Overview
Clear Estimates provides labor rates for common trades, sourced from 400+ locations nationwide.
When you first sign up, you're asked to input a location. Then, you'll see suggested labor rates for your market at the top of your Labor Rate Editor. These rates are already populated into the parts in your library.
Labor rates are the hourly cost of performing tasks without overhead & profit.
So, you may be wondering - are these rates for a one man crew? Two man crew? Let's take a look!
Hours per Unit
By default, most parts we provide use an Hours per Unit calculation for labor.
This is the estimated number of labor hours per unit of the part (i.e. per square foot, linear foot, etc).
This number is multiplied by your part quantity, and again by the labor rate to arrive at your labor cost:
Crew size and labor hours
Clear Estimates offers unit-based estimates, meaning each item that you add to your estimate includes an expected number of labor hours to complete. This is the Hours per Unit number you see in each part.
This is not the total hours for a one person crew, a two person crew, or for a four person crew.
Instead, it is the the number of hours you need to pay out to get the work done.
So, you don't need to consider crew size in the estimating process.
When you create an estimate that has, say, 100 hour of labor, this means you can potentially do it with four people each at 25 hours, for example.
Crew members with different pay rates
If your crew has different hourly rates, some clients create a special combination rate. Simply total up your different pay rates into a single hourly rate, and you can apply this rate to any part when you add it to your estimate:
This guide shows how to create custom labor rates:
Other Options
There are a variety of ways labor can be calculated. If you don't want to use a labor hours number, you can calculate labor by the unit, or simply enter a number of hours to multiply by a labor rate.
This guide shows each option, and how each works:
Labor Cost Calculation Options
Hope this helps!