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The Contractor's Loaded Labor & Overhead Quoting Guide

Find the lowest rate you can quote without losing money. Four pages and a fill-in calculator, free, sent to your email.

  • What a $32-an-hour tech really costs you for every hour you can bill. It's about $71.
  • How much of your overhead each billable hour has to carry, and the 2,080-hour mistake that hides it.
  • A 14-line calculator that gives you your break-even rate and the rate you should be quoting.
Page 1 of The Contractor's Loaded Labor & Overhead Quoting Guide

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Could you write your real cost for one tech-hour on the back of an invoice right now?

If not, this guide gets you there in one evening, with numbers you already have.

What's inside

  • The raw wage trap. Why an hour you pay for is never an hour you bill. Payroll taxes, comp, benefits, drive time and the truck turn a $32 wage into about $71 for every billable hour.
  • Overhead on a crew that comes and goes. Why a flat markup doesn't cover labor, why dividing by 2,080 hours hides the real number, and how to test your rate against a slow year.
  • The "while you're here" leak. Three rules that stop extra work walking off the job without an invoice.
  • The 14-line calculator. Fill it in with your own numbers to get your break-even rate and the rate you should quote.
A softened crop of the guide's 14-line calculator page

Written for owners of HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, mechanical and specialty trade shops with roughly 3 to 15 techs, especially if the schedule is full and the bank balance doesn't show it.

Written by people who've owned and run Texas service businesses.

What happens next

The guide comes to your email in a minute or two, with a private link that works for three days. Over the next ten days we send four short notes. Each one walks through one part of the math. Reply to any of them with a question and a person answers.

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