Most pilots pick an hourly rate from a forum post and discover six months later that it doesn't cover insurance, let alone a paycheck. This calculator backs into a real number from your costs, your target take-home, and — the lever everyone gets wrong — how many hours you actually bill per week.
Enter your real annual costs and how many hours you can actually bill in a week. We back into the hourly rate that keeps you in business — not a guess from a forum thread.
Floor
$14/hr
break-even
Sustainable
$134/hr
covers profit + tax
Premium
$167/hr
+25% for risk
Annual cost: $6,550
Required revenue: $64,200
SE tax buffer: $7,650
Billable hrs/yr: 480
Sustainable is the number to anchor pricing on. Floor is where you're losing the business; premium gives you room to say no to thin offers.
Read the methodology
The article behind every assumption in this calculator:
The Rotor Rate fair-rate calculator takes your hourly rate and runs it against drive time, mileage, payload, airspace, and platform fees to return a defensible quote — with real take-home profit.