Why $50/hr Per Person · The Brick City Labor Pricing Rule

A flat $50 per hour, per person is the only number on a Brick City Labor quote. No "from," no minimum charge above one hour, no zone surcharge, no fuel fee, no gear rental, no after-hours bump. The number on the slider is the number you pay. Here is the rule and the reasoning.

The math, end to end

One person on the crew costs you fifty dollars an hour. Two people: a hundred. Three: one-fifty. Four: two hundred. Time is rounded to the nearest 15-minute block at $12.50 per block after the one-hour minimum. That is it. A typical Newark sofa haul-away costs $200 because the math is two hours times two people times $50. A driveway power-wash on a 600 sq ft Newark two-car driveway costs $50 because that is one hour for one person.

Pick a slot, see the total, hit the button. The slider in the booking widget is not a teaser. It is the bill.

Why one rate across NJ + NYC

Every other crew adds zone fees the second the job crosses a county line. Hoboken pays more than Newark. Manhattan pays more than Hoboken. Then the "fuel surcharge" stacks on top. The game is to bury the real number under a stack of small ones until you stop counting.

We do not play that game. The drive is part of the job — we factor it into the hour. If we cannot do a Manhattan job at $50 per hour per person, we say so up front and you pick someone else. Most of the time we can. The rate stays the rate from Newark to Jersey City to Brooklyn to the back of Staten Island.

What "per person" actually means

You pay for the hands on the job. A two-person crew bills $100/hr because there are two people. That is also why a two-person crew finishes a hundred-dollar one-person job in thirty minutes — same total, half the wall-clock time. The math compounds in the customer's favor.

• Solo crew, 4 hours: $200. Best for a single power-wash, a small lawn, a one-room repair.
• Two-person crew, 4 hours: $400. Best for hauling, cleanouts, full-yard lawn jobs, anything that needs two pairs of hands.
• Three-person crew, 4 hours: $600. Move-out cleanouts, post-renovation debris hauls, full property prep.
• Four-person crew, 4 hours: $800. Multi-day jobs, full estate clearouts, weekly standing crews.

What is included, and what is a pass-through

Included in the rate: the crew, the truck, the gear (pressure washer, mower, hand tools, ladder, blankets, straps), the time on site, the time loading and unloading, the cleanup. Pass-through, charged at cost only: dump fees at the transfer station, parking permits in NYC, paint or replacement parts you ask us to pick up. Each one shows up on the receipt with the actual paper or screenshot from the vendor — no markup, no rounding up.

That is the line: labor is fixed, materials are at cost. Anything else is a side hustle.

Why this rate, not $35 or $80

Lower than this and we are running a hobby — gas, insurance, gear maintenance eat into anything below $40/hr. Higher than this and we are pretending we are a licensed contractor, which we are not. Fifty dollars per hour per person is what an honest, careful, owner-operated crew costs in 2026 dollars. Anyone offering "$25/hr handyman work" is either uninsured, untrained, or about to disappear with the deposit.

The right price is the price that lets us show up next week, next month, and next year. $50/hr is that price for a Newark-based casual-labor crew. We make the math, the math makes us reliable.

What changes the price (the only things)

• Crew size — 1 to 4 people. Pick at booking.
• Hours — 1 hour minimum, 15-min blocks after.
• Pass-through materials — at cost only, with the receipt attached.

That is it. Slide the calculator on the homepage and the price you see is the price you pay. Bigger jobs, day rates, or recurring crews get a flat custom quote — same flat-rate principle, written down before we lift a finger.