Cost Rate
A cost rate is what an hour of work actually costs you - typically salary plus taxes, benefits, and overhead, divided by working hours. It is the internal counterpart to the billing rate you charge clients.
How it works
- Estimate fully loaded cost per hour, not just take-home pay.
- Compare it to the billing rate: the difference is gross margin.
- Use it to check whether a finished project actually earned its time.
Why it matters
Without a cost rate, "profit" is a guess. A project can bill well and still lose money once real cost per hour is included.
How Sandtime.io fits
Sandtime.io records hours with cost and revenue rates, so profit and margin reflect what really went into the work. Check a project with the project profitability calculator.
Related Terms
The cost rate is the internal counterpart to the billing rate, drives project cost and margin against revenue, and can vary over time as a temporal rate.