How to Calculate Equipment Cost Per Hour for Heavy Civil Bids To calculate equipment cost per hour, add a machine's ownership costs (depreciation, cost of money, insurance, taxes, and storage) to its operating costs (fuel, lube, repairs, and wear items), then divide each annual cost by the hours the machine actually works. The operator, overhead, and profit are added separately. That sounds simple, and on paper it is. In practice, an hourly equipment rate is one of the easies