Job Estimate Template for Contractors

Use the same layout for every job, so each estimate can be checked against what the job really cost.

Wages are only part of what an employee costs. In June 2026, benefits made up 30.0% of private employers' compensation costs per hour worked¹, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Cost one field employee for a full year, counting wages for every paid hour, holidays and vacation included. The IRS puts the employer's share of Social Security and Medicare at 6.2% and 1.45% of wages². Federal unemployment tax is 6.0% of each employee's first $7,000, or 0.6% after the maximum state credit³. Add state unemployment, workers' compensation, benefits, and the van, tools and insurance that follow the person.

Divide by billable hours: paid hours less holidays, vacation, travel between jobs, training, warranty callbacks and shop time. Take them from a year of timesheets, since every billable hour you overcount makes an hour look cheaper than it is.

Divide that $119,205 by all 2,080 paid hours and an hour seems to cost $57.31, a quarter less than it really does. If your estimates use $65 an hour, you're $11.41 short on every hour you bill: about $17,800 a year for this one technician.

Weighing a subcontractor against a hire? A contractor vs employee cost comparison prices both per hour of real work.

Estimate labor task by task, then multiply by your hours factor for that job type. The factor is the actual hours on finished jobs of that type divided by the hours you estimated for them.

Keep one factor per job type. In the template's made-up electrical firm, nine service calls ran 23.6% over their estimated hours, and six panel upgrades ran 2.5% over. A service call is priced before anyone knows the fault, while a panel upgrade is specified first. One blanket uplift would underprice the calls and overprice the upgrades.

Treat a factor from fewer than five jobs as provisional. Price materials from current supplier quotes, with a waste allowance where the material needs one, and mark any figure you had to guess.

Markup is a percentage added to cost. Margin is the share of the price left after the job's costs. You get it by dividing markup by one plus markup, so a 30% markup keeps 23.1%. Markup is margin divided by one minus margin, so keeping 30% takes a 42.9% markup.

Your markup has to cover what the hourly cost leaves out, such as the office, software, advertising and your time on estimates, plus profit. To reach a lower price, cut the markup, never the hours, so your cost records stay true.

An assumption is a condition your price depends on. It needs three parts: the condition, what happens to the price if it fails, and who checks it and when. "Price subject to site conditions" has none. "Assumes the meter base is sound, which our electrician checks on the first morning; a replacement is quoted separately" has all three.

Exclusions name work a client might expect that isn't included, such as patching and painting after you open walls, hazardous materials and structural work. In a US home built before 1978, ask whether the job will disturb paint. The EPA generally requires anyone paid for that work to be certified in lead-safe work practices⁴.

Give the price an end date with a reason, such as the supplier quote behind it that expires first. Tie payments to stages of the job, not calendar dates, and check deposit limits where you work. In California, the Contractors State License Board says a home improvement down payment can't exceed $1,000 or 10% of the contract price, whichever is less⁵.

Agree every change and its price on a written change order before doing the work. If you sign jobs in clients' homes, the FTC's Cooling-Off Rule gives buyers three days to cancel certain sales of $25 or more made at home⁶. You must tell them about that right at the time of sale. Put the binding terms in a service agreement the client signs.

When a job finishes, put its actual hours, materials and permits beside the estimate. Count signed change orders as part of the estimate, not as overruns.

Then split the labor difference, because each part has its own fix. The hours error is the extra hours times the rate you estimated with. The rate error is the gap between your true hourly cost and that rate, times the hours worked. Together they make up the whole labor difference.

Log every bid, won or lost, with its markup. A bid is worth the win rate at its markup times the margin a win brings. In the template's made-up firm, bids at a 40% markup won a third of the time, so each was worth about $657 in margin, against $876 at 20%. The bids at each markup mix job types, though, and win rates measured at old prices are a guide, not a forecast.

The template on this page has the layout, notes and sheets described here. Edit with AI opens it in River, which builds your hourly cost first.