Cost rates are currently available to early access program customers. We will be releasing the new feature to all teams in the coming weeks—stay tuned!
At Float, we're committed to providing you with tools that enhance your planning, estimation, and financial tracking processes. With our rates feature, you can now track both what you charge clients (bill rates) and what it costs to employ your team (cost rates), giving you deeper insights into project profitability.
Understanding rate types
Bill rates (formerly called hourly rates) represent what you charge clients for your team's time. These rates are used to calculate project revenue.
Cost rates represent what it costs your business to employ people, including salary and overhead costs. These rates are used to calculate the actual cost of delivering projects.
The difference between these rates determines your project’s profit margin (except in the case of fee-based budgets (fixed price projects) where you can pick between two different margin calculation options).
Rate hierarchy
Each rate type follows its own hierarchy, determining which rate takes precedence when multiple rates are set.
Bill rate hierarchy
The hierarchy for rate application is as follows: Phase rate > Project rate > Person rate > Role rate. This means:
Role bill rate is the default rate for that role
Person bill rate overrides any role bill rate
Project bill rate overrides any person bill rate
Phase bill rate overrides any project bill rate
Cost rate hierarchy
The hierarchy for cost rate application is as follows: Person rate > Role rate. This means:
Role cost rate is the default rate for that role
Person cost rate overrides the role cost rate
📝Note: Unlike bill rates, cost rates don't vary by project or phase since they represent the consistent cost of employing people, regardless of which project they're working on.
Setting up rates
Both rate types are optional. You can use just one type of rate or both.
Role rates
Role bill rates and role cost rates can be set up by the Account Owner and users with Admin access in Team settings > Roles. To set a role's rates:
Go to Team settings > Roles
Find the role you want to update
Enter the bill rate in the Bill rate field
Enter the cost rate in the Cost rate field
For cost rates, you can set an Effective date for when the rate should take effect
Click Save
📝Note: When you update a role's bill rate, you'll be asked to confirm the change if it affects people already assigned to that role. Cost rate changes also include an effective date to maintain historical accuracy. You can set the effective date way in the past (then costs will display in reports for historic projects, but bill rates and budgets won’t be impacted), or you can also set it for a date in the future which is helpful for when there’s a planned promotion or move, or if you are updating your role rate card on a future date.
Person rates
Person bill rates and person cost rates can be assigned to specific people in the Info tab of their profile. To set a person's rates:
Go to the person's profile
Click the Info tab
Enter the bill rate in the Bill rate field
Enter the cost rate in the Cost rate field
For cost rates, you can set an Effective date for when the rate should take effect
Click Save
📝Note: Person rates will override their role rates for all projects, unless project-specific or phase-specific bill rates are set. Example: Your team can manage rates at the role level but there are some people who due to location or skills have a unique cost rate and-or bill rate. In that case you can set the unique rate on the person and it will override their role rate. You can override this further on a per-project level if needed, by setting custom project rates.
Project rates
Project bill rates can be set in the Team tab of a specific project, and apply to that project only (unless a phase-specific rate is set).
Project rates
Phase bill rates can be set in the Team tab of a specific project phase, and apply to that phase only.
📝Note: Project and phase rates only apply to bill rates, not cost rates. Cost rates remain consistent across all projects.
Rate history and effective dates
Cost rates include an "effective date" feature that allows you to set when a rate change should take effect. This maintains historical accuracy for reporting and allows you to plan for future rate changes. To view the history of rate changes:
For role rates: Click the history icon next to the rate in Team settings > Roles
For all rate changes: Check the Activity feed.
Rate visibility and access control
Rate visibility depends on access rights:
Account Owner and Admins can see and edit all bill and cost rates
Members cannot see rates
Managers can be granted permission to:
View bill rates and budgets
View cost rates
View project profitability (can be monitored in the single project report.)
These permissions can be set individually in the Access tab of a Manager's profile.
📝Note: Cost rates often contain sensitive salary information. Make sure you only grant access to users who need this information. By default, Managers do not have view and/or edit access to Cost or Bill rates. You can enable this manually at any time.
Bulk editing role rates
You can update role rates for multiple people at once using the bulk edit feature:
Go to the Roles & rates page within Team Settings
Select the roles you want to update
Click Bulk edit
Choose either Bill rate or Cost rate
Enter the new rate
For cost rates, set an Effective date
Click Save
Bulk editing people rates
You can update rates for multiple people at once using the bulk edit feature:
Go to the People page
Select the people you want to update
Click Bulk edit
Choose either Bill rate or Cost rate
Enter the new rate
For cost rates, set an Effective date
Click Save
Profitability reporting
With both bill rates and cost rates set up, Float automatically calculates profit metrics for your projects. Here are some calculations to keep in mind:
Costs = hours × cost rate
Fees = hours × bill rate
Margin = fees - costs
Profit margin %= (margin ÷ fees) × 100
These metrics are available in:
Project Reports: See cost, fee, and profit for each project
Single Project Report: See detailed profitability breakdown for a specific project
Margin calculation varies based on the selected budget type:
No budget/hours-based: only costs shown.
Hourly fee margin = billable fees – billable costs.
Fee-based:
Option 1: Margin = fee-based budget – scheduled costs.
Option 2: Margin = total billable fees – scheduled costs.
Additional notes
You can use our CSV option to upload cost rates for People in your organization.
By default, Managers do not have view and/or edit access to Cost or Bill rates. You can enable this manually at any time.
Manager permissions that you set up before the introduction of cost rates remain unchanged.