Free calculator
Enter what the estimate assumed and what the job actually cost. You get the gap between them, in dollars and in margin points.
Most jobs are not lost on price. They are lost in the gap between the hours you quoted and the hours the crew actually burned, and that gap is invisible until the job is closed and the money is spent.
Margin drift is that gap, measured. Say you quote 119 hours at a loaded cost of $23 and the job takes 132: the extra 13 hours cost you $299, and on a $4,850 job that is 6.2 points of margin, gone without a single line item changing.
The labor number here is what an hour costs you: wage plus payroll taxes, workers comp, and benefits. It is not the rate you charge the customer. Mixing the two is the fastest way to convince yourself a job made money when it did not. If you want the rate to charge, the hourly rate calculator works that out from the take-home you need.
Tracking this per job is exactly what job costing in FastEstimateMaker does automatically: scan the receipts, and the margin on every job is computed from the money that actually moved.
It depends on the trade and who carries the materials, but most solo and small-crew contractors are aiming for 20% to 35% net margin on a job. The number that matters more than the benchmark is whether your actual margin matches the one you quoted - a 30% target that keeps landing at 22% is a pricing problem you can fix.
Margin drift is the gap between the margin you planned and the margin you got. Markup is how you set the price in the first place. They are different jobs - use the markup vs margin calculator to set the price, and this one to check what happened after.
No. Nothing you type is transmitted or stored - the math runs in your browser. There is no account and no email.
Yes. FastEstimateMaker records job costs from scanned receipts and computes margin per job against the accepted estimate or the paid invoice, so the drift is calculated for you. You can start free with no credit card.
See all contractor tools, or jump to job costing and receipt scanning.
Convert between the two, and find the markup that lands the margin you want.
Work back from the take-home you want, your overhead, and the hours you can actually bill.
A payment schedule from a job total - deposit, progress draw, and balance, the three payments you will actually collect.
Load payroll taxes, comp, benefits, and paid time off into the true hourly cost of a crew member.
Trade-by-trade launch costs, the monthly bills that start on day one, and your runway.
Fixed costs divided by what a job really contributes - the first number a new business should know.
The all-in monthly cost, the cost on every job, and the extra jobs a month that carry it.
The profit that truly replaces a W2 - benefits and self-employment tax included.
FastEstimateMaker builds the estimate, records the costs, and shows the margin per job while you can still do something about it. Start free - no credit card, no setup call.
Build a real estimate freeSolo is $29.99/month with every office feature. Canvass is $59.99/month plus $19.99/month per rep seat.
