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Equipment Payments Machines

How much does an excavator cost per hour?

Work out what hiring an excavator actually costs per hour, rather than what the rate on the quote says. Put in the hourly rate you were quoted, the hours of digging your job needs, the minimum billable period, the float fee to bring the machine in and take it away, and anything else on the ticket. The calculator bills the greater of your hours and the minimum, adds the fixed fees once, and divides the whole total back by the hours you actually get work out of. That effective figure is the one to hold two quotes still beside each other with.

§ 01 Your numbers

Change anything. The answer updates as you type.

The hourly figure on the quote, for the machine size your job needs. The default is ours and editable, and the quote you are holding is the one that matters.
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Read carefully what this rate includes, because the same number means different things from different companies. A rate quoted by a contractor is usually wet, meaning the machine arrives with an operator running it and the operator's time is inside the figure. A rate quoted by a rental yard is usually dry, meaning you get the machine and you supply somebody qualified to run it, and the operator becomes a separate cost you have to add yourself. The size of the machine moves this line more than anything else: a compact machine that fits through a garden gate and a full-size tracked excavator that needs a lowboy to reach the site are different rates and different float fees. Ask which size the company is quoting before you compare two numbers.
How long the digging itself will take. The default is ours and a placeholder for a long day's work.
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This is the input the whole page turns on, and it is also the one people get wrong in the same direction every time. The honest figure is the hours the machine is on your site earning, not the hours you imagine the hole taking. Ask whoever is quoting for their estimate rather than supplying your own, since they have dug the shape of job you are describing before and you probably have not. If the ground is a real question, rock, a high water table, roots or fill of unknown depth, ask for their estimate for the good case and the bad case and run this page twice. The gap between those two runs is the risk you are actually carrying.
The shortest period the company will bill, however long the work takes. Zero if the quote genuinely has no minimum. The default is ours.
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Almost every hourly machine quote carries one, and it is the term people skip past on the way to the rate. It exists because sending a machine and a truck and a driver to a site has a cost that a short job does not come close to covering, so the company sets a floor. The practical effect is that a job finishing inside the minimum is billed as though it ran to the minimum, which is why the effective cost per hour on a small job runs so far above the quoted rate. It also changes what you should do with the machine: if you are being billed four hours regardless, it is worth having the second and third small jobs on the property lined up and ready before the machine arrives. Ask for the minimum in the same breath as the rate.
The transport charge for delivery and collection, sometimes billed each way. The default is ours and a placeholder.
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An excavator does not drive to your job, it rides there on a trailer behind a truck, and that round trip is charged separately from the digging. Some companies quote it as a single mobilisation fee covering both directions, others quote a delivery charge and a collection charge that you have to add together, so establish which you are being quoted before you compare. Distance from the yard moves it, and so does the machine: a compact machine on a tag trailer is a straightforward run, while a full-size tracked machine needs a heavier truck and can need a permit for the load. This fee is charged once whether the machine works for an hour or for a week, which is exactly why it lands so heavily on short jobs and why it belongs on this page rather than in a footnote.
Any per-hour charge added on top of the rate. Zero if the rate is all-in. The default is zero because this line is not universal.
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Some quotes carry a fuel surcharge, an environmental levy or a shop fee expressed as an hourly figure or as a percentage of the rate, and it rides on the same billable hours the rate does. If yours is quoted as a percentage, work out the dollars per hour and put that here. This is also the box to use for a dry rental where you are supplying the diesel yourself: put your expected fuel burn per hour in as a cost and the total below stays honest. Ask for the quote with every line on it rather than the headline rate, since a rate that looks lower than a competitor's can arrive with more of these attached.
One-off costs on the job that are not the machine's hourly time. Zero if none apply. The default is ours.
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A few things get added to a digging job that are charged as items rather than as hours. A breaker, a compaction plate, an auger or a thumb is usually a separate hire line if the job needs one, and swapping attachments on site can be billed as time too. Some digs need a permit from the local authority, and some need traffic control if the machine or the spoil pile touches a road. Utility locating belongs here as well, though in many places calling the locate service before you dig is a free and legally required step rather than a cost, so check what applies where you are rather than budgeting for it blindly. Hauling the spoil away is a separate transaction again and is usually priced by the load rather than by the hour.
Estimated cost
$1,340

Typical range $1,139 – $1,809

  • Machine time at the quoted rate$990
  • Fuel or environmental surcharge$0
  • Float fee in and out$350
  • Attachments, permits and locates$0
  • Total$1,340
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$900 to $3,000 is the common shape of this: a full day or two of machine time where the rate is now the larger share and the float is spread thin enough to see past. This is the range where running the page once per quote earns its keep, since two companies can look far apart on rate and land close on your job.

What this assumes, and where it could be wrong

Every one of these is a place the number could be off. They are here because you should be able to check our working, not because we are hedging.

THE MINIMUM IS BILLED EVEN WHEN THE WORK FINISHES EARLY.
This is the choice that shapes the page, so it is stated first. The calculator bills the greater of the hours you entered and the minimum billable period in your quote, because that is what the ticket will say. If your job runs shorter than the minimum, the hours above the work you needed are still charged, and the calculator shows them so you can see what you are paying for. That is not a company being unreasonable: sending a truck, a trailer, a machine and a driver to a site costs the same whether the hole takes one hour or four, and the minimum is how that gets covered. The practical response is to use the period you are buying. Line up the other digging on the property, the stump, the drainage run, the post holes, before the machine turns up rather than after it leaves.
A wet rate and a dry rate are different numbers for different things.
A rate quoted by a contractor is usually wet: the machine arrives with an operator, and the person running it is inside the hourly figure. A rate quoted by a rental yard is usually dry: you get the machine on a trailer and you supply somebody competent to run it, and the operator becomes a cost you add on top. The dry figure will always look better on paper, and comparing the two directly is the commonest way to get this decision wrong. If you are pricing a dry rental, put the operator's hourly cost into the surcharge box so the total below covers the same ground as a wet quote. Running an excavator without experience is its own risk beyond the money, and the machine is the smaller half of that risk next to what is buried under the site.
The float fee is fixed, which is why short jobs price so badly per hour.
The charge to truck the machine in and take it away does not scale with how long you dig. It is the same fee for a two-hour job and a two-week job, so it is spread thin across a long hire and lands heavily on a short one. That is the arithmetic behind the effective cost per hour above running so far over the quoted rate on small jobs, and it is worth understanding before you assume you were quoted badly. It also points at the answer: if a neighbour needs digging done too, one machine coming out once for both jobs pays one float fee instead of two, and both of you see the effective rate come down. Check whether your quote covers both directions or only delivery, since collection is sometimes a second line.

The effective cost per hour is the figure to compare quotes with, not the rate. Two companies can quote hourly rates a long way apart and land within a few dollars of each other on your actual job, because the one with the lower rate carries a higher float fee or a longer minimum. Run this page once per quote with that company's own rate, minimum, float and surcharges in it, and compare the effective figures. Compare the total as well, since on a short job the total is the number leaving your account and the per-hour figure is only how it feels. Ask each company for the same job description so their hour estimates are answering the same question.

This prices the machine on site, not the whole excavation. It covers the hourly time, the transport, the surcharges and the one-off items on the ticket. It does not cover hauling the spoil away, which is priced by the load rather than by the hour, bringing in fill or gravel to replace what came out, backfilling and compacting, restoring the lawn or the driveway the machine crossed, or repairing anything the dig turns up. It also does not cover the ground being other than what everyone assumed, which is the risk that moves these jobs furthest. For the surrounding numbers, the equipment operating cost calculator covers running a machine you own, and the equipment rent versus buy calculator covers the decision one step above this one.

Frequently asked questions

How much does an excavator cost per hour?
It is quoted rather than published, and the rate turns on the machine size, whether an operator comes with it and how far your site is from the yard. A compact machine that fits through a garden gate and a full-size tracked machine that needs a lowboy to reach you are different rates and different transport fees. A contractor's wet rate has the operator inside it, a rental yard's dry rate does not. Those quotes are generated for your job rather than listed on a rate card, so this page does not invent a figure to stand in for yours. Get the rate, the minimum billable period and the float fee from the company in one conversation, put all three in the form above with your hours, and the calculator shows the total and what an hour actually costs you.
Why is my cost per hour higher than the rate I was quoted?
Because two charges sit outside the hourly rate and both land hardest on short jobs. The float fee to truck the machine in and take it away is a fixed charge that is the same whether you dig for an hour or a week, so on a short hire it is spread across very few hours. And the minimum billable period means a job that finishes early is billed as though it ran to the minimum. Add those to the rate, divide by the hours you actually got work out of, and the effective figure comes out above the quoted one. That is normal rather than a sign of a bad quote, and the way to bring it down is to give the machine more to do while it is there rather than to hunt for a lower rate.
Is it cheaper to rent an excavator and run it myself?
The dry rate is lower than a wet rate, and whether that makes it cheaper depends on things the price does not show. You are taking on the operating risk, and on a digging job the expensive risk is under the ground rather than in the machine: a struck gas line, water main or fibre run turns a saved rental margin into a repair bill and a serious safety incident in one movement. Call the utility locate service before any dig regardless of who is running the machine, since in many places it is free and legally required. If you are experienced on the controls and the site is clear, a dry rental can genuinely be the better answer for straightforward work. If you are not, the operator inside a wet rate is buying you their judgement about what to do when the bucket finds something, and that is usually the better value.
How do I get the effective hourly figure down?
Give the fixed fees more hours to spread across, and stop paying them twice. The float fee and the minimum are charged once per visit, so batching the digging on your property into a single visit is worth more than shaving the rate: the stump, the drainage run, the footing trench and the post holes done in one session share one float fee between them. Have the site ready before the machine arrives, marked out, cleared of anything that has to be moved and with the locates already done, because setup time you could have done yourself is billed at the machine rate. If a neighbour needs work too, one machine out once for both jobs splits the transport. And ask whether a smaller machine can do it, since a lighter machine is a cheaper rate and a cheaper float, as long as it can reach and lift what the job needs.

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