What should you charge per hour?

Add your annual overhead to the pay you want to take home, divide by (1 minus your profit margin) to get the revenue your business needs, then divide by your real billable hours — hours per week times weeks worked. The result is the minimum you can charge and still hit your numbers. Every step is shown in the panel.

Everything the business pays before you get paid: truck payments and fuel, insurance and bonds, licenses, tools and equipment, phone and software, marketing, shop or storage rent, and anyone on payroll besides you. If it disappears when the business closes, it’s overhead.

Because driving, quoting, invoicing, picking up parts, and answering texts don’t bill. Most owner-operators invoice far fewer hours than they work — using your worked hours instead of your billable hours is the classic way trades underprice.

Margin is the cushion above your own pay — it covers slow seasons, a blown transmission, and reinvestment. There’s no magic number: start where the preset puts you, then raise it as you learn what your slow months actually cost. A business with zero margin is one bad month from gone.