Price a job

Contractor Pricing Suite: Price Every Job for Profit

ProfitBid is a free pricing suite for remodelers and small contractors: enter your job cost and target margin and get the correct sell price instantly. The most common pricing mistake in contracting is confusing markup with margin — a 30% markup is only a 23.08% margin.

No sign-up, no upload. Everything runs in your browser and autosaves locally. Built for solo and small-crew owners who have finished a job, looked at the bank balance, and wondered where the profit went.

Free — no sign-up100% in your browser30% markup = only 23% margin

Markup / Margin Calculator

The trap: If your cost is $10,000 and you “add 30%”, you charge $13,000 and keep $3,000 — that is a 23.08% margin, not 30%. To keep 30% you must charge $14,286. On ten $50,000 jobs a year, that one mistake leaves roughly $25,000 on the table.

Every tool in the suite

Contractor Markup CalculatorDifferent markups for materials, labor and subs, blended into one price. Markup vs Margin CalculatorConvert both ways and see the full reference table. Burdened Labor Cost CalculatorYour wage is not your cost — find the true hourly number. Job Costing CalculatorBudget vs actual, line by line, so the next bid learns from the last job. Construction Estimate GeneratorGood / Better / Best estimates your client can actually say yes to. Painting Estimate CalculatorRooms, coats, coverage and markup to a client price in minutes.

Why contractors underbid — and how this fixes it

Answer first: Contractors underbid mainly for three reasons — they confuse markup with margin, they price labor at the wage instead of the burdened cost, and they never compare budget to actual after the job. ProfitBid attacks all three with one free tool per leak.

Start with the markup calculator above for the price, the burdened labor calculator for your real crew cost, and job costing after every job. Estimates built on those numbers stop leaking. A healthy close rate is roughly 30-50% of qualified leads; winning 80-90% usually means you are the cheapest, not the best.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between markup and margin?

Markup is added on top of cost; margin is the share of the sell price you keep. A 30% markup on $10,000 of cost gives a $13,000 price and only a 23.08% margin. To keep a true 30% margin you must divide cost by 0.70, giving $14,286.

How do I price a job to hit a target margin?

Use Sell Price = Total Cost / (1 - Target Margin). Add up materials, burdened labor, subcontractors, permits and job costs first, then divide. Never add the margin percentage on top of cost — that is markup, and it under-prices every job.

Is ProfitBid free?

Yes. All calculators and the estimate generator on this site are free, with no sign-up. Pro is planned at $39 one-time and is not on sale yet; no payment is collected.

Where does my job data go?

Nowhere. ProfitBid runs entirely in your browser. Numbers you type are processed on your device and saved only in your browser local storage. Nothing is uploaded to a server.

What is burdened labor cost?

It is the true hourly cost of an employee: base wage plus employer payroll taxes, workers compensation, insurance, benefits, and the cost of non-billable hours spread over billable hours. It is commonly 25-50% above the wage.