Guides
Know what your work really costs
Six short reads on costs, margins and pricing. Every figure is listed with its source at the bottom of the page.
Labor burden
Why your hourly rate doesn't cover your real cost
The seven components of a loaded hour, each one checkable against your own payroll, and the three that have no defensible average.
Pricing arithmetic
Markup and margin are not the same number
Adding 20% to cost leaves 16.7%. The gap widens as the target rises, and no single invoice looks wrong.
Job costing
The job costing question most shops can't answer
Knowing the bank balance is not knowing which jobs paid for themselves. Five invoices are enough to find out.
Overhead
The overhead nobody puts on the invoice
Rent, admin, marketing and software never appear on a job ticket. If they are not in the price, they are in the margin.
Category margin
You run ten kinds of job. You know the margin on none of them.
Which categories subsidise which: a few hours of work, once, on twenty jobs you have already invoiced.
Callbacks and warranty
A callback rate nobody measures is a standing monthly cost
What a return visit costs once burden is loaded in, and why an unmeasured rate cannot size a warranty reserve.