Chimney Sweep hourly rate calculator
This free calculator works out the hourly rate a freelance chimney sweep should charge, starting from the income you need — then converts it into the per-visit prices clients actually book. A sweep is a short visit, sold per chimney or per appliance: the honest price follows the visit's real length, including the road on both sides of it. With the honest presets below it lands near $81 an hour, $646 for a full day: a standard sweep at about forty-five minutes prices near $60.75, and a sweep with a camera inspection at about an hour and a half near $121.50.
The pricing reality for freelance chimney sweeps
A sweep's visit is short — often under an hour at the property — but the day is not made of visits alone. Between houses there is driving, sheeting and sealing the fireplace, soot disposal and paperwork, and the visit only bills for the fraction of the round spent at the hearth.
The trade is also seasonal in a way most are not. The autumn rush, when every stove owner remembers the chimney at once, carries the year; spring and summer are quieter. Pricing that only looks at a busy week in October will not survive February — which is why this calculator works on the whole year, not the week.
The preset below starts billable time at 45%: sweeps bill, but travel between houses, paperwork and quiet-season gaps take the rest. The numbers are starting presets, not a survey: a $44,000 target income, $3,600 a year of expenses — brushes and vacuum kit, insurance, certification, fuel and booking admin are the shape of it — and 45% billable time. With those starting numbers the calculator lands near $81 an hour.
Your numbers — chimney sweep presets
Your recommended rate
| Income + expenses needed | $0 |
| Grossed up for tax | $0 |
| With profit margin | $0 |
| Working weeks | 0 |
| Total working hours | 0 |
| Billable hours | 0 |
Your rate is saved on this device only, so the Proposal Generator can show it when you price a project.
Costs chimney sweeps forget to put in the rate
- Insurance and certification. Sweeping touches fire safety, and clients and insurers expect cover and current certification. Both are annual costs the rate must carry.
- Soot and waste disposal. What comes out of the chimney has to go somewhere lawful. Disposal is a real, recurring cost of the trade.
- Kit wear. Brushes, rods and vacuum filters wear and clog on a steady cycle, and older, taller flues are harder on all of them.
- Travel between short visits. A forty-five-minute sweep can carry forty minutes of driving. On a scattered round, the road is the biggest unpaid item of the day.
- Quiet-season gaps. The diary fills in autumn and thins by spring. An annual rate carries the quiet months; a rate set on October's diary does not.
How this calculator works
Start with the hours you can genuinely sell. Take 52 weeks, subtract your vacation weeks, multiply by your hours per week, then multiply by your billable percentage. With the chimney sweep presets — four weeks off, 40 hours a week, 45% billable — that is 864 billable hours a year: the sweeping hours left once travel, paperwork and the quiet season have taken theirs.
Next, work out what those hours must bring in. Add your desired income and your annual business expenses together — $47,600 on the presets — gross the total up for tax by dividing by one minus your tax rate — at a 25% estimate, divide by 0.75 to get $63,467 — then add your profit margin to reach $69,813 and divide by your billable hours. That final number, $81, is the rate below which the year stops adding up.
Now convert it into the units clients buy. A standard sweep at about forty-five minutes prices at $60.75. A sweep with a camera inspection at about an hour and a half is $121.50 — inspections are commonly priced above the base sweep, because the camera work and the report take longer than the brushing. A two-flue house at about two hours is $162. Quote the per-visit price as the per-visit price — but build it from these hours.
Chimney Sweep rate questions
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