Free Contractor Calculators
Know your numbers. Price your work better. Run a more profitable business.
Running a contracting business involves a lot more math than most of us expected when we first learned the trade. What does a $25-per-hour employee really cost? How much profit did you actually make on that last job? How much revenue does your crew need to produce every day? And when the job is finished, did you actually make what you expected?
Find the Calculator You Need
Whether you’re figuring out what an employee really costs, pricing your next project, or reviewing why a completed job missed its margin, start with the calculator that matches what you’re trying to solve.
LABOR & CREWS
Understand what your people actually cost — and what your crews need to produce.
Contractor Labor Burden Calculator
Calculate payroll taxes, workers’ compensation, overtime and other labor burden added to employee wages.
Employee True Cost Calculator
Calculate employee costs hourly & yearly after wages, payroll burden, benefits and other employee expenses.
Effective Labor Rate Calculator
Calculate the effective cost of each productive labor hour after labor burden and nonproductive paid time.
Contractor Crew Day-Rate Calculator
Calculate what your crew costs per day and what it needs to produce to support your pricing goals.
PRICING & PROFIT
Turn your costs into prices that actually produce the margin you expect.
Contractor Markup Calculator
Convert job cost into selling price and see the difference between markup and gross margin.
Contractor Profit & Margin Calculator
Enter project revenue and costs to calculate gross profit, gross margin and markup.
Overhead Recovery Calculator
Calculate how much overhead each productive labor hour, crew day, or job must cover.
BUSINESS PLANNING
Turn annual expenses and profit goals into real production targets.
Contractor Break-Even Calculator
Calculate how much annual, monthly, weekly and daily revenue your business needs just to break even.
Contractor Revenue Goal Calculator
Determine the sales your company and crews need to cover overhead and reach your profit goal.
JOB COSTING
Estimate the job, track the real costs and learn from what actually happened.
Equipment Cost Calculator
Calculate the true hourly and daily cost of owned equipment after depreciation, fuel, maintenance, insurance.
Contractor Job Cost Calculator
Combine labor, materials, equipment and other costs to calculate total job cost and target selling price.
Estimate vs Actual Job Cost Calculator
Compare estimated costs with actual project costs to see where gross profit and margin were gained or lost.
The Contractor Profitability Loop
A good estimate should get better every time you complete a job.
Estimating isn’t a one-way process. The numbers from completed jobs should feed back into the assumptions you use to price future work.
Know Your True Costs
Understand what labor, equipment, materials and subcontractors actually cost your business.
Estimate the Job
Build an estimate using realistic quantities, production rates and direct costs.
Price for Margin
Set a selling price that generates enough gross profit to support overhead and profit.
Perform the Job
Execute the work and track the labor, materials and equipment actually used.
Record Actual Costs
Capture what you really spent on labor, materials, equipment, subcontractors and other direct expenses.
Compare Estimate vs Actual
Find overruns, savings and margin differences between what you expected and what actually happened.
Learn — Then Estimate Better
Use completed-job data to improve labor assumptions, material allowances, production rates, equipment costs and pricing.
The bottom line:
Job costing isn’t finished when the invoice is paid. The actual results should feed directly back into your labor assumptions, material allowances, equipment rates, production expectations and pricing for the next job.
Estimate → Perform → Measure → Learn → Estimate Better.
That’s how job costing becomes a system instead of something you do only after a bad job.
Need to Calculate Materials Instead?
Sometimes you don’t need business math. You just need to know how much material to order. Use our free construction and landscaping calculators to estimate quantities for real projects.
Gravel Calculator
Calculate cubic yards & estimated tons of gravel.
Topsoil Calculator
Estimate cubic yards of topsoil for lawns, grading & planting beds.
Concrete Calculator
Calculate cubic yards of concrete & estimated bags needed.
Paver Base Calculator
Estimate compacted base, needed for paver projects.
Mulch Calculator
Calculate cubic yards or bags of mulch based on area and depth.
Drainage Stone Calculator
Estimate cubic yards & tons of stone for French drains and trenches.
Built From Real Contracting Experience
Because knowing the formula and running the business aren’t always the same thing.
The Common Contractor wasn’t created to explain contracting from the outside looking in.
The tools and resources on this site are shaped by the same questions I’ve had to answer while running a contracting business:
What does an employee really cost after everything else is added to the wage?
How much should a crew produce every day?
How much overhead does each job need to carry?
Why did a project that looked profitable on the estimate make less money than expected?
How do you price work aggressively enough to win jobs without discovering later that you worked for almost nothing?
Some of those answers involve formulas. Others come from experience.
The Common Contractor exists to bring the two together and make the business side of contracting easier for other small contractors to understand.
No MBA required. No accounting degree required. Just practical tools and straightforward explanations built around the numbers contractors actually deal with.
Contractor Business Resources
The calculator gives you the number. Understanding the number helps you use it.
Our contractor business resources go deeper into estimating, labor, pricing, operations and the lessons that come from actually running a contracting business.
What Does a $25-an-Hour Employee Really Cost?
An employee’s wage is only the beginning. See what happens when payroll taxes, workers’ compensation and other labor costs are added to the equation.
How to Calculate Labor Burden for Construction Employees
Calculate the true cost of construction employees by accounting for payroll taxes, workers’ compensation, overtime and other labor burden beyond hourly wages.
Free Tools. Real Numbers. Better Decisions.
The Common Contractor is built to make the business side of contracting easier for small home-service contractors.
Build the most useful free toolbox possible for small home-service contractors.
Use the calculators. Read the resources. Run your numbers. Take what you learn back to your next estimate.