What hourly rate should a trades contractor charge in Canada?
Rates vary by trade and region. Licensed electricians and HVAC technicians in Metro Vancouver typically bill $90–$140/hour. Plumbers run $95–$130/hour. General contractors charge $75–$120/hour for labour. These are billing rates — overhead and unbillable time consume a significant portion before anything reaches your pocket. Use this calculator to determine the rate you need based on your actual cost structure, not industry averages.
What counts as overhead for a trades business?
Overhead includes all business costs not directly tied to a specific job: vehicle payments and fuel, liability and tool insurance, tool replacement and repairs, software subscriptions (estimating, accounting, scheduling, CRM), marketing spend, accounting and legal fees, licensing and certification renewals, and the hours you spend on quoting, admin, and callbacks. Most contractors undercount overhead by 15–25% because they only count the obvious line items.
What is a realistic number of billable hours per year?
Working 40 hours per week across 50 weeks gives you 2,000 potential hours. In practice, most solo trades operators bill 60–70% of their time — the rest is consumed by quoting, driving, admin, and unbillable prep work. That means roughly 1,200–1,400 genuinely billable hours for a busy sole proprietor. If your rate calculation assumes 2,000 billable hours, you are significantly undercharging.
Should I charge the same rate for all jobs?
Most contractors use a single blended rate for simplicity, which is fine. Some separate emergency or after-hours rates from standard rates — typically 1.5–2× the base rate for after-hours callouts. This calculator gives you your base rate; from there, apply premiums by job type, urgency, travel distance, or complexity as your market allows.
How does profit margin target affect my rate?
Your profit margin target is the percentage of revenue you want left over after all costs — owner pay, overhead, and direct job costs. A 20% net margin target on a $60/hour break-even rate means you need to charge $75/hour. This calculator includes a margin target input so your final recommended rate is not just break-even but actually profitable.
