Hourly rates real handymen charge
Rates we found run from $35 an hour, offered by a property company, to a $112 target, and they are single owners' numbers, not averages.
| A | B | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rate | Where it came from |
| 2 | $100 trip fee or minimum, then $50 an hour (started at $80) | An Oklahoma owner |
| 3 | $75 per trip plus $35 an hour | A property company's offer to that same owner |
| 4 | $60 an hour at first, $90 within about a year | A Chicago-area owner |
| 5 | About $71 an hour to gross $100,000; $112 once pay, profit and tax are in | An owner working out his own target |
The Chicago-area owner didn't creep up from $60 to $90; he jumped straight there once he saw what his costs were. His $60 had no reasoning behind it. It was a number that split evenly between three partners, and it left each of them $20 an hour when all three were on a job.
The property company's $35 an hour is worth a look too. Add its $75 trip fee to a one-hour job and it pays $110 for the visit, less than the $150 minimum some owners charge before they pick up a tool.
Why $90 an hour isn't $90 in your pocket
A handyman bills maybe 6 of the hours he works in a day, and the rate has to carry the rest. Planning a year on 6 paid hours a day is a common rule among owners who have done the math.
The other hours go to driving, the parts counter, writing estimates, scheduling and invoicing. The sample business sets the owner's billable share at 60% and adds $18,900 a year of overhead, plus the office help's pay, which is how an ordinary wage becomes $92.17 per billable hour. The formula itself is in the true hourly rate guide, and you can put in your own numbers in the free true hourly rate calculator.
Here is the billable share in plain math. Work a 10-hour day, bill 6 of it, and a $90 rate brings in $540. Spread over all 10 hours, that is $54 an hour, before the truck, insurance, tools or tax come out.
A simpler rule some owners use: take all your business and personal costs for the month, divide by your billable hours, add 20% to get a break-even number, then add another 20% on top for profit. If your month costs $6,000 over 100 billable hours, that is $60, then $72 to break even, then about $86 an hour with profit.
How much is a handyman per day?
About $668 a day is the figure one owner lands on. He takes out weekends and five weeks off to get 236 working days, then adds $4,000 a month of overhead, owner's pay, a weekly profit and 20% for tax, and needs $157,500 a year to cover it.
That is $668 over 6 billable hours, or $112 an hour. For a bigger or harder job he charges more per day on purpose; his example is $850 a day for a three-day job with a long drive and more complexity.
Another owner gets through 4 to 6 jobs a day, which is where a minimum charge earns its keep. At $100 a stop, a short job still pays for the drive to it.
Minimum charge or hourly rate on a 20-minute job?
The minimum wins on anything short, because the drive, the setup and the invoice cost the same whether the fix takes 20 minutes or two hours. One owner charges $150, or $120 very close to home, and another charges $100 before his hourly rate starts.
At the sample's $92.17 break-even, a 20-minute fix billed by the hour brings in about $31, while the drive, the setup and the invoice around it can easily take another hour of your day. A minimum near $150 is what makes that stop pay.
The sample business sets a minimum per job on Shop Setup, and the Quote tab switches to it whenever the tasks add up to less. How the four-task sample visit is priced above it is on how much to charge for handyman jobs.
What markup do handymen put on parts?
None of the owners gave a single markup percentage, but they agree parts carry one, because buying them is work. Handyman quoting sheets commonly carry a materials markup next to the hourly rate and trip fee, meant to pay for supply runs.
Picking the right valve, driving to get it and returning the wrong one all happen off the clock. If your markup doesn't pay for that time, charge the store run as its own line instead. At the sample's break-even, a 30-minute store run costs about $46 of your time, which is more than the markup on a pair of $24 valves.
Is a handyman business profitable? One owner's 10 to 20%
One Chicago-area owner says his business averages 10 to 20% net profit after paying himself, on just under $130,000 of revenue last year. He also sets aside 30% of each job, after expenses, for tax.
The sample visit keeps about 24% of its $916.61 price above full cost, and that full cost already includes the owner's wage and overhead. So it sits near net profit, not gross margin. A 20% add-on to cost keeps about 16.7% of the price; the markup vs margin guide has the table, and overhead and profit covers what the profit is for.
Last, keep the rate to yourself. Most owners treat the hourly number as internal to the business and quote each job as one price, so the customer compares faucets and toilets, not your hours against someone cheaper.