Keep Above
Do it yourself or take the quote
A job needs doing and there's a quote on the table. This calculator puts the quote against what doing it yourself would cost — materials, any tools you'd have to buy, and your own hours, priced only if you choose to price them. The distinctive output is what the gap works out to for each hour of your time. No winner is declared.
Anything you'd have to buy to do it
Your time isn't priced while this is $0
Anything the quote doesn't cover
Put in the quote, and what doing it yourself would take. Nothing here is read from your accounts, and nothing is saved.
| Yourself | The quote | |
|---|---|---|
| Materials / on top of the quote | — | — |
| Tools / the quote itself | — | — |
| Your time | — | — |
| Money out | — | — |
| All-up | — | — |
This is one of the tools built into Keep Above
Keep Above is a budgeting app where you enter your bills and income and it works out the balance you need to keep — so you can see what's safe to spend. No bank connection, no ads on your data.
About this calculator
Why does my time start unpriced?
Because what an hour of your time is worth is not a figure a calculator should pick. At $0 the comparison is money only, and the assumptions line says so; set a rate and the hours join the total.
What does the per-hour line mean?
The gap between the quote and your materials-and-tools cost, spread over the hours the job would take — what each hour of your own work would effectively carry. It is built from the money terms only, never the totals, so the rate you set for your time can't fold back into it. A negative gap is stated as a bare fact too.