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What should you charge per hour?
Build your billing rate from actual costs — wages, burden, overhead, and target margin. Then compare to state-level benchmarks from 1,770 contractors.
Benchmark data
Across 1,770 contractors, the national median rate card is $79/hr. Top quartile is $111/hr. But rates vary dramatically by state — Illinois averages $128/hr while Tennessee averages $80/hr. Most contractors set rates by gut feel, not cost analysis.
Build your rate from costs up
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What this means for you
The biggest pricing mistake we see: contractors set rates based on what competitors charge, not on what their costs actually require. If your break-even is above your billing rate, you'll work harder every year and make less.
Quick win this week
Pull your last 5 jobs. Calculate the actual hourly rate you billed (job value ÷ tech hours, including drive time). If it's below your break-even, you have a pricing emergency, not a sales problem.
Strategic fix
Quarterly rate review tied to wage inflation, materials inflation, and overhead changes. Different rates for service vs. install vs. emergency. Mandatory 5-7% annual increases — your competitors are taking them.
Are your rates competitive?
We benchmark your billing rates by role and region against 18,000+ field employees. Free audit included.
No commitment. Real numbers, not generic advice.
Want a real billing rate model — by service type?
We'll pull your actual labor cost, fully-loaded burden, and overhead from your books and build a billing rate by service type (service call, install, maintenance, after-hours) that hits your target margin — and tell you which work is structurally underpriced.
From clients
What contractors say after working with us.
“Was about to hire two more techs because backlog was 8 weeks. Sam ran the utilization math and showed me my existing techs were only billing 62% of the hours I was paying for. Fixed scheduling first — billable rate went to 81%. Killed the hires, saved roughly $220K in fully-loaded payroll.”
“Was debating a service manager hire — $95K base, fully loaded around $135K. Sam pulled the data on what our top techs were generating in revenue per hour and showed me what the manager would need to unlock for it to pay back. Made the hire on different criteria, with a different person, and they delivered.”
“I'd been paying our office manager bookkeeper rates with controller's responsibility for years. Sam mapped what each role should actually cost and what each should produce. Restructured the back office — cut $80K of unnecessary cost, brought in a real controller, books are clean for the first time in a decade.”
Simple pricing
Three tiers, one ladder.
$99/mo
Books
Clean monthly books, tax-ready year-end. Same flat rate for catch-up.
$1,500+/mo
Fractional CFO
Cash forecasting, profitability analysis, monthly strategy calls.
$3,000+/mo
CFO + Operations
Dedicated CFO, AI-native workflows, dashboards, and integrations.
Get a real billing rate model — by service type
Drop your info and a Level CFO will reach out to build the rate from your actual costs. Free audit included.
No commitment. Real numbers, not generic advice.