About these pricing calculators
True Trade Cost makes spreadsheet pricing calculators for 40 trades, service businesses and makers. Each one works out what your business really costs to run, turns that into your real hourly rate, builds the quote, and afterwards shows whether the job made money. They work in Excel and Google Sheets.
Who they're for
Owners of small businesses who are good at the work and less sure about the price: plumbers, roofers, house cleaners, lawn care crews, sign shops, cake makers and more. Most are one to fifteen people, quoting jobs every week.
How each calculator was built
Each calculator started from research into how small owners in that trade really price their work: what they charge for, what running the business costs them, and the costs they most often forget to charge for. That shaped each trade's list of easy-to-miss costs, its example job and its customer terms.
How the numbers on this site are handled
- The numbers in each calculator belong to a made-up example company. They show how it works, and you replace them with your own.
- We don't make up averages. If we don't have a solid number for something, like the usual price of a certain job or the going rate in your area, the page says so instead of guessing.
- When a page mentions what some owners charge, it's one example, not the going rate.
- Every page shows when it was last updated.
What they are not
They are not accounting software and they don't replace your accountant. They don't know your local wages, taxes or material prices until you put yours in. The example numbers are there to show how it works.
Start with the free true hourly rate calculator, read the pricing guides, or find your trade.