Free Tool
Add up your monthly overhead, wages, and an equipment/repair reserve, and see exactly how much revenue you need per day, week, and month — first just to break even, then to hit your target profit margin. Works for any home-service trade.
Overhead + wages + reserve → the revenue you need to hit your margin
Monthly overhead
Wages & reserve
Schedule & target
Enter your current monthly revenue to see how your profit and margin stack up against your target.
See the revenue you must generate each day and month to cover costs and still take home a real profit — so you stop guessing whether the year is actually working.
Landscaping, cleaning, HVAC, electrical, plumbing, junk removal — overhead is overhead. Set your target margin and the calculator shows the revenue it really takes to earn it.
Add up everything it costs to keep the doors open for a month, then spread it across your working days — that's your break-even. Your target price is break-even ÷ (1 − your margin).
Start with your total monthly cost: overhead (rent, insurance, marketing, fuel, utilities, software, everything else) + wages (including your own pay) + an equipment/repair reserve. Multiply by 12 for the year, divide by your work weeks, then by your work days, and you have the revenue you must bring in each day just to break even — zero profit.
Then layer in profit. The trap most owners fall into: a 30% margin is not the same as adding 30%. Marking your costs up by 30% (× 1.30) only leaves you a ~23% margin. To actually keep 30¢ of every dollar you divide by (1 − 0.30) — so revenue = break-even ÷ 0.70. On $1,000/day of costs, a 30% markup brings in $1,300 (23% margin), but a true 30% margin needs $1,429/day.
| Target margin | Divide costs by | On $10,000/mo of costs, revenue needed |
|---|---|---|
| Break-even (0%) | 1.00 | $10,000 |
| 15% | 0.85 | $11,765 |
| 20% | 0.80 | $12,500 |
| 30% | 0.70 | $14,286 |
| 40% | 0.60 | $16,667 |
Add up your total monthly cost (overhead + wages + an equipment/repair reserve), multiply by 12 to annualize, then divide by your work weeks per year and again by your work days per week. That's your daily break-even. To include profit, divide the break-even by (1 − your target margin).
Margin is profit as a share of the sale price; markup is profit as a share of your cost. They aren't the same: a 30% markup (multiplying cost by 1.30) only yields about a 23% margin. To truly keep 30% of every dollar, divide your cost by (1 − 0.30) = 0.70, not multiply by 1.30. This calculator uses the margin-correct formula.
Recurring costs to run the business: rent or mortgage, insurance, marketing and advertising, fuel and vehicle costs, utilities and phone, software subscriptions, licenses and permits, and any other monthly expenses. This calculator also has you set aside a monthly equipment/repair reserve so replacing gear doesn't wipe out a good month.
Yes. Pay yourself a wage and treat it as a cost, so the "profit" the calculator shows is real profit on top of your salary — not just the money you're living on. Owners who skip this often think they're profitable when they've really only covered their own pay.
It varies by trade, but many small home-service businesses target a net margin around 10–20%, and profit-minded operators aim for 25–35% by pricing deliberately and controlling overhead. Set your own target in the calculator and it shows the revenue required to reach it. This is general information, not financial advice.
This calculator is one of the trade tools inside ServicePros Hub — proposals, scheduling, invoicing, and card payments for home-service pros. One flat price. No tiers, no add-ons.
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