Free tool
What you actually have to charge an hour
Not what the bloke down the road charges. What your own year needs, once the holidays, the quiet days, the van and the insurance are in it. Most people are surprised, and not pleasantly.
Before tax and National Insurance, over a year. If you want £35,000 in your hand you need to put a bigger number here, and your accountant can tell you how much bigger.
Van, fuel, tools, insurance, phone, accountant, scheme membership, software, pension, training, workwear, waste. Not materials you bill on to customers.
Your year
Take off driving, merchant runs, quoting, paperwork and waiting. Very few tradespeople bill more than about 70% of the hours they work.
Charge, an hour
£41.27
Or for a full day
£231.11
Your year, in numbers
That last number is the one worth sitting with. It is usually far lower than people assume, and it is what every pound of your year has to come out of.
What is not in this
Tax, National Insurance and VAT are all outside it, and so are the materials you buy for a job and bill on. It is a floor, not a price list: what you charge also depends on the work, the area and what you are worth, and this tells you the number you cannot go under.
The quickest way to raise that number
Bill more of the hours you already work. Quoting in the van instead of at the kitchen table, and not losing the enquiries you never answered, both move the billable share rather than the price.