Free Estimate Calculator

Add up your true direct costs — labor including burden, materials with markup, and job extras like equipment or disposal. Add a contingency for surprises if the job has any. That's your break-even, the floor you never quote below. Then add your profit on top: price = break-even × (1 + profit%). This calculator runs exactly that math as you type, and shows the result both ways — what you added on to your costs, and what share of the final price that leaves you — because the two numbers are easy to confuse and quoting on the wrong one is how a job loses money.

Burden is everything an hour of labor costs beyond the paycheck: payroll taxes (typically 8–10% of wages), workers' compensation (a few percent for low-risk trades, well over 15% for high-risk ones like roofing or concrete), liability insurance, and paid time off. All-in burden commonly lands between 15% and 40% on top of base pay — and forgetting it is one of the most common ways a profitable-looking job loses money. If you're solo and paying yourself, you can leave it at 0%.

Markup is a percentage added on top of your cost; margin is your share of the final price. Adding 100% on top — charging double your costs — is the same thing as a 50% margin. Quoting a markup when you mean a margin is one of the most common ways contractors underprice a job, so this calculator keeps it simple: you enter what you add on top — no cap — and it always shows what share of the final price that leaves you.

Work backward from your own numbers instead of copying competitors: add up what you want to earn in a year plus every cost of being in business, then divide by your realistic billable hours — most independent contractors of every kind bill far fewer hours than they work. That result is your floor. Local demand, licensing, and skill decide how far above it you can go.

Somewhere between 15% and 50% is common practice across the trades, and it isn't padding: the markup pays for sourcing time, supply runs, returns, warranty callbacks, and the money you float between buying materials and getting paid. If the customer supplies materials, price the labor accordingly — you still carry the workmanship risk.

Almost none of it is the work itself. It is being on site with nothing to do. The room is still occupied, the person who has to decide has not decided, the trade ahead of you finished late, the badge was not waiting at the desk, or the building only opens to contractors inside a window and the freight elevator is already booked.

Then the supply house. The special order quoted at a week arrives in three, the will-call order was never actually pulled, and the freight delivery has a window rather than an appointment. A change the customer asked for on Tuesday sits in their approval chain until Friday while your week is already committed.

The first day of a commercial job often goes to safety orientation, badging and a hazard analysis that nobody mentioned while the scope was being written. And a site that is shared runs on everyone else's pace: a floor being cleaned, a delivery blocking the dock, or a tenant who cannot be disturbed until after five all cost hours that no line item is currently claiming.

Most of what gets billed here is time, and materials are a tail rather than the main event. That tail is consumables and small hardware. Blades, fasteners, tape, sealant and a box of gloves get bought a handful at a time and never written down anywhere, so they leave with the job.

Special orders are where real money moves. A non-stock item usually cannot go back without a restocking charge, and if the customer changes their mind after it ships you are the one holding it. Freight and fuel surcharges land on the supplier invoice days after you have already sent yours, so hold the job open until the supplier bill arrives instead of reconciling it later.

Customer-supplied material is its own category. Count it and inspect it on delivery, because short counts and freight damage are found by you, on the clock, on the morning you planned to install. And anything held in stock for a customer is money you are carrying for them: material bought early against a price rise is a sound decision, but it is a decision worth recording on the job it belongs to.

Free and unlimited, no account needed. The math runs in your browser and your pricing setup saves only on your own device — we never see your numbers. Printing or sending the estimate it makes counts as a document: your first 2 are free, with no account.