Tool 1 of the Get Paid Kit · For electricians

Electrician hourly rate calculator

This free calculator works out the hourly rate a self-employed electrician should charge, starting from the income you need — then converts it into the per-job and call-out prices clients actually pay. Jobs are the unit, priced per task — the hourly rate exists to check that those prices, across a week split between the tools, the merchant counter and the quote pad, add up to a living. With the honest presets below it lands near $121 an hour, $970 for a full day: the first hour on site prices near $121, a half-day near $484, and an emergency call-out is a fee plus a premium first hour, not a favour.

Runs in your browser. Nothing you enter is uploaded, sent to a server or stored anywhere except this device.

The pricing reality for freelance electricians

An electrician’s week splits between the tools and everything the tools require: looking at jobs, pricing them, chasing parts, standing in merchants’ queues and doing the paperwork that keeps the licence valid. Only the hours on site bill. The preset below starts billable time at 62% — diagnostics, quotes and parts runs are real, skilled work that mostly appears on no invoice, and pricing as if they were free is how a fully booked electrician stays fully booked and underpaid.

The licence is both the moat and the meter running. It keeps unlicensed competition out of your market — and it charges rent for the privilege: licence fees, liability insurance at real money, test equipment that must stay calibrated, and the van that carries all of it. None of that is padding; it is the cost of being allowed to do the work at all, and it belongs inside the rate, not absorbed by it.

The numbers are starting presets, not a survey: an $85,000 target income, $16,800 a year of expenses — van and fuel lead, alongside tools and test equipment, licence and insurance, a parts float, permits and marketing — a 24% tax estimate and 62% billable time. With those starting numbers the calculator lands near $121 an hour.

Your numbers — electrician presets

Your recommended rate

$0 / hour
$0Day rate (8 hours)
0Billable hours per year
Income + expenses needed$0
Grossed up for tax$0
With profit margin$0
Working weeks0
Total working hours0
Billable hours0

Your rate is saved on this device only, so the Proposal Generator can show it when you price a project.

Easy to miss

Costs electricians forget to put in the rate

  • Quotes that go nowhere. Looking, testing and pricing work you never win is skilled diagnostic time given away. A week of free estimates is a week worked at a fraction of your rate — and the jobs you do win have to carry it.
  • The parts run. The merchant trip mid-job, and the second trip when the board turns out to be an odd size. Travel and queue time that belongs entirely to one job, and appears on no invoice unless you put it there.
  • Licence and liability insurance. Real money, due every year whether the diary is full or empty. It is the first cost to price in — the one that keeps you legal and covered when something goes wrong in someone else’s wall.
  • Test equipment and calibration. Testers, crimpers, drills and the calibration that keeps your certificates valid. A failed tester on a certification day is not an inconvenience; it is a day stopped.
  • Callbacks. The occasional return visit to adjust, re-test or reassure is part of the trade’s reputation, and it is right that good work is stood behind. Priced nowhere, it comes straight out of the billable week — so the rate has to know it happens.
The maths

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 electrician presets — three weeks off, 40 hours a week, 62% billable — that is 1,215 billable hours a year: the hours on site, once diagnostics, quotes, parts runs and paperwork have taken theirs.

Next, work out what those hours must bring in. Add your desired income and your annual business expenses together — $101,800 on the presets — gross the total up for tax by dividing by one minus your tax rate — at a 24% estimate, divide by 0.76 to get $133,947 — then add your profit margin to reach $147,342 and divide by your billable hours. That final number, $121, is the rate below which the year stops adding up.

Now convert it into the units clients buy. The first hour on site — where the diagnosis usually happens — is $121. A half-day of fault-finding and fixing, four hours, is $484, and a full day is $970. Bigger defined work prices from the same hour: a consumer-unit change at roughly six hours of labour is $726, with parts charged on a stated basis rather than buried. Emergencies are a structure, not a scramble: a call-out fee agreed on the phone, plus the first hour at a premium — at time-and-a-half on these presets, $181.50 — quoted before you start the van. Those figures illustrate the shape, built from the rate above; set your own call-out fee where your market and your evenings say it belongs.

Disclaimer: This is a planning estimate, not tax advice. Tax rates, deductions and allowances vary by country, state and business structure. Enter the rate you expect to pay, and check significant decisions with a qualified accountant.
Next: build a proposal with this rate Use the general rate calculator
Questions

Electrician rate questions

Because the tools are only part of the week. Diagnostics, written quotes, parts runs, permit paperwork and callbacks take the rest, and almost none of it is billed line by line. Sixty-two percent is a realistic start for a solo electrician mixing small jobs and day work; if your diary is mostly booked multi-day work, test a higher share against a real month — and if it is mostly small call-outs, the honest share may be lower, and the rate has to know it.
As a structure agreed before you drive: a call-out fee that covers the trip and the unsocial hour, plus the first hour at a premium over your standard rate, then the standard rate after. On these presets the first hour at time-and-a-half is $181.50 — the shape is the point, not the exact figure. What does not work is the standard rate at 11pm: it makes your most disruptive work your worst paid, and it teaches the market to treat your evenings as free.
Either can be honest — mixing them silently is not. Passing parts through at cost means your sourcing time, your parts float and the warranty risk you carry are unpaid unless the labour rate knows about them. A stated handling margin on parts, or sourcing time charged inside the labour, both price the same reality. Pick one, say which on the quote, and keep it consistent: the client is buying the finished, certified job, not a pile of components.

Rates differ by trade — the same maths runs with different presets for graphic designer rates, freelance writer rates, web developer rates, marketing consultant rates, photographer rates, video editor rates, virtual assistant rates, social media manager rates, bookkeeper rates, translator rates, business coach rates, illustrator rates, copywriter rates, UX designer rates, SEO consultant rates, data analyst rates, motion designer rates, technical writer rates, podcast editor rates, email marketer rates, life coach rates, proofreader rates, event planner rates, voice actor rates, online tutor rates, personal trainer rates, interior designer rates, music producer rates, grant writer rates, UX researcher rates, book editor rates, transcriptionist rates, presentation designer rates, brand strategist rates, video producer rates, art director rates, WordPress developer rates, mobile app developer rates, 3D artist rates, game developer rates, Shopify developer rates, online business manager rates, podcast producer rates, data entry specialist rates, UX writer rates, copy editor rates, wedding photographer rates, resume writer rates, data scientist rates, instructional designer rates, business analyst rates, email designer rates, interpreter rates, audiobook narrator rates, landscape designer rates, wedding planner rates, wedding videographer rates, personal chef rates, dog trainer rates, music teacher rates, florist rates, cake baker rates, tour guide rates, pet groomer rates, house painter rates, handyman rates, locksmith rates, home organizer rates, pressure washer rates, carpet cleaner rates, chimney sweep rates, pool cleaner rates, window cleaner rates, tattoo artist rates, massage therapist rates, barber rates, makeup artist rates, hairstylist rates, nail technician rates, tailor rates, house cleaner rates, plumber rates, pest control technician rates, ppc specialist rates, content strategist rates, wedding DJ rates, dog walker rates, audio engineer rates, caterer rates, mover rates, appliance repair technician rates, nanny rates, piano tuner rates, garage door technician rates, bicycle mechanic rates, house sitter rates, upholsterer rates, jeweller rates, cobbler rates, blacksmith rates, sign writer rates, farrier rates, mobile car detailer rates, genealogist rates, saddler rates, arborist rates, travel agent rates, watch repairer rates, doula rates, sleep consultant rates, home stager rates, wedding officiant rates, college admissions consultant rates, mobile notary rates, personal shopper rates, welder rates, carpenter rates, glazier rates, plasterer rates, tiler rates, roofer rates, bricklayer rates, HVAC technician rates, dressmaker rates, concrete finisher rates, drywall installer rates, flooring installer rates, gardener rates, fence installer rates, gutter installer rates, solar installer rates, stonemason rates, deck builder rates, insulation installer rates, cabinet maker rates, paving installer rates, furniture restorer rates, blind installer rates, driving instructor rates, picture framer rates, aerial installer rates, car mechanic rates, clock repairer rates, oven cleaner rates, smart home installer rates, alarm installer rates, drain cleaner rates, curtain installer rates, irrigation installer rates, shutter installer rates, artificial grass installer rates, fireplace installer rates, bathtub refinisher rates, snow removal professional rates, landscape lighting installer rates, radon mitigation specialist rates, home inspector rates, mold remediation specialist rates, window tint installer rates, paintless dent repair technician rates, home energy auditor rates, knife sharpener rates and mobile tyre fitter rates, or start from the general freelance hourly rate calculator.