A machine hourly rate answers one question: what does an hour of this resource cost the business before any profit? Get it wrong low and every quote quietly loses money. Get it wrong high and you lose the work to someone who counted better.
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Machine hourly rate calculator
Separate annual standing costs from costs that run with each productive hour. All calculations stay in this browser.
Standing costs / annual
Running costs / productive hour
Normal productive hours
1232Standing-cost recovery
PLN 146.10/hRunning costs
PLN 75.00/hCost-recovery rate
PLN 221.10/hNet sales rate at selected margin
PLN 260.12/hPlanning model: standing costs ÷ normal productive hours + running cost per hour. Margin means profit as a share of net sales price; the calculator accepts 0–95% because 100% would divide by zero. The currency selector only changes the result format — no exchange rates are applied. The result excludes VAT, sales tax and other taxes.
What the calculator does
It applies two formulas.
Cost-recovery rate = annual standing costs ÷ normal productive hours + running costs per hour.
Net sales rate = cost-recovery rate ÷ (1 − margin).
Margin here means profit as a share of the net sales price, not markup on cost. That distinction matters: a 20% margin and a 20% markup produce different prices, and mixing them up is one of the more common ways a rate ends up too low.
What goes in each field
Standing costs are the ones you pay whether or not the machine cuts: lease or depreciation, insurance, a standing service agreement, the floor space it occupies and its share of fixed department overhead. Enter them as annual amounts.
Running costs only accrue during productive hours: power drawn by the operation, coolant, tool consumption, hourly attendance and the variable part of maintenance. Enter them per productive hour.
Normally available hours and utilization set the denominator. Multiply the hours the machine is normally available by the utilization you can support with evidence from several representative periods. The calculator does the multiplication for you and shows the result.
Split anything mixed. A maintenance contract with a retainer plus intervention fees belongs partly in each column.
Spreadsheet version
If you would rather work in Excel, the same model is available as a workbook with live formulas:
Download the machine hour rate XLSX template
It has a Polish sheet, an English sheet and a notes sheet carrying the same limitations described below. No signup required.
Limits of this model
This is a planning model, not accounting or tax advice, and not a price recommendation. The result is a net rate before VAT and other taxes. Whether depreciation, labour and overhead belong inside the rate or on separate lines depends on how your business is set up — apply one consistent rule so nothing is omitted or charged twice, and validate the cost boundary with whoever handles your accounts.
The margin field accepts 0–95%. That ceiling is arithmetic, not advice: at 100% the formula divides by zero.
For the reasoning behind normal capacity, the IAS 2 treatment of unabsorbed overhead and the sources this model draws on, read the full guide: how to calculate a CNC machine hourly rate.
Within a CNC cost estimate the rate is only one input — time, billing unit and quantity matter just as much. Kostira applies a rate like this one to real STEP geometry; see how it works.