Estimate Generator

Costs first, profit last

The build-up starts with the materials grid: each row is a quantity times a unit cost, and the materials total is the sum of those rows. Labor is the hours you estimate for the whole job multiplied by your cost of labor - the wage plus payroll tax and downtime, not the rate you charge customers.

Direct cost is the two added together. Contingency is a percentage of that direct cost, taken before anything else is added, and overhead recovery is a percentage of the cost plus contingency: insurance, vehicles, tools, office and admin time, spread across the jobs that consume them.

Markup applies last, to every cost line above it. With no materials and no labor hours the page stops and asks for at least one of them, because there is nothing to price - and a row left without a description is labeled Item rather than dropping its money quietly.

Markup is not margin

On $1,000 of cost a 20% markup produces a $1,200 price, which is $200 of profit on the price - a margin of 16.7%, not 20%. Earning a 20% margin takes a 25% markup, and the table prints the markup amount with the margin beside it so the difference shows up on your own numbers instead of on a worked example.

The same gap works in reverse. Cutting 10% off a price built at a 20% markup leaves about a 7.4% margin: the price falls by a tenth and the profit falls by more than half. The table also prints the break-even price - what the job costs before a cent of profit, tax included - so a quote can be held against a floor rather than against a feeling.

Contingency belongs in the price

Contingency is a cost line, not profit. Hidden inside the profit and then spent on the extra that always turns up, it vanishes without anyone deciding to give it away; kept on its own line, it stays visible, and the note under the result shows what the margin becomes if the whole allowance is spent.

A 10% contingency is a floor on renovation and construction work, and more is needed on anything older, occupied or partly hidden behind walls. The field accepts up to 100%, overhead recovery up to 200% and the profit markup up to 300%, so an unusual trade can be priced without hitting an arbitrary ceiling.

Deposits and progress payments

The deposit is a percentage of the total and comes off the balance, not off the invoice total, so the price the client agreed to and the money still owed stay separate figures. The deposit is what covers the first material order, which is exactly when it needs to be in hand.

The balance is then split into equal progress payments - one to six of them - with the last labeled as the final payment on completion. Rounding drift is absorbed by that last milestone, so the schedule adds back to the total exactly, and the schedule table prints each milestone share and amount.

Sending the quote

The download button builds a real document in the browser: the materials, the labor line, the cost breakdown and the same total as the screen, laid out for a client to read and sign. It is an image of the sheet, so a Chinese item description appears exactly as typed without shipping a font - the text cannot be selected, and Print is the text-searchable version. The CSV export carries the same figures as plain numbers for your own records or accounting software.

The quote is dated and holds for the validity window you set - 30 days is normal, 90 only when supplier pricing is fixed - and the printout states the date it expires. Nothing is uploaded: the estimate is assembled on your own device, so a client project never leaves your own machine.