Stop guessing. Enter your trade, your loaded hourly cost, and the hours a job takes — get a price with overhead and profit already in it. Includes 2026 going rates by trade.
These are typical bill rates (what the customer sees), not take-home. Use them to sanity-check your price — if you're far under, you may be underpricing; far over, you'll lose bids you should win.
| Trade | Typical bill rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Painting (interior) | $2.50–$4.50 / sq ft wall | Per-room and per-sq-ft both common |
| Roofing | $350–$650 / square | Architectural, tear-off included |
| HVAC (service call) | $125–$200 + $90–$150/hr | Install is separate, project-priced |
| Plumbing (service) | $110–$180/hr + trip | Repipes/water heaters flat-rated |
| Electrical | $100–$160/hr | Panels and rough-in project-priced |
| Remodeling / GC | $60–$150/hr or 15–25% on subs | Margin on subcontracted work |
Your cost per hour is wage + payroll tax + workers' comp + truck + tools. A $25/hr painter really costs you ~$38–$45 loaded. Bill them at $45 and you're at zero margin — you're paying them to work for free. You have to recover overhead (the slow weeks, the office, the software) and profit on top.
Know your minimum bill rate = loaded cost ÷ (1 − margin). At a 35% margin, a $45 loaded hour must bill at least $69/hr just to break even after overhead. Below that, every hour loses you money. Clovr stores your real rates per trade so every estimate is built on numbers you've actually checked, not a hope.