Pricing a job so you don't leave money on the table

A lot of pricing mistakes aren't about charging too little for the work itself — they're about forgetting to charge for everything around the work. Here's a straightforward way to check a number before you send it.

The four buckets every job should cover

1. Direct labor. Your time and any crew's time, at a real hourly rate — not what you'd like to make, what the job actually requires including setup and cleanup, not just the visible task.

2. Materials, at what you'll actually pay. Price them at today's cost, not last year's, and round up slightly for waste and the inevitable extra trip to the supply house.

3. Overhead. The costs that exist whether or not this specific job happens: your truck, insurance, tools, phone, any subscription or software you run the business on — including your My Local Hire membership. Most pros who price "labor + materials" and stop there are quietly not getting paid for any of this. A common rule of thumb is to add 10–20% of the labor-plus-materials total to cover overhead, adjusted for your actual fixed costs.

4. Profit. Not what's left over — a deliberate margin on top, because "what's left over" after an underpriced job is often nothing. 10–20% is a common range, but it depends on your trade, your risk, and your market.

Add a contingency for the unknown

Especially on remodeling, electrical, or plumbing work where you can't always see what's behind the wall — build in a small cushion (5–10% is common) for the thing you find once you open it up. This is also exactly why a clear, written scope matters: a documented contingency is normal; an unscoped surprise charge is what damages your Rehire Rate.

Sanity-check against the market

Once you've built the number from the ground up, check it against what similar jobs in your category typically go for locally. If you're consistently well under the market, you're probably underpricing overhead or profit, not just being competitive. If you're consistently well over, make sure homeowners understand why — see our guide on how homeowners compare quotes, so you know what they're actually looking at.

The habit that matters most

Track your actual hours and actual material cost against what you quoted, job after job. That gap — quoted vs. actual — is the fastest way to find out whether your pricing method is working, before it costs you a whole season's worth of margin.