Calculate your overhead surcharge
How much has to go on top of your own costs so there's enough left at the end? Enter your annual figures — the tool breaks the surcharge down into site overhead, business overhead, risk and profit. No sign-up, nothing is saved.
These values are yours. Sign up for free to save them in your business and apply them to every quote.
Sign up for free- Subcontracted work needs a noticeably smaller surcharge than your own work — often only around 10%. The subcontractor has already priced in their profit and overhead; your surcharge only covers your own effort for awarding, coordination and acceptance.
- Don't count site costs twice. Site management, containers and safeguarding belong in the BGK — not additionally in your hourly rate. Charging both quietly prices you out of the job.
- The surcharge spreads your fixed costs over your genuinely billable hours. Holidays, sickness, set-up and travel are not productive hours — estimate them too optimistically and your rate comes out too low and you lose money.
- Profit is not a leftover that happens to remain, but a deliberate target. If you only cover costs you break even — but without reserves for investment, lean months and entrepreneurial risk.
- Risk is not a luxury buffer. A warranty claim, a quantity deviation or a single non-paying customer quickly costs the margin of several cleanly-calculated jobs — a few percent planned in absorbs exactly that.
- After a few jobs, check back: planned versus actual costs. If they differ, correct your surcharges for the next quote. That way your rate becomes more reliable year on year instead of resting on an old gut feeling.
The guidelines come from calculation literature and publicly accessible documents from chambers of crafts and trade associations. You can open all links and read them yourself:
- Handwerkskammer zu Köln — „Kalkulieren, aber richtig!" (Stundenverrechnungssatz, Beispiel)
- Handwerkskammer Stuttgart — „Was kostet eine Handwerkerstunde?"
- Handwerkskammer Cottbus — Kalkulation Stundenverrechnungssatz (Einzelunternehmen/GmbH)
- Ludwig-Fröhler-Institut / Fachverband SHK Bayern — Betriebsvergleich SHK 2020
For individual trades (electrical, plumbing/heating, joinery, painting) the calculator additionally shows the respective association's figures — each with a direct source link. For trades without reliable public figures we deliberately show no invented values.