True Labor Cost Calculator

Discover your labor burden. Calculate what an employee really costs per hour including taxes, insurance, and non-billable time.

What does your team really cost you?

Calculate the real hourly cost including taxes, insurance, and idle time.

Nominal wage$25.00/hr
REAL hourly cost$35.71
Total weekly cost (with burden):$1,250.00
Real job hours (billable):35 hrs
For every billable hour, you absorb an extra $10.71 in hidden costs. If you bid jobs using base wage only, you are losing money.
Understand your hidden costs

Why base pay is only the tip of the iceberg

Bidding a project using your team’s hourly wage is the fastest path to losing profitability. Real labor cost (labor burden) includes factors we often overlook.

1

Labor burden

On top of the $25/hr you pay an employee, you must add employer taxes, workers’ comp, health insurance, and other benefits. This often adds another 20%–30% on top of base pay.

2

Non-billable time

Your employees cost you money for all 40 hours a week—but how many hours are truly productive on the job? Travel, loading the truck, meetings, and breaks reduce the hours you can bill the client.

3

True cost

When you divide total weekly cost by real productive work hours, you get the true hourly cost. This is the number you must use in estimates to protect your profit margin.

Have more than one employee?

Manage your whole crew, save your team’s data, and export reports to PDF or Excel.

Open full crew cost report →

Bring these tools into your daily workflow

With Quickadmin you can build estimates, manage invoices, and track costs in one place to run jobs with more control and healthier margins.

Learn more about Quickadmin