How long will the job take?
Divide productive man-hours required by the crew’s daily productive hours. A 48-man-hour job with three people working eight productive hours per day takes two working days.
FREE CREW PLANNING TOOL
Free Man-Hour Calculator
Calculate total man-hours, estimate how long a job will take or find the crew size you need to meet a deadline.
Updated September 11, 2026 · No signup requiredPlan your crew’s time
One man-hour is one person working for one hour. Start with the sample or enter your own schedule.
How to calculate man-hours
Multiply the number of people by the hours each person works, then by the number of working days. For a crew on the same schedule:
Man-hours = people × worked hours per day × working days
The calculator subtracts entered breaks from shift hours. It then separates non-job work, such as travel and setup, from productive time available for the job. Enter each deduction only once.
Example: a three-person landscaping crew
Three people working eight hours a day for two days provide 48 man-hours. The job spans 16 elapsed crew-hours, because the three people work at the same time. At a loaded cost of $35 per worked person-hour, the labor budget is $1,680.
If each person instead takes a 30-minute break and spends one hour on non-job work per day, the same schedule has 45 worked person-hours and 39 productive job man-hours. A job requiring 48 productive man-hours would need more time.
Estimate job duration or crew size
How many people do you need?
Divide productive man-hours required by productive hours per person per day and available working days. Round up to a whole person to meet the deadline.
What changes on a real job?
Equipment limits, task order, access, weather and crew experience can prevent work from being shared evenly. Use the result as a starting estimate and check it against similar completed jobs.
| People | Elapsed crew-hours | Working days | Total man-hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 24 | 3 | 48 |
| 3 | 16 | 2 | 48 |
| 4 | 12 | 1.5 | 48 |
Man-hour pricing calculator
Need to decide what to charge per billable person-hour? Use your annual team costs and billable hours below. This is a separate business-pricing calculation; it does not change the crew estimate above.
Calculate your cost and selling price per man-hour
Your hourly pricing estimate
Target price / person-hour$104.15
Break-even cost / person-hour$88.53
Annual billable person-hours5,700
Labor cost / billable hour$55.89
Overhead / billable hour$32.63
Target rate minus current rate$19.15
A positive rate difference means the target is above your current price. This estimate includes only the costs entered; add materials or other excluded job costs separately.
Target price = (annual labor + overhead) ÷ billable hours ÷ (1 − target margin). For example, an $80 hourly cost needs a $100 selling price to leave a 20% margin. Adding 20% to $80 gives $96—a markup, not a 20% margin.
Man-hour calculator questions
Are man-hours and person-hours the same?
Yes. Both describe one person working for one hour. Labor-hours and worker-hours are also commonly used for the same unit.
Are man-hours the same as crew-hours?
No. One elapsed hour for a three-person crew is three man-hours. Keep those units separate when estimating costs or comparing a quote with actual time.
How do I enter hours and minutes?
Use decimal hours for the shift: 30 minutes is 0.5 hours, so 7 hours 30 minutes is 7.5. Breaks and non-job time have separate fields entered in minutes.
What if people work different hours?
Calculate each group with the same schedule separately and add their man-hours. For example, two people working six hours plus one person working four hours equals 16 man-hours.
Does adding workers always shorten the job?
Only when the work can be divided without reducing productivity. A single machine, curing time or tasks that must happen in sequence may limit how much a larger crew can help.
Does this calculate payroll or overtime?
No. This is a crew-planning and estimating tool. It does not decide which breaks are paid, apply overtime rules or replace payroll records. The optional job-cost estimate applies one rate to all worked hours entered.