Aircraft rental rate calculator
What the airframe costs you per hour, and what to charge for it. Put in your own numbers: it runs in your browser, there is no sign-up, and nothing you type is sent to us.
Suggested wet rate
$129.24/hour
Costs $112.38 an hour to operate at 400 hours a year. The remaining $16.86 is your 15% margin.
- Fixed costs$10,000 a year spread over 400 hours
- $25.00
- Fuel8.5 gph at $6.25
- $53.13
- Oil and consumables
- $1.50
- Engine overhaul reserve$32,000 over 2000 hours to TBO
- $16.00
- Propeller overhaul reserve$3,500 over 2000 hours
- $1.75
- Unscheduled maintenanceTyres, brakes, and what the annual finds
- $15.00
- Break-even
- $112.38
What utilisation does to the number
Variable cost per hour does not move. Fixed cost per hour halves every time the hours double, and that is usually the whole reason a rate that looked fine in January does not cover the annual in November.
| Hours/year | Fixed/hr | Break-even | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | $100.00 | $187.38 | $215.49 |
| 150 | $66.67 | $154.05 | $177.16 |
| 200 | $50.00 | $137.38 | $157.99 |
| 250 | $40.00 | $127.38 | $146.49 |
| 300 | $33.33 | $120.71 | $138.82 |
| 400 (yours) | $25.00 | $112.38 | $129.24 |
| 500 | $20.00 | $107.38 | $123.49 |
| 600 | $16.67 | $104.05 | $119.66 |
Already charging a rate?
Put it in and see how much the aircraft has to fly to cover itself.
An estimate to think with, not an accounting statement or financial advice. It leaves out income tax, depreciation, and the cost of the capital tied up in the airframe, and it assumes your overhaul estimates are current. Check the numbers against your own books and your insurer before you reprice anything. Nothing you type here is sent to us or stored.
How to read the result
The number that decides it is utilisation
Fixed costs are a fixed bill
Insurance, the hangar, the annual, the loan. The same money whether the aircraft flies 200 hours or 400, which means the hours are what decides how much each one has to carry. This is why two schools with identical airplanes can honestly arrive at rates $30 apart.
Reserves are not optional
An engine at 2,000 hours TBO with a $32,000 overhaul costs $16 every hour it runs, collected or not. Leaving the reserve out does not make you cheaper. It makes the overhaul a surprise.
Wet and dry are not close
Fuel is roughly half the hourly cost on a trainer. A rate advertised as dry but worked out wet gives the fuel away on every single flight, and it is the most common pricing mistake a small club makes.
Then check it against the field
Cost sets your floor, not your price. If the number lands well above what the field charges, the problem is usually the hours rather than the rate, and the fix is scheduling rather than pricing.
The awkward follow-up
Do you know what your airframes actually flew?
Most operators put a guess into the hours box, and the guess is usually high. It is the input the whole calculation turns on, so a number that is 20% optimistic makes a rate that is quietly 20% short.
SkyFSBookings records Hobbs and tach at the end of every flight and reports utilisation per airframe, so next year the number in that box is one you can look up rather than estimate.
Set up your fleetFree for one aircraft, no card, no expiry.
- Read more on the thinking behind the numbers in the fleet management guide.
- Maintenance costs are the other half of this calculation: tracking them properly is what makes next year's reserve figure real rather than assumed.
- Empty slots are the quiet tax on utilisation. Reducing no-shows moves the hours box more than raising the rate does.
- Already running on something else? See what moving across involves.
What operators ask about this
Rental rates, answered plainly
- What is the difference between a wet rate and a dry rate?
- A wet rate includes fuel; a dry rate does not, and the renter buys their own. On a typical trainer fuel is roughly half the hourly cost, so the two numbers are very different. The most common pricing mistake in a small club is a rate advertised as dry that was actually worked out wet, which quietly gives away the fuel on every flight.
- Why does the rate change so much when I change the annual hours?
- Because fixed costs do not care how much you fly. Insurance, the hangar, the annual inspection and any loan payment are the same at 200 hours as at 400, so spreading them over twice the hours halves what each hour has to carry. Variable costs, fuel and reserves and unscheduled maintenance, do not move at all. That single fact explains most of the gap between two schools charging very different rates for the same model.
- What is an overhaul reserve and do I really need to charge one?
- It is money set aside each hour toward the engine and propeller overhauls that the hours are consuming. An engine at 2,000 hours TBO with a $32,000 overhaul is costing you $16 every hour it runs, whether or not you collect it. Operators who leave it out are not cheaper, they are accruing a bill: the overhaul arrives regardless, and it arrives as a five-figure invoice against a club with no fund.
- Does this include instructor time?
- No. This prices the airframe only, which is how most schools and clubs quote. Instruction is usually a separate hourly charge, because a student flying dual and a member flying solo consume the same aircraft and different amounts of a CFI.
- Is this financial advice?
- No. It is an estimate to think with. It leaves out income tax, depreciation and the cost of the capital tied up in the airframe, and it can only be as good as the overhaul and insurance figures you put in. Check it against your own books and your insurer before you reprice anything.
- Do you keep the numbers I enter?
- No. The calculation runs entirely in your browser and nothing is sent to us or stored. Your cost structure is commercially sensitive and there is no reason for it to leave your machine.