Charge-Out Rate Calculator NZ

Start with what a worker costs you over a year, then divide it by the hours you can actually bill. Annual cost covers wages, KiwiSaver, ACC levies and insurance. Billable hours are paid hours minus holidays, sick leave, public holidays, rain days and breaks. Add your markup on top and that's your charge-out rate. The calculator runs the numbers in a couple of minutes.

Yep, both belong in your hourly rate. Employer KiwiSaver contributions and ACC levies are costs you pay on every dollar of wages, so if they're not in your rate they come out of profit. ACC levies vary by industry, so use the figure from your own invoice. Pop both into the calculator as percentages and it handles the rest.

Annual holidays, sick leave and public holidays are all paid time with no billable hours against them. Under the Holidays Act that adds up to several weeks a year for each worker. Spread that cost across the hours you can bill and your true hourly cost goes up. Leave it out and you'll be short every time someone takes a break.

Yes, out-of-town jobs usually need pricing differently. Longer drives mean more paid hours that aren't spent on the tools, plus fuel and wear on the ute. You can either add travel as its own line or load the labour rate for that job. Either way, quote it on purpose rather than hoping it washes out. Quote templates make it easy to add every time.

Travel time is paid time, so it has to be paid for somewhere. If your crew spends half an hour a day getting between site and the yard, include that as non-productive time in the calculator and it lifts your hourly rate to match. For jobs with unusually long travel, add it to the quote as a separate line instead.

Work out your charge-out rate excluding GST, then add GST on the quote or invoice. That keeps your numbers clean and makes it easy to compare against what the job actually cost. Most commercial customers expect GST-exclusive rates, while homeowners usually want to see the GST-inclusive total. NextMinute invoicing handles GST for you.

Yep, it works for NZ trade businesses. You enter your own wage, KiwiSaver, ACC, leave and downtime figures, so the result is in whatever currency you put in. It's free, just pop in your email to get started, and you can run it for as many roles as you like. Give it a crack with your own numbers.

A business can be flat out and still lose money if the labour rate is too low. Every hour billed below true cost digs the hole deeper, so being busier makes it worse. Run your numbers through the calculator first. If your current rate is under the break-even figure, that's where the money is going. Job costing shows which jobs are doing the damage.

Yes. Set your charge-out rates in NextMinute and they flow into every quote, so nobody's guessing the number on the day. When the job's done, invoices sync to Xero so the office isn't keying them in twice. See how it fits together on the Xero integration page, or have a yarn with the team on a demo.

Compare the hours your crew logged with the labour you priced. In NextMinute the crew clocks time against each job from the mobile app, and you can see actual labour against the quote by job and stage while the work is still going. That way a job running over gets caught early, not at the end.