What should a handyman charge in Martinez, CA?
Planning estimate for a one-person handyman business in Martinez, CA: $105 to $148 an hour. It's a starting point built from public wage and price data with our calculator's formula. It is not the market rate, and it is not what any one handyman charges.
The math
Your rate is what the year costs you, divided by the hours you actually bill. Here it is with Martinez's numbers:
| Step | Low end | High end |
|---|---|---|
| Your pay (employee wage for this work in San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA) | $63,630 median | $80,140 top quarter starts here |
| Benefits you pay yourself (+23.9%: health insurance, retirement and bonuses an employer would add on top of the wage) | $15,208 pay $78,838 | $19,153 pay $99,293 |
| Overhead ($33,148 national, adjusted to local prices at 115.6) | $38,324 | $38,324 |
| Profit 15% + PTO 10% + warranty 3% + business taxes 12% | +40% | +40% |
| Yearly total to cover | $164,026 | $192,664 |
| Billed hours a year (hours on the job × 52) | 30 × 52 = 1,560 | 25 × 52 = 1,300 |
| Hourly rate | $105 | $148 |
The low end pays you the median wage plus the benefits you now pay yourself and bills 30 hours a week. The high end pays you where the top quarter of wages starts, plus benefits, and bills 25, because every hour on the job takes about another hour running the business.
Who you'd be working for in Martinez
- Median household income: $127,355, 28% above California ($99,122). Census ACS 2020-2024
- Median home value: $859,800, 17% above California ($734,700). Census ACS 2020-2024
- Half the homes here were built before 1977, about the same as California (1976). Census ACS 2020-2024
- Homes lived in by their owner: 70.8%, 27% above California (55.9%). Census ACS 2020-2024
- Population: 36,903. Census ACS 2020-2024
How that lines up with the California job limit
California's small-job figure is $1,000. At this range that's about 6.8 to 9.5 hours of labor, and materials count toward it too, so a job with parts reaches it sooner. Read the rule for Martinez.
Source: cslb.ca.gov · checked November 2, 2026
Make it your number
Your insurance, truck, hours and pay target are what count. Run the free hourly rate calculator with your real costs, then build your prices in the Rate Book. How to price handyman jobs walks through the method.
Where these numbers come from
- Wages: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, occupation 49-9071 Maintenance and Repair Workers, General, San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA. The top-quarter figure is in the BLS data file.
- Benefits: BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026, full-time private industry workers: insurance, retirement and supplemental pay add 23.9% on top of wages. Paid leave and payroll taxes are left out here because the percentages below already cover them.
- Local prices: BEA Regional Price Parities, 2024, San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA, all items index 115.6 (US = 100).
- Overhead, hours and percentages: median answers from members using our hourly rate calculator, the same formula that tool uses. National, not local.
Nearby places
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