Job Margin

Know your costs, quote with confidence.

Enter materials, labour, and overhead. Get the sell price that hits your target margin — not your markup.

1Materials
2Labour
3Sundries & overhead
4Target margin
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About this tool

Gross margin and markup are not the same. Gross margin is profit expressed as a percentage of the sell price. Markup is profit expressed as a percentage of cost. A 30% gross margin on a $1,000 quote means $300 profit and a $700 cost. Achieving that same 30% margin requires a 42.9% markup on cost — not 30%.

The most common pricing mistake in the trades is adding a markup percentage to cost and calling it a margin of the same percentage. If you add 30% to $700, you get a $910 sell price — which is a 23.1% margin, not 30%. Over enough jobs, that difference adds up to a lot of profit left on the table.

When to use it

Use this when pricing any job where you want to hit a specific margin target. The tool accepts materials at trade price, labour at an hourly cost rate (not charge-out rate), sundries and consumables, and an overhead allocation percentage. It returns the exact sell price for your target margin and a comparison table across common margin targets from 20% to 50%.