Labor Rate Calculator — Loaded Cost & Bill Rate
Your hourly rate is not a market average and it is not your wage plus a bit. It is the total cost of employing someone — wage, burden, van, tools — divided by the hours you can actually invoice, then grossed up for margin. The step most shops skip is the denominator: you pay for 2,080 hours and bill maybe 1,560, and those 520 unbillable hours have to come from somewhere.
Calculate your rate
Run this separately for each labor class — apprentice, journeyman, master.
2,080 = 40 h × 52 weeks
Taxes, comp, insurance, PTO — 30–45% typical
Track it — 65–80% is realistic for service work
Van, fuel, tools, phone — not company overhead
This covers company overhead — rent, office staff, software, marketing, owner profit. 35–50% on service work.
Bill rate required
Inside the $50–$130/hr band reported for US electricians in 2026.
Loaded cost / billable hour
$63.37
Multiple of wage
3.30×
See the breakdown
Keep per-tech overhead and company overhead separate — counting rent, office staff, and marketing in both the overhead field and the margin will price you out of the market.
The formula, explained in plain English
The denominator is the whole game
At 75% utilisation, every billable hour has to carry 1.33 hours of cost. Drop to 60% and it carries 1.67 hours. Utilisation moves your required rate more than wage does.
Margin ≠ markup
Divide by one minus the margin; do not multiply by one plus it. A 40% margin needs a 67% markup. Getting this backwards silently underprices every hour you sell.
Two kinds of overhead
Van, tools, and phone are per-technician and belong in the cost. Rent, office staff, software, and marketing are company-wide and belong in the margin. Never both.
Workers' comp is the surprise
Electrical classifications carry high comp rates, which is why burden for the trade sits at 30–45% rather than the 20% a general office would see. Use your actual payroll figure.
Worked examples
A journeyman, the same journeyman with poor utilisation, and the mistake of billing off wage.
Journeyman at $32/hr, 75% billable
2,080 paid hours · 35% burden · $9,000 per-tech overhead · 40% target margin. The defaults above.
+ overhead $9,000 = $98,856 total annual cost
billable: 2,080 × 75% = 1,560 h → loaded cost $63.37/h
bill rate = 63.37 ÷ 0.60 = $105.62/hr = 3.30× wage
Result: a $32/hr tech has to bill at $105.62 to return 40%. The 3.3× multiple surprises people, but it is what the arithmetic requires once unbillable hours are counted honestly.
Same tech, utilisation drops to 60%
A slow season, more drive time, more warranty callbacks.
loaded cost = 98,856 ÷ 1,248 = $79.21/h
bill rate = 79.21 ÷ 0.60 = $132.02/hr
Result: a 15-point drop in utilisation adds $26/hr to the rate you must charge — more than a $5/hr raise would. Improving scheduling and cutting drive time is usually a bigger lever on profitability than raising prices.
The "double the wage" mistake
A common rule of thumb, tested against the real numbers.
actual loaded cost = $63.37/hr
→ margin ≈ 1%
Result: billing at double the wage almost exactly covers cost and returns nothing. Shops that use this rule stay busy and never accumulate cash — and it is why "we're profitable, we just have no money" is such a common complaint in the trade.
How utilisation moves your rate
At $32/hr wage, 35% burden, and $9,000 per-tech overhead — the only variable changing is the percentage of paid hours you can actually invoice.
| Billable % | Billable hours | Loaded cost | Bill at 30% margin | Bill at 40% margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60% | 1,248 h | $79.21 | $113.16 | $132.02 |
| 65% | 1,352 h | $73.12 | $104.45 | $121.86 |
| 70% | 1,456 h | $67.90 | $96.99 | $113.16 |
| 75% | 1,560 h | $63.37 | $90.53 | $105.62 |
| 80% | 1,664 h | $59.41 | $84.87 | $99.01 |
| 85% | 1,768 h | $55.91 | $79.88 | $93.19 |
Sources & standards: 2026 US electrician rate data from HomeGuide, Angi, and Housecall Pro; wage data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; labor units from the NECA Manual of Labor Units. Ranges are market observations, not quotes. Use your own payroll and utilisation figures — the market average is not your number.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about electrician labor rates, burden, and utilisation.
What should an electrician charge per hour?
US electricians bill roughly $50 to $130 per hour in 2026, commonly with a $100 to $200 service-call fee covering the first hour. But the right number for your shop is not a market average — it is your loaded cost per billable hour divided by one minus your target margin. Two shops with identical wages can need rates $30 apart because their burden and utilisation differ.
Why isn't my rate just wage plus a markup?
Because you pay for hours you cannot invoice. A tech paid 2,080 hours a year who bills 1,560 has 520 unbillable hours — travel, shop time, training, warranty callbacks, waiting for inspectors — and every one of those must be recovered from the hours you do bill. Add payroll taxes, workers' comp, liability insurance, the van, fuel, tools, and a phone, and the loaded cost typically lands at 2.5 to 3 times base wage.
What counts as burden?
Everything you pay because someone is employed, beyond their wage: payroll taxes (FICA, FUTA, SUTA), workers' compensation — which is expensive for electrical classifications — health insurance, paid time off, retirement contributions, and any training or licensing you fund. For electrical trades this commonly runs 30% to 45% of base wage. Get the real figure from your payroll reports rather than guessing.
What billable percentage is realistic?
For residential service work, 65% to 80% is typical — call it 75% as a planning figure. New-construction and commercial crews on long jobs can reach 85% or better because travel and setup amortise across days rather than hours. Anything above 90% almost certainly means you are not counting warranty work, drive time, or shop time honestly. Track it for a month; the real number is usually lower than the assumed one.
Is the overhead figure here my whole business overhead?
No — the annual overhead field is the per-technician cost of keeping that person productive: van, fuel, tools, phone, and their share of insurance. Company-wide overhead like rent, office staff, software, marketing, and owner salary sits in the margin, which is why the target margin needs to be 35–50% on service work rather than 15%. Double-counting the same costs in both places will price you out of the market.
Should the helper's rate be lower?
Their cost is lower, so run this calculator separately for each labor class — apprentice, journeyman, master — and use the matching loaded cost when estimating. Whether you bill at different rates is a sales decision. Many shops quote a single blended rate for simplicity, which works as long as the blend reflects your actual crew mix. If you routinely send a two-person crew, estimate at the combined loaded cost of both.
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