You are probably not charging what you think.
Owners assume their crew bills 90% of the hours they are paid for. For field technicians it is usually 58–65%. Every hour you pay for and do not sell has to be carried by the ones you do.
Most shops price off a figure worked out years ago, or off what the competition charges. Chalkline calculates it properly from your own wages, your own overhead and the hours your crew genuinely sell — then turns it into a flat-rate price book you can hand a technician.
14 days free, no card. Then $79 a month, and you can stop whenever you like.
Try it on your own figuresOwners assume their crew bills 90% of the hours they are paid for. For field technicians it is usually 58–65%. Every hour you pay for and do not sell has to be carried by the ones you do.
Paid time off counted twice. FUTA treated as a percentage when it is about $42 a year. Margin confused with markup — cost × 1.20 leaves you 16.7%, not 20%. And billable hours assumed rather than counted.
Every figure on screen traces back to something you entered. If you disagree with the answer, you can see exactly which input to change.
It follows the method the trade associations teach — ACCA and PHCC — the same one consultants charge five figures to walk a shop through: what a technician really costs a year, how many hours they actually sell, cost per billable hour, overhead per billable hour, break-even, then price.
While you are using Chalkline in your browser, your figures are held with your account and are not shared with anyone. Install the desktop version and they move onto your own computer, where nothing is transmitted at all. Either way, the only other thing held is your email address and your subscription status.
After 14 days it asks for a card and stops opening until you put one in. Nothing you have typed is deleted either way.
It opens in your browser. Nothing to install, and nothing to set up. Once you subscribe you can also install it on your own computer, and everything you have entered comes with you.
Can I try it first?
Yes — 14 days free and no card. Nothing is taken, so there is nothing to cancel.
Do I need to be good with computers?
No. You type figures into boxes. It is one file — you download it, double-click it, and it sets itself up.
What happens if I stop paying?
The app stops opening. Your figures stay on your computer and nothing is deleted, so picking it up again later is one payment.
A 4-technician HVAC shop, using the opening figures Chalkline starts you with. Change any of them and the whole thing moves.
| Technicians | 4 |
| Hours they can actually invoice, a year | 5,360 |
| Wages and burden | $306,000 |
| Overhead | $129,000 |
| Labour, per billable hour | $57.09 |
| Overhead, per billable hour | $24.07 |
| Break-even | $81.16 |
| Rate for a 20% margin | $101.45 |
This shop charges $95. It is $6.45 an hour short of its own target — $34,550 a year.
Those are the starting figures, not a promise about your shop. The point is that they are yours to correct: put your own wages and overhead in and it tells you your number, and shows how it got there.
It works out what an hour of your labour actually costs you, then what you have to charge for it to make the money you meant to make.
The owner of a trade business, from one van to about thirty people — particularly anyone whose prices were set by what felt reasonable at the time, or by what a competitor charges.
No. Accounting tells you what happened last year. This tells you what to charge tomorrow. It does not replace QuickBooks and does not try to.
No. You type figures into boxes and it does the arithmetic. The trial opens in your browser with nothing to install at all.
About twenty minutes if you have a payroll summary and last year's expenses to hand. You can also guess at first and come back — it starts you off with figures for your trade so you get a number on day one.
It starts with typical figures for your trade and marks every one that is still a guess, so you can see what is yours and what is not yet. Replace them as you find the real ones.
Probably. Most shops doing this properly for the first time find they are somewhere between fifteen and forty per cent under. That is the whole reason it exists.
33 of them — HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, landscaping, concrete, remodeling, tree work and the rest — and an Other box where you type your own. Picking a trade only sets the starting figures; every one of them is yours to change.
One copy is meant for one business. If you run two, get in touch and we will sort something out rather than you paying twice for something you use once.
That is what the free 14 days are. No card, nothing to cancel — put your own figures in and see whether the answer surprises you.
For the free trial, a web browser — there is nothing to install. The desktop version, which you can install once you subscribe, needs a Windows computer and nothing else: it brings everything it needs with it.
The browser version works on anything. The desktop version is Windows only at present.
It will open on one, but it is not designed for it. This is work to sit down with for twenty minutes, not something to do between calls.
For the browser version, yes. The desktop version needs it only now and then to check the licence — it works with no signal at all, and if it cannot reach the internet it carries on working rather than shutting you out.
Right-click the file you downloaded and choose Extract All. Open the folder that appears and double-click the one thing in it. It puts itself on your computer properly and leaves an icon on your desktop.
Extract the zip first, before you open anything inside it. Windows will not run a program from inside a zip and the warning it gives does not say so. Extract, then double-click, and it opens.
Yes — your code works up to five times. Each copy keeps its own figures though, so put your numbers in on the one you actually work on rather than half on each.
No. It installs into your own user folder and never asks for a password.
Sign up again with the same email address. It gives you a fresh code and does not make a second account or charge you twice.
Sign in with your code and carry on. If you had the desktop version on the old machine, install it again and enter the same code — or copy its data folder across.
There is a remove option inside the app. It copies your figures to your desktop first, so uninstalling can never be the same thing as losing your work.
What one hour of your labour costs you once everything is counted, and the rate you have to charge to hit the profit you are aiming for. Every step is shown, so you can see how it got there and argue with it.
The hours you can actually put on an invoice. You pay for 2,080 a year; a technician might sell 1,300 of them. The rest is driving, the shop, warranty calls, holidays and waiting. Your rate has to cover all of it, and this is the single figure most shops get wrong.
Everything on top of the wage — payroll tax, workers' comp, holidays, benefits, uniforms, the phone. Usually twenty-five to forty per cent, and it is the reason a man on $25 an hour does not cost you $25 an hour.
You type them, and it lists the ones people forget — rent, insurance, the truck payments, software, the phone, the person who answers it. Then it spreads them across the hours you actually sell.
Yes. The price book turns your own hourly cost into a flat price for every job you do, so you can hand a customer a number instead of a clock.
Yes — they are not the same business and should not share a rate. Turn on Departments and each gets its own.
Yes, with markup that changes with the cost of the part — the way the trade actually prices, rather than one flat percentage on a $4 fitting and a $4,000 unit.
There is a section for what a machine costs you per hour to own and run, so it earns its keep instead of quietly eating the job.
Yes — what to mark subcontracted work up by, and why that markup is not free money.
Yes. Put a finished job in and it tells you what you actually made on it, which is usually the moment the penny drops.
Yes. Scenarios let you try a change — another technician, a rent rise, a slow month — and see what it does to the rate before you do it for real.
No, and it will not pretend to. It works out prices. Software that does everything does none of it well.
No. It uses what you pay people to work out what to charge — it does not pay them.
Both, and it is careful about the difference. Thirty per cent markup is not thirty per cent margin, and pricing as though it were is one of the most expensive mistakes in the trade.
Yes — there is a one-page rate sheet you can print or hand over with every figure and where it came from.
Yes. You pick the parts you want when you sign up and you can turn any of them on or off later without losing anything.
$79 a month. One price, whether it is you on your own or you and four others — you are never charged per person.
No. Month to month. Stop whenever you like.
No. Press the button, put your email in, and it is yours for 14 days. There is nothing to cancel because nothing has been taken.
The app stops opening and asks for a card. Your figures are not touched — put a card in and everything is exactly where you left it.
Stop the payment, or tell me and I will stop it. There is no phone call and nobody is going to try to talk you out of it.
No. Nothing is deleted. The app stops opening, your numbers stay on your computer, and if you come back later one payment picks it straight up where it was.
You get 7 days to sort it out and the app keeps working the whole time. Cards expire and banks decline for nothing — you are not shut off the same afternoon.
Ask. If a year up front suits you better it suits me too.
If it is your first month and it is not what you thought, ask and you will get it back. After that, cancel and you are not charged again.
Not while you are paying. If it goes up it goes up for new customers.
It never touches my computer or this site. Payment is handled by Stripe, which is what most of the internet uses.
Yes, by email every month, and it is a business expense.
Nobody but you. They are never shared, sold or shown to anyone. Where they are held depends on how you run it: in the browser they sit with your account on the server; on the desktop version they are on your own computer and are not transmitted at all.
Your email address, your company name if you gave one, and whether you are paid up. That is the whole list.
No. Your figures are not sold, shared or used for anything except showing them back to you.
In the browser, yes — they are on the server and backed up with it. On the desktop version they are on your computer, so backing them up is yours to do: the app keeps a copy every time you save, and the whole lot is one folder you can copy to a memory stick.
Yes. Install the desktop version and everything comes down with your code, as a plain file in a folder you can open. Nothing is held hostage.
The usual cause is opening it from inside the zip. Extract the folder first, then double-click. If it still does not open, send a message with whatever appears on screen.
Open it again — it checks when it starts, so it usually sorts itself out on the next open. If not, tell me and I will fix it from my end in a minute.
There is a box inside the app for exactly that. It comes straight to me with your company on it, and small things usually get done.
Email jtschalkline@gmail.com, or use the message box inside the app — that one arrives with your company name attached, so there is no ticket number and nothing to explain twice.
Nothing matched that. — or ask me inside the app and it will end up on this list.
Sign in and everything is where you left it — the same figures, on any computer.
That includes the desktop version — sign in and download it again for a new laptop, or a machine you have replaced.