Employee-to-Owner Calculator
See what staying an employee, going solo on your own, and running the Local Trades apparatus could each mean for your take-home. Every number below is an estimate you can change.
Anchored: BC journeyperson wage (data room wage survey).
Anchored to a general '$100+/hr' billed-rate benchmark; ESTIMATE, verify by trade and region.
Standard full-time work week.
Standard year allowing for vacation.
ESTIMATE, verify: admin, quoting, travel and downtime eaten by running the business alone.
ESTIMATE, verify: the automation lift from the Local Trades apparatus is the core, unmeasured claim of this model.
ESTIMATE, verify: truck, tools, insurance, bond, fuel, phone.
Anchored: competitor a-la-carte tool scan, roughly $350-500/month.
Our pricing. The revenue share declines by tier and sunsets after the program window.
| Scenario | Estimated annual take-home | vs. employee |
|---|---|---|
| Employee | $76,800 | baseline |
| Solo, doing it yourself | $82,800 | +$6,000 |
| Solo, with the Local Trades apparatus (revenue-share window) | $102,910 | +$26,110 |
| Solo, with the Local Trades apparatus (after the revenue-share window) | $113,892 | +$37,092 |
The apparatus adds $20,110 a year in this estimate.
That is the difference between doing it yourself and running the Local Trades apparatus, driven by higher billable utilization and bundled tooling. It is the number this tool is actually about, not the raw gap between what an employer bills you out at and what you are paid: most of that gap disappears into admin, quoting, travel, downtime and overhead once you go solo without help.
This is an illustrative model built from the inputs above, not a promise of income or placement. Every input can be changed; the defaults are estimates unless noted otherwise, and the two utilization figures and the overhead figure are estimates we are still validating against real trade data.
Materials and equipment are excluded; this compares labour economics only.
Figures are pre-tax. Self-employment tax works differently than employee payroll withholding and is not calculated here.
Want to see if this works for your trade?
Tell us a bit about your trade and region and we will follow up.