Facility & commercial rate benchmarks · Houston
Commercial electrical rates in Houston.
Estimated median rate: $78/hr, range $57-$106/hr, for commercial and facility-side electrical work in Houston.
Estimated from O*NET OnLine (U.S. Dept. of Labor/ETA), from BLS OEWS metropolitan area wage estimates
Estimated median$78/hr
$57$106
What affects the rate
- Emergency vs scheduled: same-day or after-hours emergency calls run well above scheduled maintenance visits.
- After-hours and weekend work: typically carries a premium over standard business-hours rates.
- Contract vs ad-hoc: vendors on a standing contract usually price lower per hour than one-off, ad-hoc jobs.
- Code and certification requirements: trades with stricter local licensing (electrical, HVAC/gas) typically carry a premium tied to certification cost.
What's different in Houston
- Labour market: Texas is a right-to-work state with comparatively low union density in the trades; Houston's energy-sector economy also competes for skilled trades labor, which can pull wages up for some trades relative to Dallas.
- Climate and seasonality: Hot, humid climate drives sustained HVAC demand; hurricane and heavy-rain flooding exposure (as in Hurricane Harvey, 2017) can spike emergency plumbing, electrical, and roofing work sharply.
- Code and licensing: Texas has no single statewide contractor license for most trades (electrical excepted); licensing and permitting are municipal, and the Houston metro spans multiple separate permitting authorities.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this a real measured rate, or an estimate?
- This figure is an estimate, not a measured billed rate: it's Houston's own hourly wage for electrical work (O*NET OnLine (U.S. Dept. of Labor/ETA), from BLS OEWS metropolitan area wage estimates, 2025), multiplied by a documented 2.5-3x service multiplier that converts an employee wage into a billed commercial rate. That multiplier covers labour burden (payroll tax, workers' comp, benefits, PTO), overhead (vehicle, dispatch, insurance, licensing), utilisation (not every hour is billable), and margin. It is not drawn from actual invoices or job records. Evalystar is building toward measured, job-derived rates for this same page as real vendor data accumulates. Shown below, not hidden, so you can check the arithmetic.Wagex Multiplier= EstimateLow$22.71/hrx 2.5$57/hrMedian$28.45/hrx 2.75$78/hrHigh$35.44/hrx 3$106/hr
- Why a range instead of a single number?
- A single average hides the real spread in the underlying wage data and in the multiplier itself. We show the low, median, and high ends of the estimate so the range reflects that uncertainty honestly, rather than implying more precision than a modelled figure can support.
- Is this a residential or commercial rate?
- Commercial. This figure tracks facility-side electrical work for businesses, property managers, and multi-site operators in Houston. Commercial rates typically run above residential rates for the same trade, reflecting insurance, code compliance, and scheduling requirements that residential work doesn't carry.