Contractor Hourly Rate Calculator

General contracting carries heavier overhead than smaller trades — licensing, bonding, higher liability limits and time spent coordinating subcontractors rather than doing billable work yourself.

Recommended hourly rate

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Break-even rate

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Billable hours/year

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Full-day (8h) rate

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General-contracting-specific cost considerations

Licensing, bonding and general liability insurance are typically higher for general contractors than for single-trade handymen, reflecting greater project scope and risk.
A meaningful share of a GC's time goes to subcontractor coordination, permitting and site supervision rather than direct billable trade work — reflected here in a lower utilization default.
Materials are billed separately with a markup (commonly 10-20% over cost), not folded into this labor rate.

This prices your own labor/oversight rate only. Subcontractor costs should be passed through to the client, typically with a coordination markup, not absorbed into your personal hourly rate.

Worked example

$90,000 income, $30,000 overhead, 48 weeks, 45 hrs/week, 55% utilization, 10% reserve, 15% margin:

Billable hours: 48 × 45 × 0.55 ≈ 1,188 hours/year
Recommended revenue: $120,000 ÷ 0.75 = $160,000
Recommended rate: $160,000 ÷ 1,188 ≈ $134.68/hour

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Frequently asked questions

How is this different from the Handyman Rate Calculator?

This tool assumes higher licensing/bonding/insurance overhead and lower utilization to reflect subcontractor coordination time — typical of general contracting rather than single-trade handyman work.

Should I mark up subcontractor invoices?

Most general contractors add a coordination/overhead markup (commonly 10-20%) to subcontractor costs passed through to the client.

Convert contractor costs into a field-ready rate

The calculated rate needs to recover productive labor plus the time and infrastructure required to win, schedule and support jobs. Crew downtime, callbacks and vehicle costs belong in the business model even when they cannot be billed directly.

Build estimates from the rate

Use realistic production hours for each task instead of dividing the day by crew size.
Add supervision, mobilization, disposal and permit time to job labor.
Track estimated versus actual labor after every completed project.

Risk allowances

Warranty callbacks and punch-list visits consume future capacity.
Subcontractor quotes should include coordination and schedule risk.
Insurance, licensing and vehicle costs must be recovered across realistic annual hours.