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KRAFTYQUOTE Maker Tools & Quoting Suite
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Shop Rate Calculator: What to Charge per Hour of Bench Time

Customers pay for the hours you spend on their job, not the hours you spend quoting, buying supplies, taking photos and answering email. Your hourly rate has to cover all of it, plus rent, insurance and the rest of what keeps the shop open. Put in what you want to earn and what the shop costs, and get the rate per billed hour.

What this number is, and isn't

It is your labor and your overhead, per billed hour. Charge it for the hours you spend on a customer's job, and it pays you for every hour you work and keeps the lights on.

It is not your machine time. A laser, router or grinder has its own cost per hour, charged only on jobs that use it. The machine hourly rate calculator works that out. Leave machine costs out of overhead here, or you pay for them twice.

It is not your materials or your margin. Those go on each quote. This rate is the time part of the price.

The number that moves the result most is the billed percentage: how many of your working hours a customer actually pays for. Most makers guess it high. If you have never tracked it, start at 60% and check a few weeks of your own hours.

Where each dollar of the rate goes

LinePer hourShare
Your pay, billed hour——
Your pay, unbilled time——
Shop overhead——
The Formula

How the rate is built

The same math the calculator runs, with your current numbers. The overhead line is exactly what KraftyQuote's overhead helper works out inside the app.

Billed hours a month—
Labor rate—
Overhead per billed hour—
Shop rate—

A month is 4.333 weeks (52 weeks ÷ 12), so billed hours a month are hours a week × 4.333 × the billed percentage.

The labor rate is your pay divided by the billed share. If you want $25 for every hour and 60% of hours are billed, each billed hour has to bring in $25 ÷ 0.60, about $41.67, to pay for itself and the unbilled time around it.

Overhead is spread over billed hours only. Monthly overhead ÷ billed hours a month. Spreading it over every hour worked would undercharge, because the unbilled hours bring in nothing to pay it with.

Billed Share

Why the billed percentage matters most

Your pay and overhead, at different shares of billed time. Nothing else changes from row to row.

Billed shareBilled hours a monthLabor rateOverheadShop rate
Common Questions

What makers ask before they set a rate

Why is my shop rate so much higher than what I want to earn?

Because customers only pay for some of your hours. Quoting, sourcing, photographs, packing, email and trips for supplies are all work, and no job pays for them directly. If 60% of your hours are billed, every billed hour has to carry the pay for itself and for the unbilled time around it, so $25 an hour for every hour worked becomes about $41.67 per billed hour before overhead.

What counts as overhead?

Anything the shop pays for that no single job uses up: rent or a share of your mortgage, heat and light, insurance, software subscriptions, accounting, vehicle costs for supply runs, marketing and photography, licenses, phone and internet, bank fees, and consumables you can't pin to one job, like sandpaper, rags and finish.

Should machine costs go in overhead?

No. A machine's purchase price, power and wear parts belong in its own hourly rate, charged only on the jobs that use it. Put them in overhead as well and you charge for them twice. The machine hourly rate calculator works out that figure.

Is the pay figure before or after tax?

It is whatever you enter. If you want a set amount in your pocket after taxes, enter a higher figure here that leaves room for your income and self-employment taxes. The calculator doesn't estimate tax.

What billed percentage should I use?

Your own, if you can. Track your hours for a few weeks and note which ones a customer paid for. Without that, 60% is a reasonable place to start for a one-person shop. Entering 90% or more assumes almost every hour you work is charged to someone, which is rarely true and is the easiest way to underprice.

How do I use this in a quote?

The button sends the labor rate and the overhead per hour to KraftyQuote as a new quote, with an hour of labor and the overhead for that hour as its own line. If you have already set overhead in KraftyQuote, the app keeps yours and doesn't add this one on top.

Related calculators

Machine Hourly Rate → laser, CNC, grinder, kiln Selling Fees → 28 channels side by side Laser Kerf → slot and tab sizes All materials → library

The rate is the time. The quote is the rest.

KraftyQuote puts your labor, overhead, machine time, materials and margin into one price, and its overhead helper keeps this rate on every quote. Free to build, no card required.

See how pricing works Start a free quote →