Calculator methodology
The site separates business math from outside reference data so a source update cannot silently change the meaning of the calculator.
Core pricing engine
Each business calculator supplies industry-specific inputs to a shared pricing and profitability engine. The engine calculates employee labor, owner compensation, direct job costs, allocated overhead, payment fees, break-even revenue, target-margin pricing and what-if scenarios.
When a user enters actual business costs, those values take priority over reference data.
Location methodology
Location is a planning aid, not a local-market quote. The ZIP lookup identifies the ZIP’s county, then checks whether BLS publishes the configured occupation for the corresponding May 2025 OEWS metropolitan or nonmetropolitan area. If that area estimate is available, the local BLS median is shown. If it is not published, the calculator falls back to the published state median and then the national median.
The wage reference is displayed separately and never silently replaces the user’s labor-cost input.
Pressure-washing wage reference
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025. Pressure washing does not have a dedicated SOC code, so the pressure-washing configuration uses SOC 37-2019, Building Cleaning Workers, All Other, as a disclosed occupational wage proxy. The May 2025 national median is $21.17 per hour. Where BLS publishes a May 2025 area median for this occupation, that local figure is used instead.
Important: OEWS publishes worker wages. The wage reference is not a fully burdened employer labor cost and does not include employer payroll taxes, benefits, workers’ compensation or other employer-side costs. Users who know their actual all-in labor cost should use it.
ZIP geography
The location lookup uses a ZIP-to-county geography file and a locally stored BLS wage-reference file. BLS May 2025 area definitions determine which counties belong to the published OEWS areas. The package includes the BLS wage-reference file; the full ZIP geography file should be self-hosted before significant production traffic. Until then, the lookup can fall back to the configured public static ZIP source.
Update policy
Reference data is versioned separately from calculator code. Wage data and OEWS area definitions should be reviewed when BLS publishes a new annual OEWS release. Production data updates should be tested before the data-version reference is changed, and the prior JSON file should be retained for rollback.