after costs and your pay.

Margin is the share of the price you keep. Markup is what you add to your cost. A 30% margin needs a 42.9% markup.

Enter a margin to see the markup it needs.

What you charge for a day today

E Price one job (optional)

Uses your break-even hour rate and your margin from above.

Labour hours for the job

Materials at cost

Subcontractors

Travel and parking

Contingency Extra for the unexpected.

How the sums work

Billable days = weeks worked × days per week × share of days you bill.
Break-even day rate = (owner pay + business costs) ÷ billable days. Hour rate = day rate ÷ billable hours per day.
Target day rate = break-even day rate ÷ (1 − margin). This is margin, not markup.
Gap = target day rate − today's rate, per day and × billable days per year.
Job quote = (labour hours × break-even hour rate + materials + subcontract + travel) × (1 + contingency) ÷ (1 − margin).

Estimates from your inputs, not financial advice. Tax, VAT/GST and pension are not included unless you put them in your costs.

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