Day rate calculator for trades
Updated
Start from what you want the year to pay you. Take off holidays, lost days and the unpaid hours on quotes and paperwork. What's left is the day rate you need to charge.
- Free, no sign-up
- Counts the days you can't bill
- Nothing saved or sent
Work out your day rate
Start with what you want the year to pay you, then be honest about the days you can't charge for. Out comes the day rate that gets you there.
Fill in the first box, weeks off and days a week. Your day rate shows up here.
Worked out on this page only. Nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere.
How the day rate is worked out
Two numbers, divided. The top one is what the year has to bring in: the money you want to earn before tax, plus everything the business costs to run. The bottom one is the days you can actually charge a customer for.
Most people get the top number roughly right and the bottom number badly wrong. A year has about 260 weekdays, but nobody bills all of them. Holidays and bank holidays come off. So do rained-off days, sick days, the gap between one job and the next, and every day spent measuring up, pricing and doing the books.
A worked example
Say you want to earn forty-five thousand pounds a year before tax, and the van, tools, insurance, phone and accountant cost another twelve thousand pounds. The year has to bring in fifty-seven thousand pounds.
You take six weeks off, bank holidays included, and work five days a week: that's 230 days. Take off ten days for weather and quiet spells, and two days a month on quotes and paperwork (twenty-four days a year). That leaves 196 days you can charge for.
Fifty-seven thousand pounds over 196 days is a day rate of about two hundred and ninety-one pounds. Price the same year as if you could bill all 260 weekdays and you'd charge about two hundred and nineteen pounds a day, and end the year well short.
The days you can win back
Holidays and weather you can't do much about. The paperwork days you can. In the example, two days a month on quotes and admin cost twenty-four billable days a year. Halve that and you could either drop your day rate or keep it and take home more, without working an extra hour on site.
Once you know your day rate, price jobs with it: the markup and margin calculator shows what you keep on a price, and our guide on how to price a job lists every cost to put underneath it. If you work through CIS, the CIS calculator shows what each payment leaves you with.
Where Nexley fits
Nexley prices your tenders and runs your office, all on WhatsApp. It turns a voice note into a priced quote the same day, drafts the invoice the day the job finishes, chases late payers and keeps the books, so the evenings and the odd days lost to admin go back to paid work or to home. You check and sign off before anything goes. See everything it takes on on the back office page.
Win back the paperwork days
7 days free, then £799 a month. No contract.
Nexley saves me so much time it's unbelievable. Was sceptical at first but when I saw what it can do for my business I couldn't sign up quick enough. Can't recommend highly enough.”
