Stop guessing what to charge.
The Golden Ratio Formula takes your real costs, wages, vehicles, rent, insurance, tools, and calculates the exact hourly rate your plumbing business must charge to cover everything and still make a profit.
No card needed · About 10 minutes · Your numbers stay yours
Your required rate
Covers every cost, plus a 20% profit margin.
Example output. Your rate is built from your numbers.
Most plumbing rates are one of three guesses.
The competitor number
You charge what the other guys charge. But their van is paid off and yours is not. Their costs are not your costs.
The gut number
It felt right when you set it. Since then diesel, insurance and wages have all moved. The rate did not.
The win-the-job number
Priced to beat the other quote. Win enough of those and you go broke busy.
If the rate underneath your quotes is wrong, every quote is wrong. That is how a plumbing business has its busiest year and its worst year at the same time.
Ten minutes, three steps, one number.
Walk through your real costs
A guided wizard covers every place money leaves the business: staff, vehicles, premises, tools, marketing, subscriptions, insurance and loan repayments. One at a time, no spreadsheet.
Be honest about your hours
Working days, hours per day, team count, and the billable efficiency nobody likes to admit. An eight-hour day is never eight billable hours, and the formula accounts for it.
Get your number
Your required hourly rate, ex VAT, with your target profit margin already built in. Plus your true monthly overhead and your real billable capacity.
What comes out the other side.
Required hourly rate
The one number underneath every quote you send. Ex VAT, margin included.
True monthly overhead
What it actually costs to open the doors each month, in one figure.
Profit built in, not hoped for
Set a target margin and the rate carries it. Profit stops being whatever is left over.
Your real billable capacity
How many sellable hours your team genuinely has in a year.
Profiles for the what-ifs
Model a second van or a new hire as a separate profile and watch the rate move.
A rate you can defend
When a client pushes back, you will have the method, not just the number.
Built inside a working plumbing company.
PlumbTrack is not a startup guessing what plumbers need. It runs the daily operations of Andy Plumbers in Johannesburg: jobs, quotes, invoices, payments, timesheets and technician incentives. The Golden Ratio Formula is the pricing method that keeps that business profitable. Now it is free for any plumber who wants their own number.
- Tested on real quotes, real wages and real Joburg diesel prices
- Refined every month against actual bank transactions
- Made by a plumber who had to learn this the expensive way
"Most service businesses don't know their real cost per hour. If the rate is wrong, every quote is wrong. The Golden Ratio Formula fixes that."
Your rate is the front door.
PlumbTrack also runs quoting, invoicing, job cards, payments, timesheets, inventory and technician incentives, because knowing your rate is step one and charging it every day is the rest. Start free with the formula. The rest is there when you are ready.
Fair questions.
Is it really free?
Yes. The Golden Ratio Formula is free. No card, no trial that quietly expires. Sign up, do the wizard, keep your number.
How long does it take?
About ten minutes if you have a rough idea of your monthly costs. Your progress saves, so you can start now and finish once the numbers come in.
What if I do not know my exact costs?
Start with honest estimates. The wizard prompts you one cost at a time so nothing gets forgotten, and you can sharpen any figure later. Your rate recalculates.
Is the rate including VAT?
The formula gives your required rate excluding VAT, so you add VAT on top when you quote. That keeps the number clean for pricing decisions.
Who can see my numbers?
You. Your data is encrypted, stored under your own account, and never shared or sold.
I run an electrical or solar business. Can I use it?
The formula was built for plumbing, but the maths holds for any trade that runs vehicles and technicians. You will just read plumber where you would say sparkie.
What is the catch?
PlumbTrack makes its money on the full operations platform: quoting, invoicing, job cards, timesheets. The formula is free because it is the right first step whether you ever buy anything or not, and we would rather you price properly either way.
Ten minutes from now, you could know your number.
Every quote you send without it is a guess.
No card needed · Your numbers stay yours