What are your hours actually worth?
You know the gap between your wage and what the shop bills for your time. This worksheet shows what that gap turns into once you run the job yourself, and what the admin has to be doing for it to become money you keep.
Your Numbers
EST. NO. 001Starting estimates for a BC journeyperson. Change any number to your own.
Loaded cost $41,933/yr, including about 12% on top for CPP, EI, WorkSafeBC and vacation (estimate). A person on the phones lifts your billable time the way automation does, but arrives as a wage.
Your week is a fixed size. Only hours on the tools get billed. Quoting, travel between jobs, invoicing and chasing work do not. Set how many of those hours you actually bill in each case. How efficient you are on your own does not change what you bill with help, it just changes how much of it the tools are doing for you.
An admin takes the calls, quoting and paperwork off your plate, but you still drive and route yourself. Automation does the same paperwork and also optimizes the route between jobs, so it frees at least as much time as a person without the salary. The hours still unpaid in each case are mostly travel between jobs and time on site. In the bars above, green is what you would bill on your own and the colour above it is what the help adds.
The monthly floor is your software subscription and keeps running after the revenue share ends. Higher tiers carry a larger floor but a smaller share, and the share stops for good once the fronted build is paid back.
Employee
Solo, on your own
Solo, with an admin
Solo, running Local Trades
Once the fronted build is paid back the revenue share ends. You keep the software on the monthly floor, so the same year keeps $145,572 after payback.
Take-home, side by side
Yearly, before tax. The same skill and the same hours in four situations.
The gap between your wage and the billed rate is real. Going solo, most of it gets eaten by unpaid time and overhead. Automating the admin is what turns the rest into money you keep.
Read the fine print
- This is an illustrative model, not an income or placement promise. Every number above is yours to change.
- Figures are before tax. Self-employment tax works differently from an employee paycheque and is not shown here.
- Materials and equipment are left out. They pass through to the customer and are not part of your labour margin.
- Regional wage and rate defaults are BC starting estimates (Plumbing: BC journeyperson plumbing wage, starting estimate; verify by trade and region.); verify against your own market.
- The hours automation reclaims from admin are the sensitive lever. The defaults are kept conservative, and a real graduate's billable hours with and without the tools should be measured before these numbers are treated as settled.
Want to see if this works for your trade?
Tell us a bit about your trade and region and we will follow up.