CalcStack — free, instant, no signup. The interactive calculator loads automatically.
Taking home $65k on 25 billable hours a week requires $70/hr — the $35 guy on Facebook is pricing a wage, not a business.
Most handymen pick a rate by looking at what others charge and ducking under it. The math runs the other way: to take home $65,000 with $850/month of overhead, you need $84,384 of gross — self-employment tax alone is $9,184 — and 25 billable hours a week (a genuinely full schedule) across 48 weeks means every billed hour must carry $70.32. This calculator builds your rate backward from the year you want, then shows the minimum ticket that keeps the 45-minute faucet swap from losing money.
Handymen use it before quoting anything: $65k take-home on 25 billable hrs/wk needs $70.32/hr — and a 4-hour minimum with a trip fee is what makes the faucet swap pay.
Because unpaid drive time eats small jobs alive. A 45-minute faucet swap at $70/hr invoices $52.50 — against 30 minutes of unpaid driving each way, that is $35/hr before overhead, below the rate the year requires. The standard fix is a minimum ticket: 2–4 hour minimum plus a trip fee ($45 in the example), which turns the same faucet swap into a $326 visit that also catches the running toilet and the loose hinge — customers accept minimums readily when the pitch is "I will knock out your whole list." The route-day version: batch the small stuff by ZIP code on one day a week, and the minimums stack into a full-margin day.
Both, by job type. Hourly (with your minimum) is right for unknown-condition work — rot behind tile, mystery leaks, "while you are here" lists — where scope can double mid-job. Fixed quotes win on repeatable work once your job log shows real hours: ceiling fans ($150–250), garbage disposals ($180–280), TV mounts ($100–175), faucet swaps, toilet rebuilds. Fixed pricing converts YOUR speed into margin — the job that took three hours your first year takes 75 minutes in year three, and hourly billing would pay you less for being better. The rule: quote fixed from your log, bill hourly from the unknown, and never quote fixed on anything you have not done at least ten times.
Everything the business spends that is not billed to a specific job: truck payment and commercial insurance, general liability ($500–1,500/yr for most handyman operations), tool purchase and replacement (budget $100–200/mo — tools walk off and wear out), phone and software, advertising, licensing, and continuing education. The common miss is self-employment tax: 15.3% on 92.35% of net — $9,184 on a $65k target — which employees never see because employers split it. Two legal lines that are not optional: most states cap unlicensed handyman job size (commonly $500–1,000 including materials — check your state before the big bathroom job), and general liability is the line between a bad day and a bankruptcy. The calculator folds all of it into the rate — $850/mo of overhead adds $8.50 to every hour.