Free Tool
What does an employee really cost you?
The wage is only part of it. Add payroll taxes, workers comp, and benefits, then account for the non-billable part of the day, and see your true cost per billable hour, the number your billing rate actually has to beat.
What this measures
Labor burden is everything you pay for a worker beyond the base wage: payroll taxes, workers comp, and benefits. Most contractors bid off the wage and forget the burden, which is how a job that looked profitable comes in thin. This shows your fully-loaded cost per hour, and the truer number, your cost per BILLABLE hour, once you account for the non-billable part of the day.
Build the true cost of an hour
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What this means for you
The single most common pricing mistake in the trades: bidding off the base wage instead of the fully-loaded cost per billable hour. Burden plus non-billable time means the real cost of an hour is often 50 to 100%+ above the wage. Bid off the wage and you give away margin on every job without knowing it.
Quick win this week
Take your lowest-paid field wage, run it through this, and look at the cost-per-billable-hour number. If your billing rate is not comfortably above it after your target margin, you have a pricing problem, not a sales problem.
Strategic fix
Recompute your fully-loaded cost per billable hour whenever wages, workers-comp mods, or benefits change, and rebuild your billing rates off that number, not the wage. Review workers-comp class codes and experience mod annually; they are a bigger swing than most owners realize.
Are your billing rates built on real labor cost?
We rebuild your fully-loaded cost per billable hour from your actual payroll, burden, and utilization, then show you which rates are underwater. Free audit included.
No commitment. Real numbers, not generic advice.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate labor burden?
Labor burden is everything you pay for a worker beyond the base wage: payroll taxes (FICA 7.65% plus federal and state unemployment), workers compensation, and benefits (health, retirement, PTO). Add those to the base wage to get the fully-loaded hourly cost. Burden rate is the burden divided by the base wage, expressed as a percent.
What is a typical labor burden rate for contractors?
For the trades, fully-loaded labor burden commonly runs 30 to 50% on top of base wage, driven mainly by workers-comp class rates (which are high for field trades) and benefits. This is a directional reference range, not a measured distribution. A burden well below 30% often means workers comp or benefits are not fully captured.
Why should I price off cost per billable hour instead of the wage?
Because the fully-loaded cost is paid for the whole day, but only part of the day is billable, roughly 61% after drive time, admin, and callbacks. Dividing the loaded cost by the billable share gives the true cost per billable hour, which is often 50 to 100%+ above the base wage. Billing rates built on the wage instead of this number quietly give away margin on every job.
Want your real loaded labor cost from your own payroll?
We pull your actual wages, burden, and utilization and build your fully-loaded cost per billable hour by role, then show you which billing rates are underwater against it.
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-$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.
Price off real labor cost, not the wage
Drop your info and the Level team will build your fully-loaded cost per billable hour from your actual payroll. Free audit included.
No commitment. Real numbers, not generic advice.