Cost rates & margin
Add what time costs you, and ProjectPacer turns revenue into profit and margin.
A bill rate tells you revenue. A cost rate tells you what that hour cost you — and together they give you profit and margin. Cost rates are set per person (their loaded cost per hour).
Profit, margin, and expense cost are gated behind See costs & margin, which owners and admins have by default and a manager doesn't. An admin can grant it to another role on Roles & permissions — a teammate without it sees revenue but no cost or margin.
The cost rates themselves are stricter still: the rate card only ever shows them to owners and admins, whatever the permission says. A manager granted "See costs & margin" sees the resulting margin, not what each person is paid.
Why margin sometimes reads "partial"
ProjectPacer only knows cost for hours that have a cost rate. If any hours in the view lack one, the numbers can't be trusted, so margin shows "partial" or a dash rather than a confident figure.
- On a fixed-fee engagement, the baseline ("already used at start") has no tracked cost, so margin stays partial while the baseline is in play.
- A person with no cost rate makes every hour they logged uncosted. Coverage flags exactly who.
Fill the gaps and margin resolves to a real number.
How expenses fold in
Billable expenses count on both sides: their cost always lowers profit, and a "bill on top" expense adds revenue (its markup is your margin). A "draw from budget" expense adds cost but no extra revenue — it's already covered by the fee.
Reading the numbers
- Profit = (labor + expense) revenue − (labor + expense) cost — shown only when cost is complete.
- Margin = profit ÷ total revenue, colour-coded so a thin engagement stands out at a glance.
- Effective $/hr is revenue-based and always shows, even without cost — see Rates & profitability.
Revenue, cost, and margin across all your work.