Markup & margin calculator
Most contractors confuse markup with margin and quietly lose money on every job. Enter your cost and either a markup or a target margin, and see your price, profit, and margin side by side.
Your numbers
I want to enter
Everything it costs you to do the job.
How much you add on top of cost.
Price to charge
$1,400
- Profit
- $400
- Margin
- 28.6%
- Markup
- 40%
Markup is not margin. A 40% markup on cost is only a 28.6% margin. Pricing off markup when you mean margin is how contractors quietly underprice every job.
How to use it
Step 1
Enter your job cost
Add up labor and materials, everything it costs you to do the job.
Step 2
Pick markup or margin
Enter the markup you add, or the margin you want to keep, and we do the rest.
Step 3
Quote with confidence
Use the price and margin to quote a job that actually makes money.
A worked example
Say a roof replacement costs you $6,000 in labor and materials. Add a 40% markup and you quote $8,400. That looks like a 40% profit, but your margin, the profit as a share of the price, is $2,400 ÷ $8,400, or 28.6%.
If you actually want to keep 40% of the price, divide your cost by 0.60 instead: $6,000 ÷ 0.60 = $10,000. That's a 66.7% markup. Pricing off markup when you meant margin is one of the most common ways contractors underprice jobs.
The table converts common markups to the margin they really produce. The formula: margin = markup ÷ (1 + markup).
| Markup | Margin it produces |
|---|---|
| 20% | 16.7% |
| 25% | 20.0% |
| 33.3% | 25.0% |
| 50% | 33.3% |
| 66.7% | 40.0% |
| 100% | 50.0% |
Common questions
- What's the difference between markup and margin?
- Markup is the percentage you add on top of your cost. Margin is the profit as a percentage of the final price. A 50% markup is only a 33% margin, which is why pricing off the wrong one quietly costs contractors money.
- What margin should a contractor aim for?
- It varies by trade and overhead, but many residential contractors target a 30 to 50% gross margin on jobs to cover overhead and leave a real profit. Use the calculator to back into the price that hits your number.
- Is this calculator really free?
- Yes. It runs entirely in your browser with nothing to download and no account required. If you want pricing built into your quotes automatically, that's what Revcore's estimating does.
- How do I convert markup to margin?
- Divide the markup by one plus the markup. A 50% markup is 0.50 ÷ 1.50 = 33.3% margin. To go the other way, margin to markup, divide the margin by one minus the margin: 40% margin is 0.40 ÷ 0.60 = 66.7% markup.
- Should I price jobs on markup or margin?
- Set your target on margin, because margin is what's left to pay overhead and profit. Then use the calculator to find the price, or the markup, that hits it.
- Does markup apply to labor and materials the same way?
- It can, but many contractors use different markups on materials and labor. Whatever you choose, check the blended margin on the whole job, since that's what pays your overhead.
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