Auto repair & detailing
Auto Repair Profit Calculator
See what a repair leaves after parts, burdened labour and the shop overhead the job consumed.
Result
Gross profit is what is left after the cost of doing the job. Overhead comes out of that: the building, the office wages, the vans, insurance, software and advertising. A healthy gross margin still loses money if overhead is larger.
Get a Free Business AuditWhat moves the number
- Bay time, which is the scarce resource. A job occupying a lift for a day has a different overhead claim from one that takes an hour.
- Parts margin, which for many shops is a larger share of profit than labour.
- Whether diagnostic time was billed or absorbed.
Where this one goes wrong
Judging a job by its invoice total. A large ticket that tied up a lift for two days while waiting on a part can return less than several small jobs through the same bay.
Questions
About this calculator
Is parts or labour the bigger profit source?
It varies by shop, and knowing which is yours changes how you price. Shops that assume labour carries the business are often wrong, and shops that discount parts to win work frequently give away most of the job's profit.
How should bay time be accounted for?
As the constraint it is. Overhead per bay hour is a more useful figure than overhead per job, because it makes the cost of a vehicle sitting waiting on parts visible.
What about warranty work?
Cost it honestly, including the labour you are not reimbursed for. Manufacturer reimbursement rates frequently sit below a shop's own door rate.
The formula
gross profit = revenue - direct costs
Put this calculator on your site
Free to embed. Paste this where you want it to appear. It stays up to date automatically because it loads from BDEVY.
Please keep the attribution line. It is the only thing we ask in return.
How to use this calculator
- Revenue ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $75,000.
- Direct labour ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $16,000.
- Materials and equipment ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $11,000.
- Other direct costs ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $2,200.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to gross profit, and change it back. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or saved.
A worked example
These are the figures the calculator opens with. Every number in the results column below is produced by the same calculation the page runs, so you can follow it through before putting your own figures in.
What goes in
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Revenue | $75,000 |
| Direct labour | $16,000 |
| Materials and equipment | $11,000 |
| Other direct costs | $2,200 |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Gross profit main result | $45,800 |
| Gross margin | 61.1% |
| Total direct cost | $29,200 |
| Profit per working day | $2,082 |
That is $45,800 at a 61.1% margin, about $2,082 for every working day. Overhead still has to come out of it.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only revenue, this is what happens to gross profit. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Revenue ($) | Gross profit |
|---|---|
| $37,500 | $8,300 |
| $56,250 | $27,050 |
| $75,000 example above | $45,800 |
| $112,500 | $83,300 |
| $150,000 | $120,800 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Revenue ($)
- A money amount, starting at $75,000.
- Direct labour ($)
- A money amount, starting at $16,000.
- Materials and equipment ($)
- A money amount, starting at $11,000.
- Other direct costs ($)
- A money amount, starting at $2,200.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Gross profit | The headline result. A money figure. |
| Gross margin | A percentage. |
| Total direct cost | A money figure. |
| Profit per working day | A money figure. |
Estimating is the easy part
The jobs you never hear about cost more than the ones you mis-measure. BDEVY builds the marketing, systems and automation that bring them in.