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Free Tool
What should you charge per hour?
Build your billing rate from actual costs, wages, burden, overhead, and target margin. Then compare reported rate-card references by state. The national cohort has 1,770 contractors; the fields mix customer billing rates, loaded cost and base wage. Treat that comparison as context, not a market selling price or a target for your business.
Benchmark data
Across 1,770 contractors, the national median reported rate-card field is $79/hr. Top quartile is $116/hr. Reported state-reference medians are $128/hr in Illinois and $80/hr in Tennessee. The 1,770 count is national, not a state sample count. Rate-card entries mix customer selling prices, loaded labor costs and base wages. Match the field definition before comparing your calculated billing rate; these references do not establish market selling prices or pricing headroom.
Build your rate from costs up
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What this means for you
Build the labor rate from your entered wage, burden, overhead allocation and margin. This model assumes wage hours correspond to billed hours; account for non-billable time separately before setting a selling price.
Quick win this week
Spot-check your last 5 jobs. Divide labor revenue, excluding materials, equipment and pass-through charges, by matching logged labor hours. Match the paid-versus-billable-hour basis with this model, then review pricing, job mix, overhead and time logging before drawing a conclusion.
Strategic fix
Quarterly rate review tied to wage inflation, materials inflation, and overhead changes. Different rates for service vs. install vs. emergency. Model an optional 5-7% annual rate-change sensitivity against actual cost changes, contracts and customer acceptance. No competitor increase or required raise is established.
Are your rates competitive?
We review your own cost and billing definitions against reported contractor rate-card context. The 18,000+ tracked field-employee role population mixes selling prices, loaded cost and base wages; it does not prove your pricing or profit.
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) against your target margin, and identify service types where the supplied records suggest the rate may not cover loaded cost and the target. The free call scopes the records and next step; a complete rate model requires the underlying data.
Operating review
Questions before adding a role
Basis: Operating review question. These questions are not client quotations or measured customer results.
Does backlog require another person or a better handoff?
Booked work, available crew hours and invoice-ready work are different capacity measures.
What work would a supervisor release from the owner or crew?
A title and salary do not establish what capacity a new role creates.
Is the back office missing a bookkeeper, controller or decision owner?
Transaction processing, close review and operating decisions are separate responsibilities.
Simple pricing
Three tiers, one ladder.
$500+/mo
Bookkeeping
The clean data layer: monthly books, reconciliations, and organized financials AI can work with.
$1,500-$5,000/mo
Scale
The full AI operating layer: custom agents, weekly actions, and benchmarks to grow margin per hour.
Custom
Platform / Multi-Office
Multi-branch benchmarking and scorecards for PE-backed and multi-location groups.
Get a real billing rate model, by service type
Drop your info and the Level team will reach out to build the rate from your actual costs.
No commitment. Real numbers, not generic advice.