What Should a Handyman Charge?

The method

This is the formula in our hourly rate calculator: add your pay and your overhead, add the percentages, then divide by the hours you really bill.

• Pay: the BLS wage for general maintenance and repair workers in your area. The low end uses the median, the high end uses where the top quarter starts. It's an employee wage, used as a floor for what the work pays.
• Overhead: $33,148 a year, the sum of the median monthly answers from members using our calculator (insurance, truck, fuel, phone, software, taxes set aside and so on), adjusted with BEA's local price index.
• Percentages: profit 15%, paid time off 10%, refunds and warranty 3%, business taxes 12%, also member medians. Sales tax is left out, because it's collected from the customer where it applies.
• Hours: 30 billed hours a week at the low end (member median), 25 at the high end (lower quarter), times 52 weeks. Every hour on the job takes about another hour running the business.

It's an estimate for planning, not the market rate, and we don't use competitor prices.

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