Contractor markup & margin calculator
Enter what the job costs you and the profit margin you want. We'll tell you what to charge.
Charge the customer
$1,428.57
Your profit
$428.57
That's a markup of
42.9%
A 30% margin needs a 42.9% markup. Marking up 30% would only give you a 23.1% margin.
Markup vs. margin: the mistake that costs contractors money
Markup is profit as a percentage of your cost. Margin is profit as a percentage of the price. They are not the same number. If a job costs you $1,000 and you add 30%, you charge $1,300 - but your margin is only 23%, not 30%.
To actually keep 30% of every dollar you bill, you need to divide your cost by 0.70, which works out to a markup of about 43%.
The formula
Price = Cost ÷ (1 − Margin). Markup % = (Price − Cost) ÷ Cost × 100.
What margin should a contractor aim for?
It depends on your trade, overhead, and market. The important part is knowing your number and pricing every job to hit it, instead of adding a flat percentage and hoping. If you don't know your overhead yet, start with the hourly rate calculator.
JPFLD adds your markup to every material automatically
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