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Most tradespeople are
undercharging by £50–£80 a day.

This one-page calculator shows you the minimum day rate you should actually be charging — based on your real costs, your target income, and how many days you actually bill.

Most tradespeople set their rate based on what others charge or what feels right. Neither accounts for your actual cost base, your real working days, or your income target. The result is a rate that feels fine — until you look at the numbers.

What the calculator does

It takes four inputs and gives you a single number: the minimum day rate you need to charge to hit your income target after all costs. Not a rough estimate — a calculated floor.

  1. 1
    Target income Your take-home target, converted to the gross amount you need to earn before tax.
  2. 2
    Actual billable days Not 260. Once you subtract leave, bank holidays, sick days, and admin time, most tradespeople have 170–185 truly billable days per year.
  3. 3
    Annual business costs Insurance, van, tools, accountant, workwear, phone, subscriptions. Most people underestimate this by £3,000–£5,000.
  4. 4
    Your minimum day rate (Gross income target + annual costs) divided by billable days. That is your floor. Everything below it costs you money.

Most tradespeople who run through this calculation find a gap of £50–£80 per day between what they currently charge and what the numbers say they should charge. On 180 billable days, that is £9,000–£14,400 left on the table every year.

What you get

A one-page PDF with the four-step calculation built in as fill-in fields. Work through it in 10 minutes and you will know the number. The full Trade Pack includes an Excel version that does the calculation automatically and feeds into a job pricer — but this PDF is free and standalone.

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What tradespeople find when they run the numbers

"I thought I was charging a fair rate. Turned out I was £65 a day short of what I needed. That is nearly £12k a year I was not making."

Mike, plumber, Leeds

"The billable days calculation was the thing that surprised me most. I thought I was billing 220 days. It was 178."

Dave, electrician, Bristol

"I knew my costs roughly. When I actually added them up properly it was £8,000 more than I had in my head."

Lee, builder, Manchester

The calculator is just the start.

Knowing your rate is step one. The Trade Pack gives you the proposals, follow-up sequences, and systems to charge it confidently and win the work.

See What's Included