The full contract amount — the signed number plus any signed change orders. What the customer pays, not what you wish you'd bid.
One number gets you the answer. Split it out to see which bucket is eating the job.
Everything the job itself cost: labor with taxes, comp, and burden; materials; subs; equipment; permits; dump runs. Leave your shop overhead out — it gets its own line below.
A year of rent, trucks, fuel, insurance, office, bookkeeping, and your own salary, divided by a year of sales. If you've never run that number, start with the default — then fix it tonight with your real books.
What the company keeps after job costs AND overhead. Your wages for swinging a hammer don't count — that's labor, not profit. That's a share of the job price (a margin, not a markup on cost).
Gross profit on this job
$7,500
Your gross margin
15.0%
The markup that equals
17.6%
Margin is profit ÷ price. Markup is profit ÷ cost. Same dollars, different bottom number — a 20% markup is only a 16.7% margin.
The margin you need (overhead + profit)
20.0%
Where this job stands
−5.0 pts
short of your line
Price that hits your margin
$53,125
$3,125 more than you charged
Markup that gets you there
25.0%
Markup Isn't Margin
Do you know the difference between markup and margin? A lot of good contractors don’t — a man can be a veteran carpenter and a rookie business man, and the price sheet is where it shows. Margin is profit divided by the PRICE. Markup is profit divided by the COST. Same dollars of profit, different bottom number — and the bottom number changes everything. You would need to markup 11.11% to get a 10% profit margin. The full conversion sits alongside this section.
So when a guy asks around — what is the typical markup everyone is charging? — hears “twenty percent,” and bids 20% over cost expecting to keep twenty, he’s short on every job he wins. And he wins plenty — low prices like that can’t be making any money. Bid with markup if that’s how your estimating works. Judge the job by margin. Working the numbers the other direction, from a cost and a target margin to a price? Browse the rest of the free calculators, or run it the other way with the contractor markup calculator.
MARGIN — profit divided by price
15.0%
MARKUP — profit divided by cost
17.6%
Same $7,500 of profit — the bar segments are identical. Only the bottom number changes, because the denominator does.
Margin to markup
This calculator is a snapshot. Your jobs are moving.
You typed in the numbers you remembered, and the tool did honest math on them. But the margin on a job in progress changes every day the crew works. SiteOps keeps these same numbers current on every job, updated as the work happens — labor from GPS-verified clock-ins, materials from receipts snapped at the supply house, extras from change orders — so you see the margin while there’s still time to protect it.
What Should Your Margin Be?
There’s no magic industry number, and this page isn’t going to invent one. Margin you need = overhead % of sales + profit % you want to keep. A lot of the guys asking should I be charging more have no clue what their true overhead costs are — and that’s usually where the profit went. Run the number once: add up a year of rent, shop, trucks, fuel, insurance, phones, bookkeeping, and your own salary, then divide by a year of sales. That’s your overhead percentage.
The calculator defaults to 10 and 10 because you have to start somewhere, but those are placeholders, not gospel — swap in your real numbers. Price under your line and you’re working for lunch money: busy all season, broke at year end. And volume won’t save a thin margin — thinking you’ll make it up in volume just loses it faster.
Margin you need
20.0%
These are editable placeholders, not a benchmark — swap in your real overhead and target profit.
A $50,000 Job, $3,125 Light
Take the calculator’s defaults. Job price $50,000, direct costs $42,500 — $24,000 in burdened labor and $18,500 in materials and subs. Gross profit is $50,000 minus $42,500, or $7,500 — a 15% margin. This job needed a 20% margin to cover 10% overhead and 10% profit: 42,500 divided by (1 minus 0.20) equals 53,125. The job was bid $3,125 light.
That’s not a rounding error — that’s a truck payment, and it repeats on every job priced the same way. Stack a year of those and you can be up to your neck in work and still sit at the kitchen table in January asking where did the money go. The fix is cheap: price from your required margin instead of a habit markup, and know your costs before you bid — the construction job costing calculator builds the cost number this page turns into a price.
The gap on one job
$3,125 light
The Margin Moves
This page prices the job standing still. Jobs don’t stand still — the estimate says 15%, then the slab takes another yard, a helper’s Tuesday lands on the wrong job, and a third supply run nobody wrote down eats into it. Losing money and not knowing it until much later is the default setting of this trade: the spreadsheet gets updated after the job closes, if at all, and by then the money is gone for good.
If your only scorecard is the January bank balance, you’re stuck answering the question every contractor hates: did you make money on that job, or just guess? The fix isn’t a better year-end autopsy. It’s a number that moves while the job is still open — labor cost as the hours happen, materials as the receipts show up, a running margin per job. That starts with GPS time tracking for construction crews putting real labor hours on the right job the day they’re worked.
?
another yard of concrete
?
a helper's day on the wrong job
?
a third supply run
?
added work never invoiced
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Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between margin and markup?
- Margin is profit as a share of the PRICE (profit ÷ price). Markup is profit as a share of the COST (profit ÷ cost). Same dollars, different bottom number: a 25% markup is a 20% margin, and you would need to markup 11.11% to get a 10% profit margin. To convert, markup = margin ÷ (1 − margin). Bid with whichever you like — judge the job by margin.
- What is a good profit margin for a construction job?
- There’s no universal number — trades, markets, and overhead differ too much, and anyone quoting one number doesn’t know your books. The honest floor is arithmetic: your overhead as a percentage of sales plus the profit you want the company to keep. Know your costs, run that sum, and that’s YOUR good margin. The calculator’s 10% + 10% defaults are a starting point to replace, not a benchmark.
- Should I be charging more?
- If your margin lands under your overhead-plus-profit line, yes — you’re not covering the cost of being in business. The warning signs: customers keep calling your price shockingly affordable, you win nearly every bid, and you’re flat-out busy with nothing left at year end. The low prices can’t be making any money. And if you thought maybe you were over charging — run your overhead number first; it’s usually the opposite.
- Do I include overhead in job costs?
- Not in the cost fields here. Job costs are what the job itself eats: burdened labor, materials, subs, equipment. Overhead — trucks, shop, insurance, office, your salary — goes in the overhead percentage, and the calculator builds it into the margin you need. If you spread overhead dollars to jobs, use the split view’s optional overhead line to also see what the job kept after overhead; the price-to-hit math still runs on direct costs, so nothing gets counted twice.
- Why did I lose money on a job that looked profitable?
- Because the estimate froze the numbers and the job kept moving: extra labor days, supply runs nobody logged, added work that never got billed, overhead that never got charged to any job. That’s how contractors end up losing money and not knowing it until much later — plenty of contractors who’ve lost money on a job saw a healthy margin on paper first. The fix is tracking cost against estimate while the job is open, not after it closes.
- How do I price a job to hit a target margin?
- Divide costs by (1 − target margin). With $42,500 in costs and a 20% target: $42,500 ÷ 0.80 = $53,125. Do NOT add 20% to costs — that’s markup, and it gives you $51,000, which is only a 16.7% margin. The calculator’s “price that hits your margin” line does this division for you, overhead included.
This calculator and everything on this page are general information for contractors — not accounting, tax, or legal advice. Every outfit’s overhead, labor burden, and books are set up differently, and a web page doesn’t know yours. The defaults are editable examples, not industry benchmarks. Before you change how you price work or report income, run the numbers past your CPA or accountant.
Know what the job made — before it’s over.
A calculator tells you what one job did, once, if your numbers were right. SiteOps tells you what every job is doing, today — GPS-verified time, receipts, and change orders rolling into a daily margin on every job. Priced by crew size, not per seat — $79/mo for a 10-man crew.