What do you need to charge to actually make money?

Updated September 4, 2026 · free, no signup, nothing leaves your browser

Most underpricing isn't a market problem — it's not knowing the floor. This works out the hourly rate below which a job costs you money, and what to quote for a given job at your target margin.

Your costs

What you need to earn per hour (take-home)

Monthly overhead (insurance, phone, software, vehicle, ads)

Billable hours you actually work per month

Target profit margin

This job

Hours the job takes (including travel)

Supplies and product for this job ($)

Your break-even hourly rate

Quote this job at

The mistake this catches

Two of them, actually.

Overhead spread over the wrong number of hours. People divide monthly overhead by 160 because that's a full-time month. But billable hours aren't working hours — quoting, driving, invoicing, and chasing payment are all unpaid. If you bill 100 hours in a 160-hour month, your overhead per billable hour is 60% higher than you think.

Margin subtracted instead of divided. A 20% margin is not cost × 1.2. It's cost ÷ 0.8. On a $250 job that's $312.50, not $300 — and the difference compounds across every job you quote.

Then check it against the market

Your floor tells you what you can't go below. It doesn't tell you what your market will pay. Check the result against published ranges for detailing and house cleaning. If your floor sits above the local range, the problem is usually hours or overhead, not the price.

Cite this page

Rigsheet. "What do you need to charge to actually make money?." Baker Ventures LLC, September 4, 2026. https://rigsheet.bakerventuresstudio.com/pricing-calculator

Sources