Estimate template

This prices a job the way a trade contractor's estimate is written. Enter the material cost from the takeoff, the waste allowance, the labor hours and the loaded rate, the subcontractors and equipment, the overhead share and the markup, and the page returns the estimate total, the material line with waste, the labor line, the direct cost, the overhead and profit lines, and the gross margin the total actually carries (times ten, so a fraction does not round away). The estimate is a document with a method behind it; these are the lines, from your own takeoff and your own markup, and the figure a customer signs is the first one on the page.

Materials with waste, labor at the loaded rate

The takeoff gives the quantities; the supplier gives the price; the waste allowance covers the offcuts and the breakage the trade knows it will see. Labor is hours at a loaded rate, which is the wage plus the taxes, the insurance, the truck and the benefits, not the wage alone: a shop that prices labor at the wage is paying its own overhead out of the markup without knowing it. The worksheet takes both as inputs so the shop sees the lines separately.

Overhead first, then markup, and the margin the total carries

Overhead is applied to the direct cost, and the markup is applied to the cost with overhead in it; the two are different numbers and the trade routinely confuses them. The worked example's markup carries a gross margin that is smaller than the markup rate once it is read as a share of the total, and the page prints the margin times ten so the shop sees the difference before it prices a year of work on the wrong one. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, cited on this site, puts the median annual wage for cost estimators at $78,740 in May 2025, which is the cost of having a person do this sum full time.

The template is the method; the record is the product

The lines on the page are free, for every job, forever. What Markupbird Pro adds is the record: the estimate kept against the customer and the job, the rate table per trade and crew that fills the rate automatically, the win or loss recorded against the markup, and the export the accountant reads when the jobs are compared with what they were priced at. A shop that keeps that record chooses next year's markup on evidence.