Your technician’s wage is not your billable labor rate. A sustainable rate needs to cover loaded labor, non-billable time, company overhead, risk and profit.
Start with loaded labor
Loaded labor includes base wage plus employer costs such as payroll taxes, workers compensation, benefits and other labor-related expense applicable to your company.
Then account for utilization
Technicians are rarely billable for every paid hour. Driving, training, warehouse time, callbacks, meetings and administrative work all reduce billable utilization.
Overhead is separate
Vehicles, insurance, software, office expense, management, tools and marketing have to be funded by gross profit somewhere in your pricing model.
Use different assumptions where necessary
Standard cabling, fiber splicing, certification, troubleshooting and after-hours emergency work may justify different labor assumptions because the skill, equipment and schedule are different.
Measure reality
The most useful number comes from your financial records: annual direct technician cost, billable hours and gross profit from completed projects. Use industry averages only as a reasonableness check.
Need a full project estimator?
The Professional Low-Voltage Estimator adds loaded labor, material and labor markup, testing, termination costs, difficulty, contingency, target-margin checks, cable-box planning and estimate-vs-actual job costing.
See the Professional Estimator