Billable Efficiency: How Many Paid Hours Can You Bill?

What billable efficiency measures

In our labor rate calculator, billable efficiency is billable hours divided by worked hours. Worked hours are paid hours minus paid time off. The example shop pays 2,080 hours a year and gives 8 holidays, 11 vacation days and 7 sick days, which match the private-industry averages BLS reports (holidays; vacation and sick days). That leaves 1,872 worked hours; at 65%, 1,216.8 of them are billable, or 5.2 hours of an 8-hour day.

The figures you'll see quoted don't all measure the same thing:

ServiceTitan's calculator says "30 percent is considered a good efficiency rate" for most service companies, applied to paid hours minus time off. Its definition leaves out travel entirely. The Field Promax figure treats driving that isn't recovered through trip charges or flat-rate pricing as unbilled, so drive time that a trip charge does bill appears to count as billable (ACHR News).

Both companies sell field-service software, and none of the three figures comes with a measured sample of plumbing or electrical shops. The 65% is the only one with a stated sample, which is why our calculator uses it as the default. The 65% was measured as a share of paid time; applying it to worked hours, as the calculator does, gives fewer billable hours and a higher rate than applying it to all 2,080 paid hours. Treat it as a starting point, not a benchmark for your shop.

How the rate moves from 50% to 75%

Everything below is the example shop from the labor rate guide: a $30.67 wage, $80,390.62 of loaded labor per tech per year, $120,000 of overhead shared by 3 techs (example), $16,719.14 of truck per tech and a 10% net profit target (example). Only billable efficiency changes.

Each 5 points is 93.6 billable hours per tech per year. The effect isn't even: going from 65% down to 60% adds $10.43 to the rate, and going down to 50% adds $37.56, while going up to 70% saves $8.94. Costs are divided by hours, so every lost hour costs more than the one before it.

Getting the input wrong is expensive. Say you price at $125.20 assuming 65%, but your techs actually bill 55%. Each tech then brings in $128,905.92 against $137,109.76 of yearly cost, a loss of $8,203.84 per tech instead of a $15,233.60 profit. At 60% the profit shrinks to $3,514.88, or 2.50% of revenue. At 70% it grows to $26,952.32, or 16.43%.

What eats non-billable time

A paid day includes time that has to be paid but can't be put on an invoice. Federal rules decide which of it must be paid. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, driving from one job site to another during the workday is work time and must be paid, while ordinary travel from home to the first job is not. Short rest breaks, usually 20 minutes or less, are normally paid as work time; bona fide meal periods, typically 30 minutes or more, generally need not be paid if the employee is completely relieved from duty (DOL Fact Sheet #22). That's general information about the federal rules, not legal advice; your state labor agency or an employment attorney can tell you what applies to your crew.

In the Field Promax data, about 3.1 hours of the 8.8-hour day went unbilled. About 1.13 hours of that was driving not recovered through trip charges (ACHR News, July 2026). The rest went to site work not on the work order, idle gaps between jobs, paperwork, training and vehicle maintenance (ACHR News, June 2026). ServiceTitan's calculator adds free estimates and warranty work to the non-billable list.

For your own shop, useful categories to track are:

• Drive time between calls that no trip charge covers
• Callbacks and warranty work
• Free estimates and sales visits
• Shop time, parts runs and supply-house waits
• Paperwork, meetings and training
• Truck maintenance and cleanup
• Gaps between calls when dispatch has nothing ready

How to measure your own

1. Pick a period. The last 12 months covers busy and slow seasons; a single month can mislead.
2. Get worked hours per tech. From payroll, take total paid hours and subtract the holiday, vacation and sick hours paid.
3. Get billable hours per tech. From invoices, add the labor hours billed on time-and-materials work, the standard hours behind each flat-rate task sold, and any drive time a trip charge was built to bill.
4. Divide. Billable hours ÷ worked hours, per tech and for the whole field crew.
5. Use the crew figure in the calculator. Recheck it every quarter, and after any change in dispatching, service area or pricing method.

Be consistent about drive time. If a trip charge bills it, count it as billable in step 3 and don't add it to the rate a second time. If you don't charge for trips, leave it out of billable hours and let the rate carry it. The service call fee guide shows how to build that charge.

Next step

Measure your crew's billable share for the last 12 months, then enter it in the labor rate calculator in place of the 65% default. Compare the rate it gives with what you charge now; the table above shows how much each 5 points is worth.