About UsTRUEHOUR is the financial operating system for equipment-based small businesses. It calculates your true Owning & Operating cost so you can price every job with confidence—not guesswork. The trusted source equipment owners run their business on.
About TRUEHOUR
Our Mission
Most contractors undercharge because they don't know their true equipment cost. TRUEHOUR exists to eliminate that guesswork—giving every owner-operator the same cost clarity that large fleet operations take for granted.
Know Your True Cost
Calculate every dollar of owning, operating, and overhead cost per hour or per mile.
Price With Confidence
Set rates based on reality—not guessing, not copying competitors who may be losing money.
Built for Operators
Designed for people who run equipment—not accountants, not enterprise fleets.
Who TRUEHOUR Is For
- Owner-operators who price work using equipment
- Micro-contractors running 1–3 machines
- Side-hustle equipment owners who need to know if they're profitable
- Growing small fleet owners managing 2–10 machines
- Spreadsheet users ready for a purpose-built financial OS
Built by Operators, for Operators
TRUEHOUR is developed by Walnut Flat LLC, a Tennessee-based company focused on building practical tools for equipment-based small businesses.
Every feature in TRUEHOUR is grounded in real-world equipment economics—depreciation, maintenance reserves, overhead allocation, and utilization modeling—because the people who built it understand what it's like to price a job from the seat of a machine.
The Methodology Behind TRUEHOUR
For 70 years, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has maintained the definitive standard for calculating equipment Owning & Operating costs. That standard became the foundation for the entire construction industry.
Associated General Contractors of America
equipment cost guidelines
Caterpillar Performance Handbook
the industry reference used worldwide
Associated Equipment Distributors
distributor cost frameworks
AACE International
the authority on cost engineering methodology
It is the gold standard reference for equipment cost calculation in the construction industry.
Traditional O&O calculations focused on machine-level costs: what the machine costs to own and run. But they never answered a critical question for small operators: how much of your rent, insurance, marketing, and office costs belong in every hour you bill?
TRUEHOUR's Business Overhead Center is that answer.
By automatically allocating business overhead across your fleet on a per-hour basis, TRUEHOUR makes overhead part of the hourly rate equation — not an afterthought. That is TRUEHOUR's meaningful advancement of the original framework: every hour priced with the whole business in mind.
What You Can Do With TRUEHOUR
One mobile-first workflow that combines true O&O cost modeling, real-time profitability analysis, AI-assisted cost guidance, and Schedule C tax-ready reporting.
Know your true cost per hour
Model depreciation, interest, insurance, fuel, maintenance, repairs, tires/tracks, consumables, overhead, and operator wage — rolled into one accurate hourly rate.
Price jobs with confidence
Build estimates with multi-unit line items — equipment, vehicle, labor, materials, flat fees, subcontracts, permits, non-productive time — and see the recommended billing rate before you send the quote.
See real-time profitability
Break-even rate, recommended hourly rate, sensitivity analysis, and profit margin at any billing rate — updated as you adjust.
Compare estimated vs. actual
Close the loop on every job. Find out where you bid too low, ran long, or burned margin — and bid smarter next time.
Get tax-ready in minutes
Every expense is dual-mapped to its Schedule C category and your O&O cost field, so January doesn't ambush you.
Use AI that respects your judgment
TRUEHOUR's AI suggests realistic cost ranges, fills gaps, and flags anomalies — but never overrides what you enter. You stay in control.
Compare against real-world benchmarks
Anonymized ranges from similar equipment show you where your costs land — without ever exposing your data.
Track machine health
A 0–100 health score surfaces utilization, downtime, repair clusters, and break-even risk before they become losses.
Mobile-first, rugged UI built for gloves, sunlight, and one-handed use on a job site.
Built by people who understand the job
TRUEHOUR is built by Walnut Flat LLC for the operators who don't have a CFO, a fleet manager, or a back-office accountant — just a machine, a phone, and a job to bid by Friday. Every screen, every number, and every AI suggestion is designed to make the next hour on your machine more profitable than the last.
Know your true hour. Charge what you're worth. Keep what you earn.
See TRUEHOUR in Action
Take the feature tour to see how TRUEHOUR calculates your true equipment cost per hour.
TRUEHOUR does not provide tax, legal, or accounting advice. Cost estimates are for informational purposes and should be verified with a financial professional.