Free calculator
Labor burden calculator for trade contractors
Find the fully-burdened hourly cost of an employee — wages, payroll tax, workers comp, benefits, PTO, and tools. Use it to set bid rates that don’t quietly lose you money.
Inputs
Fully burdened cost
That’s 1.43× the base wage — $15.09 on top of every hour you bill out.
- Base wages
- $72,800
- Payroll tax
- $6,552
- Workers comp
- $8,736
- Retirement match
- $2,184
- Health insurance
- $8,400
- Tools / PPE / other
- $1,500
- Total annual cost
- $100,172
- Productive hours / yr
- 2,000
How it works
The formula in plain English
Your fully-burdened hourly cost is the total amount you pay to keep an employee working for a year, divided by the hours they actually produce work.
Total annual cost = base wages
+ payroll tax (FICA + FUTA + SUTA)
+ workers comp
+ health insurance (employer share)
+ retirement match
+ tools / PPE / training / other
Productive hours = paid hours / year
- PTO + holiday hours
Burdened rate = total annual cost / productive hours
Burden multiplier = burdened rate / base wageMost trade contractors land at 1.40x–1.75x
Higher for risky trades (roofing, structural steel, excavation), lower for indoor low-voltage work. Workers comp rate is usually the biggest swing factor.
Don’t mix burden and overhead
Office costs, software, and indirect supervision are overhead — applied as a separate G&A markup, not folded into burden. Mixing them is a common reason bids feel inconsistent across estimators.
FAQ
Common questions
What is labor burden?
Labor burden is everything you pay on top of base wages to keep an employee working — payroll tax, workers comp, health insurance, retirement match, paid time off, tools, PPE, training, and overhead. The fully-burdened hourly rate is what each productive hour actually costs your business, not what shows up on the worker’s pay stub.
Why does labor burden matter for bidding?
Because if you bid using base wages instead of burdened cost, every job loses money. The gap between $35/hr base wage and $58/hr fully-burdened cost is real money you owe regardless of whether you bill it. Estimators who skip burden in their markup are quietly compressing margin on every job.
What’s a typical burden multiplier for trade contractors?
It varies by trade and location, but most trade contractors land in the 1.40x–1.75x range. High workers-comp trades like roofing, structural steel erection, or excavation often push past 1.80x. Low-risk indoor trades (controls, low-voltage) can sit closer to 1.30x.
What drives the biggest variation in burden cost?
Workers compensation rate is the single biggest variable across trades. Health insurance is the second. Both can swing your burden multiplier by 0.20x or more. Payroll tax is relatively fixed (~7.65% FICA + small amounts for FUTA/SUTA), so it doesn’t move much.
Should I include overhead in the burden calculation?
This calculator focuses on direct costs of employing the worker — wages, taxes, benefits, mandatory items. Overhead (office, software, vehicles not assigned to the worker, indirect supervision) is typically applied as a separate G&A markup on top of burdened labor in your bid template. Mixing them is a common reason bids feel inconsistent.
How does Biltix help with this?
Biltix is the operating system trade contractors use to run bids, jobs, and pay apps in one place. Burden rates and bid math live with the rest of the job — your estimators stop maintaining a separate spreadsheet for every project.
Defaults in the calculator above are illustrative starting points, not legal or tax advice. Use your actual rates for accurate numbers.
Built for trade contractors
Stop running burden math in a separate spreadsheet for every job
Biltix is the operating system trade contractors use to run bids, jobs, and pay apps in one place. Burden rates live with the rest of the job, and bid math stays in sync with how the work actually runs.
Early access · By invitation
Reserve your spot. We’re onboarding new shops in waves.
Join the waitlist to lock in early-access pricing and a 30-minute working session on a real bid from your shop. We onboard new trade contractors in weekly cohorts — your spot opens when we reach you in line.