For cities, rural water districts, sanitary districts and municipal electric utilities

Know what your water, sewer, electric and garbage rates need to be — and why.

Upload your audits and budget. RateWorks builds the full-cost revenue requirement for each utility fund, tests it against your loan covenants and reserves, and turns it into a rate schedule and a board report. Updated whenever you need it, for a fraction of the cost of an engineering rate study.

Full-costAWWA M1 · WEF · NARUC methods

Every fundwater, sewer, electric, garbage

Reviewedby a registered municipal advisor, on request

Request access See the demo See how it works

Quick rate check Free · no email needed

A screening number for one fund. The portal does the real work.

Annual operating expense $$

Annual debt payments $$

Active accounts

Gallons billed per year

Base charge $ / month$

Volumetric rate $ / 1,000 gal$

—revenue at today's rates

—rough full-cost requirement

—

Requirement = O&M + debt × 1.2 coverage + 10% for reserves and replacement.

Why now

The cost of running a utility is moving faster than the rate studies that set it

Water, sewer, electric or garbage, the pattern is the same: costs move every year and rates move every few. Utilities that adjust a little every year keep up and spare their customers the shock of a large increase. That takes a model that is current every year, not a study every five.

+54%

Rise in what households pay for water, sewer and trash service since 2015, about 4% a year, ahead of overall inflation every year of the decade.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index, water and sewer and trash collection services, via FRED

+32%

Rise in the average residential electricity price from 2020 to 2025. Wholesale power, the largest cost of a municipal electric, moves with it.

U.S. Energy Information Administration data, July 2020 to July 2025, via S&P Global

$1.25T

Water and wastewater infrastructure the nation needs over the next 20 years: $625 billion for drinking water and $630 billion for clean water, much of it pipe in small systems.

EPA 7th Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey, 2023, and 2022 Clean Watersheds Needs Survey

3–5 yrs

The usual gap between formal rate studies. Costs, loans and customers change every year in between, and most small systems adjust rates only when something forces it.

Industry practice; RateWorks reviews rates every budget season

Aerial view of a small town's main street with church steeples and brick storefronts — Small systems carry the same covenants, reserves and replacement costs as big ones — with a fraction of the staff.

How it works

Four steps from your audit to adopted rates

Upload what you have

Three to five years of audits, this year's budget, your rate ordinance, loan agreements, and the usage reports from your billing system or plant. PDF, Excel or CSV.

Confirm what we read

RateWorks maps every number to the model and shows you where it came from. You accept or correct before anything is calculated.

See the fund's health

Coverage, days of cash, what the general fund has been covering, whether the model ties to the audit, and the five-year requirement with each cost laid out. The model lives on the RateWorks server under your access code and saves itself.

Adopt with confidence

A phased rate schedule inside the increase your council will accept, sample bills, a plain-language board report with the ordinance exhibit, and next year’s budget built from the same numbers.

Every subscriber's first model is reviewed by AMKO Advisors before it goes to a council. You are not alone with a spreadsheet.

Demo

Walk through it on a sample city

A guided tour of the portal on Walsh Rapids, a fictional small city with water, sewer and garbage: drop in an audit, confirm what was read, see the fund's health, the rate schedule, the household bill, the board report and the ordinance, then a year-later update. About four minutes, no sign-in needed, and nothing you do in it is kept.

Start the tour Download the sample audit

What it covers

One model per fund, one picture of the whole utility

A formal rate study does five things once every three to five years: review the history, debt and capital plan; test whether today's schedule raises enough; calculate rates; check that operating revenue is sufficient; and explain it all to the council and the public. RateWorks does the same five things, continuously, from the city's own documents.

Aerial view of water treatment tanks — Sewer & treatment

Electric substation disconnect switches against a blue sky — Municipal electric

Red fire hydrant on a brick sidewalk — Distribution & fire protection

Water

Wells, treatment or purchased water; base charge by meter size; uniform, block or seasonal rates.

Sewer

Billed on water use or winter average; high-strength surcharges; lagoon and plant capital.

Electric

Purchased power priced from the wholesale contract; customer, energy and demand charges by class; a class cost of service after the NARUC manual.

Garbage & solid waste

Contract hauler pass-through, container fees, landfill and transfer costs.

Debt and new borrowing

USDA, SRF and revenue bond coverage and reserve tests every forecast year, and a proposed loan at the program’s terms to see what it does to rates.

Shared costs

Clerk, shop, vehicles, audit and council costs allocated across funds so no fund quietly subsidizes another.

Capital plan

Every project across the city with funding by year and an adoption timeline; Minnesota’s capital improvement bond tests for counsel to confirm.

Budget Builder

Next year’s budget in your own chart of accounts, each line projected from the model: sales at the rate schedule, power from the contract, debt from the loan schedule. It says whether rates cover it.

Your documents, tied to the audit

Audits, budgets, ordinances, loan schedules and billing workbooks read once and confirmed by you; revenue at the audited year’s rates checked against the audit.

Methods

Built on the manuals you and your lender already know

Every number in RateWorks comes from a published method, cited on the page and in the report. Nothing is a proprietary black box, and nothing is adopted until the council chooses it.

Water

Full-cost revenue requirement on the cash-needs basis: AWWA Manual M1, the EPA small-system guide and RCAP’s Formulate Great Rates. Base charge by meter capacity; uniform or block rates; non-revenue water with the authorized-use split.

Sewer

The same requirement with WEF Manual of Practice 27: winter-average, metered or flat billing, inflow and infiltration, high-strength surcharges carried forward from the ordinance.

Electric

Cash-needs requirement with purchased power from the wholesale contract. Class cost of service after the NARUC manual (1992) and RAP’s Electric Cost Allocation for a New Era (2020); the general fund transfer benchmarked to APPA’s Public Power Pays Back.

Garbage

Contract pass-through adequacy: does the monthly charge still cover the hauler, tipping and billing as the contract escalates.

Debt, reserves and the lender view

Coverage and reserve covenants as the loan documents write them, USDA, SRF, Bank of North Dakota and revenue bonds, tested every forecast year, and a scorecard built the way a rating analyst reads a fund, labeled as information rather than a rating.

Assumptions you can see

Every assumption is checked against the guidance and flagged in the report when it falls outside it, with each inflation rate beside the fund’s own cost history so the council can compare them.

State specifics

The model knows the rules where you are. For example: North Dakota’s Operation Prairie Dog distributions treated as one-time infrastructure money, and Minnesota capital improvement bonds with the plan, notice, vote and petition tests, for the city attorney to confirm. Other states’ rules are added as cities there join.

Associations and references

For municipal electrics, the American Public Power Association: its free Statistical Report, Public Power Pays Back and rate design case studies; regionally, the Minnesota Municipal Utilities Association.

Reviewed, on request

The debt, coverage and reserve calculations are reviewed by AMKO Advisors, LLC, a registered municipal advisor, and a reviewed rate recommendation or a review of a proposed financing is one button away from the report.

Compared with a rate study

More than a rate study, for less than one

A traditional study hands you a report every few years and leaves. RateWorks is a living model of your utilities: the rate study, the Board report, the questions only the city can answer, and next year's budget in your own chart of accounts, current every year as the audit and the budget land. Here is the difference, line by line.

	A traditional rate study	AMKO RateWorks
What you get	A report and a presentation, true on the day it is delivered.	A living model you work in: revenue requirement, proposed rates, the ordinance, the Board report, the Budget Builder, the capital plan and the questions for the city.
How often	Every three to five years, if the council funds it. Nothing in between.	Every year. Drop the new audit and budget on the Documents page and the whole model moves with them.
What it costs	Typically five figures per study, more for a larger system or an electric cost-of-service study, repeated each time.	$1,500 to $8,000 a year, all funds, nothing held back. Less than one study spread over the years between studies.
When something changes	A change order and a wait.	Right away. Lose a large customer, add a subdivision, take a loan, change an assumption: the rates, the reports and the budget rewrite themselves while you watch.
Reports	One presentation at the end.	Ready any time, for staff, the board, the council and the lender: a Board report the council reads in five minutes, the full report with every source, a lender's scorecard, and the combined household bill, all built from the model as it stands today.
Rate ordinance	You draft it from the report.	Drafted for you. The proposed schedule becomes a rate ordinance or resolution ready for counsel and the council.
Your budget	Not included.	Built every year in your chart of accounts, from the adopted book, at current rates and at the standard side by side.
Capital plan	A list in an appendix.	A capital improvement plan the rates pay for: every project with its year, cost and funding, the debt and reserves it needs, and what it does to the bill.
Who holds the model	The consultant, in a spreadsheet that goes stale the year after.	You. On the AMKO server under your access code, with version history and a record of what changed, and exportable as a file any time.
Support	The consultant's hourly rate.	Inside the portal. The Questions page tells you what the model needs from the city; when you need a person, AMKO opens your model and sees exactly what you see.
A municipal advisor	Sometimes, at the consultant's rate.	When you want one. AMKO Advisors reviews the model, signs the memo, or does the rate work for a financing, priced on its own below.

Study fees are not quoted here because they vary with the city, the consultant and the scope. Ask what your last study cost and how many years it has served; that is the comparison that matters.

Pricing

Priced for any city's budget

An annual subscription priced by the size of your system and the number of utilities you run. Every subscriber gets the whole portal. The only things that cost extra are things a person does.

Small system

$1,500 / year

Under 1,000 connections · one utility

Second utility+ $750

Third utility+ $750

All four funds$3,000 / year

The whole portal, nothing held back
Six-month free trial, through your next budget adoption

Request access

Mid-size system

$2,500 / year

1,000 – 5,000 connections · one utility

Second utility+ $1,250

Third utility+ $1,250

All four funds$5,000 / year

The whole portal, nothing held back
Six-month free trial, through your next budget adoption

Request access

Larger system

$4,000 / year

5,000 – 25,000 connections · one utility

Second utility+ $2,000

Third utility+ $2,000

All four funds$8,000 / year

The whole portal, nothing held back
Six-month free trial, through your next budget adoption

Request access

More than 25,000 connections? Larger systems are priced on request, by the system and the utilities it runs. Ask for pricing and tell us the size.

Every subscription includes

The document reader, Financial history, Customers & usage, Debt & covenants, Capital & reserves, the revenue requirement and five-year forecast, proposed rates and the rate ordinance, the Board report and full report, the Budget Builder, Questions for the city, the combined household bill, unlimited updates, and your model kept on the AMKO server with version history. One access code per city; your whole office can use it. Set it up yourself at no charge, or have AMKO build it.

Before you start

What to have ready: the audits, budget, ordinance, loan schedules and billing reports RateWorks reads, in one printable list, whichever way you start.

See the list

People, not features

Work done by a person at AMKO Advisors, LLC, a registered municipal advisor, is priced on its own. Nothing in the portal is held back to sell it.

AMKO builds your model

$2,000 one time · waived on a trial

We build it from your documents, tie it to your audit, and hand it over ready to use. What to have ready.

One-time rate study

$5,000 small

$7,500 mid-size · $12,500 larger

Build, municipal advisor review, Board report and a signed memo, with no subscription. Credited against your first year if you subscribe within twelve months.

Add next year's budget, built in your chart of accounts: $1,000.

Annual review

$2,500 per city, per year

Plus $750 for each fund beyond two. Includes the budget review.

A municipal advisor reads your model, Board report and budget each year, sends a letter of findings, and talks it through on one call.

Budget review

$500 per fund

A municipal advisor reads the fund's Budget Builder output against the model before the council sees it, with a short note and one call. Included in the annual review.

Signed rate memo for adoption

$1,500 per fund

The memo your council and auditor expect behind a rate ordinance, signed by AMKO Advisors.

Rate analysis for a financing

Quoted with the financing

The rate work a bond, USDA or SRF loan requires, delivered under AMKO's municipal advisor registration.

Billed annually in advanceRenews with thirty days' notice either wayPrice locked for three years from signingNo per-user feesPilot cities keep their founding priceTerms of use

Questions

What clerks and auditors ask us

Stacks of paper documents and file folders in a municipal office

What do we need to get started?

Your last three audits, this year's budget, the current rate ordinance, loan agreements, and an annual usage report from your billing system. A first result usually takes one sitting.

Our audit lumps water and sewer together. Is that a problem?

It is common. RateWorks flags it, asks a few questions to split the funds, and shows you the split for confirmation. The model never runs on a guess.

How is this different from the free tools online?

Free spreadsheets do the arithmetic and leave you alone with it. RateWorks reads your documents, tests your actual loan covenants, keeps the model current every year, and puts a municipal advisor's review behind the number.

Is this municipal advice?

The portal is software and general information. Its debt service, coverage and reserve calculations are reviewed by AMKO Advisors, LLC, a municipal advisor registered with the SEC and the MSRB, and a reviewed rate recommendation is available on request. Advice on whether, when or how to borrow, and any analysis tied to a bond issue or loan, is delivered by AMKO Advisors as municipal advisor work under a separate engagement, with the usual documentation.

Who can see our documents?

Only the people who hold your access code, and AMKO reviewers you ask to look. Your model is kept on the RateWorks server under that code; one person can be signed in with it at a time, and every save keeps a version AMKO can restore for you. Documents you upload are read for their figures and are not stored on the RateWorks server; the pages go to the reader's service for the read only, are not used to train anything, and are deleted there within 30 days. Your model is deleted on request.

Does RateWorks use AI?

In one place: the document reader. When you drop an audit, budget, billing register or loan document on the Documents page, the reader uses AI to find the figures and shows each one with the page it came from. Nothing enters the model until you confirm it. Everything after that is fixed arithmetic: the revenue requirement, the forecast, the rate design, the Budget Builder, the questions and the reports are formulas in code, and no AI writes a number into your model or a sentence into a report. The pages you upload go to the reader's service for the read only; they are not used to train anything and are deleted there within 30 days. Your documents are not stored on the RateWorks server; only the figures you apply are saved with your model.

Can it do our electric utility?

Yes, for a municipal utility that buys power at wholesale. The electric fund uses the same five steps as water, with kWh, demand charges and a purchased power line priced from the supplier contract, and a simplified class cost of service after the NARUC and RAP cost allocation manuals. It is a screening allocation labeled as such; a city moving large costs between classes should confirm it with a full cost-of-service study, and the report says so.

Our SRF or USDA loan requires a rate study. Does this count?

Most lenders accept a full-cost rate analysis prepared by a qualified advisor. The AMKO-reviewed report is written to meet those requirements; tell us the lender and we will confirm.

Request access

Tell us about your system

We'll send an access code and a short checklist of documents to upload.

City or district

State

Your name

Connections

Funds

Anything driving the timing? optional

I have read the Terms of Use and accept them on behalf of my organization.

Sends your request to AMKO. We reply within one business day, or email info@amkorateworks.com.

Already have an access code?

Open the portal

You will enter your access code on the next screen. Your model is kept on the RateWorks server under that code, so it opens from any computer you sign in on. One person can be signed in with a code at a time.