Business capacity

Contractor Overhead
Recovery Calculator

Calculate the overhead recovery rate your contracting or service business needs. Enter monthly overhead, field capacity, billable utilization, crew size, and job volume to see overhead per billable hour, employee, crew day, or job—then use the result consistently when pricing work.

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Enter business capacitySpread your overhead
Recurring business expenses that are not already assigned directly to individual jobs.
People whose time can be billed.
Paid time that reaches an invoice.
21.67 is a common monthly average.
Average workers assigned together.
Realistic completed job volume.
Overhead belongs in the price

Jobs pay for the business between jobs, too.

Direct costs explain what one job consumed. The Labor Burden Calculator can separate employee-specific labor cost from overhead. Overhead pays for the systems and support that make every job possible: office payroll, rent, insurance, vehicles, software, licenses, advertising, professional fees, and more.

Monthly overhead$20,000
Billable hours607
Per billable hour$32.97

Choose one primary allocation method that fits how you quote work. Do not add the hourly, crew-day, and per-job targets together; they are alternative ways to recover the same overhead.

Learn how to calculate and recover business overhead

See how direct costs and company overhead fit together in the job costing guide for contractors, then calculate the selling price needed for your target margin.