A contractor estimate template does two jobs. It adds up what the job really costs you, then turns that number into a one-page estimate your client can sign. Do the cost side first, because a tidy form on a wrong number is still a wrong number.
We make a contractor estimate template and sell it in our shop, PaperworkLighter. This guide stands on its own. The steps, the worked example and the calculator below are free, and they work with any spreadsheet, including one you build yourself.
Most estimate forms carry the same pieces. Check yours against this list.
The "not included" list does quiet work. Anything you leave off it is something the client may assume you priced.
A form with all of that is the easy half. The hard half is the number at the bottom of the price lines.
A price you can defend comes from a short chain. Find what one billable hour costs you. Find the overhead each of those hours has to carry. Add up the job's own lines. Add your markup. Then check the result against break-even.
A wage is not a cost. Payroll taxes and workers comp sit on top of it. Paid time off is paid but not worked. Driving, loading the truck and going back for a part are paid too, and none of that is billable. So a worker's yearly cost is spread over fewer hours than they are paid for.
The share of worked hours you can bill is the hardest input to guess, and it is easy to guess too high. If you have never measured it, start lower than it feels and correct it once you have real numbers. Take tax and workers comp rates from your own payroll records, because they vary by state, trade and year.
Here is one sample worker. The numbers are invented for the example, and the rates are placeholders. Yours will differ.
| Base wages, $34.00 an hour for 2,080 paid hours | $70,720.00 |
|---|---|
| Employer payroll taxes, 9.65 percent of wages | $6,824.48 |
| Workers comp, $9.20 per $100 of payroll | $6,506.24 |
| Benefits and other direct labor cost | $6,150.00 |
| Yearly cost of this worker | $90,200.72 |
| Billable hours, 1,920 worked hours at an 82 percent billable share | 1,574 |
| Cost of one billable hour | $57.31 |
A $34.00 wage became a $57.31 hour. If you bid at the wage, every hour of labor in the estimate is short by the difference.
Overhead is the yearly cost that exists whether or not you are on a job: insurance, the truck, tools, phone, software, the yard, the accountant, your license, marketing, bank fees. The line people leave off is their own pay for non-billable time: estimating, ordering, driving, paperwork. Add up the year, then divide by the billable hours your whole crew can bill.
In the same sample, for a crew of three, twelve overhead lines add up to $62,700.00 a year. The crew has 4,286 billable hours. That is $14.63 of overhead for every billable hour.
Break-even is every cost of the job plus the share of your year it uses, and nothing else. It is not your price. It is the line under your price. A bid at break-even means you worked the job to stay level.
Then add your markup to the cost of your own work. Markup and margin are not the same number. Markup is a percentage of your cost. Margin is a percentage of the price.
| If you add this markup | You keep this margin |
|---|---|
| 10 percent | 9.1 percent |
| 20 percent | 16.7 percent |
| 25 percent | 20.0 percent |
| 50 percent | 33.3 percent |
| 100 percent | 50.0 percent |
Read it backward when you have a margin in mind. Keeping 20 percent of the price takes a 25 percent markup.
A full bathroom gut. Sample numbers, invented for the example. Labor is priced task by task at each worker's own cost per billable hour: $57.31, $41.60 and $28.33 for the three people on the sample crew.
| Materials, waste included | $4,230.00 |
|---|---|
| Labor, 82 hours | $3,549.38 |
| Equipment: dumpster and haul away | $420.00 |
| Permits and fees | $285.00 |
| Overhead on the job, 82 labor hours at $14.63 | $1,199.58 |
| Cost of your own work | $9,683.96 |
| Licensed plumber and electrician, what you pay them | $2,630.00 |
| Break-even | $12,313.96 |
| Your own work with a 22 percent markup | $11,814.43 |
| The two licensed trades as bid, with 15 percent on their own line | $3,024.50 |
| Bid total | $14,838.93 |
| Estimate to the client, rounded to the nearest $50 | $14,850 |
The overhead rate carries its cents. Multiply 82 hours by the exact rate and you get $1,199.58. Multiply by the rounded $14.63 and you get $1,199.66. That difference is rounding.
Now check it. After every cost and all of the overhead, the bid leaves $2,524.97. That is 17.0 percent of the bid. The 22 percent markup on your own work, by itself, is an 18.0 percent margin.
The deposit to schedule the work is 30 percent in the sample: $4,455, leaving a balance of $10,395.
The client does not need to see your markup or your overhead. They need price lines that add up to the total. Here is the sample estimate as the client reads it.
| Materials and supplies | $5,164.45 |
|---|---|
| Labor | $5,798.05 |
| Licensed trades | $3,026.76 |
| Equipment and disposal | $512.78 |
| Permits and fees | $347.96 |
| Estimate total | $14,850.00 |
Each line carries its share of markup and overhead, so the five lines add to the rounded total.
Type over the sample numbers. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
If you would rather not build this in a spreadsheet, our Contractor Estimate Template does the whole chain for you and prints the one-page estimate.
See the Contractor Estimate TemplateThen do the thing a spreadsheet cannot. Compare the bid with jobs you have actually finished. A big gap means either your old numbers rested on assumptions nobody wrote down, or an input here is wrong. Both are worth ten minutes.
The signed estimate covers the scope on the page. A change after that gets its own number and its own signature, before the work starts. A change with no number and no signature is free work. Our change order form guide shows how to price one.
Check your own numbers. Tax rates, workers comp rates, license fees and permit costs vary by state, by trade and by year. Confirm every rate against your own records and your own advisers before you rely on a price. Have an attorney in your state read anything you ask a client to sign.
The Contractor Estimate Template is $19, one time. It is a digital download of four files in one zip:
You enter each worker's pay once, and the yearly overhead once. The sheet works out the cost of a billable hour and the overhead each hour carries. On the Bid Sheet you enter materials with a waste factor, labor hours by task, subcontractors, equipment and permits. You see break-even, markup and margin side by side, and the bid. The Client Estimate tab then fills in the scope, price lines, total, deposit, terms and signature lines on one printable page.
It works in Excel 2007 or newer and in Google Sheets, with standard formulas and no macros. It also opens in the Excel and Google Sheets phone apps. No sheet is protected and no cell is locked, so you can change any label or formula. The files open on a worked sample, and every sample figure is invented. It is a calculation tool, not accounting, tax or legal advice, and it does not tell you what to charge.
See the Contractor Estimate Template, $19 The same file on Etsy
This guide was drafted with the help of AI tools and checked against the product's own files. The numbers in it are invented examples.