What a Shop Rate Is
Your shop rate is what one billable hour has to bring in to pay for the people and the place: wages and payroll costs, rent, insurance, utilities, software and everything else it takes to keep the doors open. It is a break-even figure. Profit, materials and machine time come on top.
The calculation is simple: yearly labour cost divided by billable hours gives your labour rate, and yearly overhead divided by the same hours gives your overhead per hour. Together they are your shop rate.
Why Billable Hours Matter Most
Nobody bills every hour they work. Quoting, ordering material, cleaning up, maintaining machines and doing the books all take time that no customer pays for directly. If only 60% of your hours are billable, those hours must carry the cost of all of them.
That is why a shop that divides its costs by every hour worked ends up charging too little. Be honest about the share, and check it against a few real weeks.
Machines Are Counted Separately
This calculator leaves out machine payments and machine power on purpose. In Customakr, each machine has its own hourly cost (from its price, life, maintenance, consumables and power draw) that is added to each quote for the time the job uses it. Counting machines here as well would charge for them twice.
Using Your Rate in Customakr
In the app, the same calculator can read your power, gas and water bills from a photo to fill in your utilities and your electricity rate, on your device and without keeping the bill. Using the result sets your labour rate and overhead per hour for every new quote, while quotes already sent keep their prices.