Plug in revenue, materials, labor, and subs. See your real gross margin, your net profit after overhead, and where your job lands on the 30 / 35 / 45 scale.
Built for contractors16 trade benchmarksTakes 2 minutes
Your job inputs
Use the numbers from one specific job — your last completed job is best. Burdened labor means wages plus payroll taxes, workers' comp, and benefits. If you only know the unburdened rate, multiply it by 1.25 as a starting point.
$8,500
$2,800
18 hrs
Labor rateBurdened — wages plus taxes plus benefits
$55/hr
$800
Overhead %Office, insurance, truck — share of revenue
18%
Untagged receipts %Receipts that hit the bank feed but were never tagged to this job
5%
Direct cost breakdown
Direct cost
$4,590
Materials + labor + subs
Gross profit
$3,910
Revenue minus direct cost
Margin and profit
Gross margin
46%
Gross profit divided by revenue
Markup
85%
Gross profit divided by direct cost
Overhead $
$1,530
Revenue times overhead %
Net profit
$2,380
28% net margin
Where your gross margin lands
No business should plan a job under 30%. The healthy range for most trades is 35% to 45%. Above 45% is strong — replicate the pricing on the next job.
Danger
Fragile
Healthy
Strong
0%30%35%45%60%+
Strong
Strong job. Replicate the pricing, not just the work.
Your zone is the answer for this one job. The real question is what every job is doing.
Email yourself the full report — your numbers, your zone, your trade benchmark, and the framework to run this on every job.
Job-profit overstatement
Heads up — these receipts were already deducted on your company P&L when the bookkeeper categorized them off the bank feed. The IRS got the right number. The leak is job-level: this job looks more profitable than it actually was, so the next bid for a similar job will be priced low. Fix the receipt-to-job tagging, not your tax return.
True direct (with untagged receipts added back)
$4,832
Real margin: 43% — not 46%
Job-profit overstatement
$242
This job appears more profitable by this much. Your next similar bid will be low by this amount unless you fix the field-to-books handoff.
How your trade compares
Healthy range — your trade
30% to 38%
Target: 34%
Your job
46% gross margin
From the inputs above
Above the healthy range. Your pricing is working. Document what you did on this job — same scope, same crew, same approach — and use it as the baseline for your next bid.
Your numbers, your trade, your zone — downloaded as a PDF and sent to your inbox.
From Behind the Books · The show
The episode behind this calculator.
Joe walks through the 30 / 35 / 45 framework on the Behind the Books podcast — why one good number on this calculator isn't the goal, and what the pattern across 20 jobs is actually telling you about how you bid.
One job tells you a story. Twenty jobs tell you a business.
This calculator scores one job in depth. The free Job Cost Tracking Toolkit gives you the routine to clean every job and an Excel workbook that logs the next 30 — same 30 / 35 / 45 zones, designed to be used together.
■ PDF Checklist — setup, daily routine, weekly 15-minute review, red flags