Contractor Labor Cost & Labor Burden Calculator

Contractor Labor Cost & Labor Burden Calculator

$11.99
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Contractor Labor Cost & Labor Burden Calculator
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  • Contractor Labor Cost & Labor Burden Calculator
  • Contractor labor cost example comparing $28 hourly wage with $74,393.60 annual employer cost, 1,760 productive hours and $42.27 loaded cost per hour.
  • Labor burden inputs including payroll taxes, workers compensation, benefits, PTO, paid holidays, training and bonus costs.
  • Productive labor hours example showing 2,080 paid hours reduced by PTO, holidays and training or admin time to 1,760 productive hours.
  • Loaded labor cost formula showing $74,393.60 annual employer cost divided by 1,760 productive hours equals $42.27 per productive hour.
  • MarginForge labor pricing example converting $42.27 loaded labor cost into a $70.45 billable labor rate at a 40 percent labor gross margin target.
  • Labor rate scenario table comparing required billable rates, hourly gross profit and markup at target labor gross margins from 20 to 60 percent.
  • Contractor labor workbook showing role-level loaded labor rates and billable rates plus a blended team labor cost calculation.
  • MarginForge digital product package including Excel labor cost workbook, Buyer Guide, single-business license and 30 days of support.
  • MarginForge purchase information stating digital download, Microsoft Excel required, labor-only pricing benchmark, one-business license and user verification responsibility.
Contractor Labor Cost & Labor Burden Calculator

Contractor Labor Cost & Labor Burden Calculator

$11.99

Know what your field labor actually costs—not just what you pay per hour.

MarginForge Contractor Labor Cost & Labor Burden Calculator is a focused Microsoft Excel workbook for contractors and home-service businesses that want to calculate true employer labor cost per productive hour and translate that cost into a margin-aware billable labor rate.

Enter your hourly wage, paid hours, payroll taxes, workers compensation, benefits, PTO, paid holidays, training/admin/non-billable time, and bonus. The workbook automatically calculates productive capacity, total annual employer cost, loaded labor cost, labor burden, and required billable labor rates across multiple gross-margin targets.

$11.99 one-time purchase • Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) • No subscription • 30 days of product support

The problem

Your hourly wage is not your true labor cost

A technician earning $28 per hour costs the business more than $28 for every productive hour available to perform customer work.

Payroll burden, workers compensation, benefits, PTO, holidays, bonuses, and paid nonproductive time all affect the true cost of field labor.

The MarginForge Labor Cost & Labor Burden Calculator brings those costs together in one transparent model so you can see the number that matters for pricing:

Loaded Labor Cost per Productive Hour

Sample result

Using the included sample assumptions:

  • Hourly wage: $28.00
  • Total annual employer cost: $74,393.60
  • Productive hours: 1,760
  • Loaded labor cost per productive hour: $42.27
  • Total load versus straight hourly wage: +51.0%

At a 40% target labor gross margin, that $42.27 loaded labor cost requires a billable labor benchmark of:

$70.45 per productive hour

The workbook calculates the result from your assumptions—there are no hard-coded “industry standard” labor rates.

What the workbook calculates

Turn employment cost into a usable labor-pricing benchmark

  • Productive hours per year
  • Base wages per year
  • Payroll tax and workers compensation burden
  • Total annual employer cost
  • Cost per paid hour
  • Loaded labor cost per productive hour
  • Employer cost burden %
  • Total load versus hourly wage %
  • Team total employer cost
  • Blended team loaded labor cost
  • Required billable rate by target gross margin
  • Gross profit per productive hour
  • Markup on loaded labor cost
  • Potential labor revenue at productive capacity
  • Role-level billable labor rates

Margin scenarios

See what different margin targets require

Compare required billable labor rates across:

10% • 20% • 25% • 30% • 35% • 40% • 45% • 50% • 55% • 60%

The workbook also lets you choose your own target margin and automatically calculates the corresponding role-level and blended billable labor rates.

A common pricing mistake is treating markup and margin as interchangeable.

For example:

  • Loaded labor cost: $42.27
  • Target labor gross margin: 40%
  • Required billable rate: $70.45
  • Required markup on loaded labor cost: 66.7%

The workbook shows both measures so the distinction stays visible.

Built for

Contractors and field-service businesses

Useful for owners and operators in businesses such as:

  • HVAC
  • Plumbing
  • Electrical
  • Roofing
  • Remodeling
  • Painting
  • Landscaping
  • Window and door installation
  • Handyman services
  • Pressure washing
  • Cleaning and field services
  • Other labor-intensive contractor and home-service businesses

Your inputs determine the results. MarginForge does not prescribe what your wage, burden, margin, or market billing rate should be.

What you receive

One complete digital product package

Your purchase includes:

  • Contractor Labor Cost & Labor Burden Calculator v1.0 — Microsoft Excel workbook
  • Buyer Guide
  • License & Support Guide
  • Quick-start README
  • Standard One-Business License
  • 30 calendar days of product support

This is a digital download. No physical product will be shipped.

Compatibility

Designed for Microsoft Excel

File format: Microsoft Excel .xlsx

Google Sheets may alter formatting, formulas, validation, charts, or workbook behavior. Google Sheets compatibility is not guaranteed.

We recommend keeping an untouched copy of the original workbook before entering your business data.

Important: what this product does not calculate

This calculator is intentionally focused on labor economics.

The calculated billable labor rate is a labor-pricing benchmark. It does not by itself create a complete customer quote and does not calculate:

  • complete job selling price
  • materials or subcontractor pricing
  • fixed business overhead allocation
  • job-level contribution margin
  • estimate-vs-actual job performance
  • completed-job history or dashboards
  • sales tax
  • payroll processing or payroll tax filings

A complete job price may also need to recover materials, subcontractors, equipment, travel, contingency, overhead, taxes, and other costs applicable to your business.

Need to price the entire job?

If you already know your loaded labor cost and want to calculate what an individual job needs to sell for based on labor, materials, subcontractors, equipment, contingency, and target gross margin, use the Contractor Job Pricing & Profit Calculator.

For full labor modeling, overhead allocation, sustainable pricing, Recommended Sell Price, estimate-vs-actual analysis, and completed-job profitability reporting, use Home Service Pricing & Job Profitability Pro.

License

One purchase. One legal business entity.

The Standard One-Business License permits internal use by one legal business entity and its authorized employees.

It does not permit resale, redistribution, public sharing, white-labeling, derivative-template resale, or use of one purchase across unrelated client businesses.

Support

30 days of product support included

Thirty calendar days of product support are included from the original purchase date.

Support covers file access, documented features, intended input locations, and suspected defects in the unmodified workbook.

Support: support@marginforgetools.com

Important disclaimer

MarginForge products are business planning and decision-support tools. This workbook is not accounting, payroll, tax, legal, regulatory, or financial advice.

Payroll taxes, worker classifications, workers compensation, benefits, paid time, productive hours, and other labor costs vary by employer and jurisdiction. Results depend entirely on the assumptions and information you enter.

You are responsible for independently reviewing and validating all inputs and outputs before relying on them for pricing or other business decisions.

Publisher: MarginForge, LLC
Website: marginforgetools.com
Version: v1.0

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