Market Rate Calculator™
Stop pricing off what the guy down the road charges.
Enter six honest inputs. Get your minimum, suggested and premium hourly rate, your local market range, and what the gap is worth over a year.
Market Rate Calculator™
Suggested hourly rate
$130/hr
Minimum
$105
Premium
$165
$30,700 potential annual increase
Based on 1,320 billable hours moving from your minimum to your suggested rate. Confidence 92%.
Estimates use trade benchmarks adjusted for regional cost index, experience, structure, positioning and credentials. Use them as a floor for your own numbers, not a substitute for knowing your overhead.
How the estimate is built
Trade benchmark
Each trade starts from a national midpoint billable rate — the skill, risk and licensing burden aren't the same across trades, and your pricing shouldn't be either.
Regional cost index
Your ZIP code adjusts for what it actually costs to operate and what your market will support. A $95 rate in rural Tennessee is a $118 rate in coastal California.
Experience and structure
Years in the trade, plus whether you run solo, a small crew or multiple crews — because overhead and capacity change what you must charge to stay solvent.
Positioning and credentials
Value, standard or premium service level, licensed and insured status. Being licensed and insured is worth real money — most tradesmen never charge for it.
Read this before you raise your rate
This calculator gives you a defensible starting point, not a licence to double your price on Monday. Your true number comes from your overhead, your billable hours and the margin you need to survive a slow quarter.
The Tradesman Business Blueprint™ walks you through calculating that number line by line — then how to communicate it so customers say yes without flinching.