Contractor Markup Calculator
Enter your job cost and markup percentage to see your selling price, profit, and equivalent margin — instantly.
Job Cost & Markup
Enter your costs and desired markup percentage
Not sure what your labor really costs? Try the employee cost calculator first.
Your Price & Profit
Selling price, markup, and equivalent margin
What Is Markup?
Markup is the percentage you add on top of your job cost to arrive at a selling price. It's calculated against your cost — not the final price the client pays. If a job costs you $10,000 and you apply a 20% markup, you add $2,000 to get a $12,000 selling price.
How Contractor Markup Works
Markup is straightforward to apply, which is why most contractors price jobs using it day to day:
The markup dollar amount is simply Job Cost × Markup %, and it's the same number as your profit on the job — the calculator above shows both.
Markup vs Profit Margin
Markup and margin are often confused, but they measure different things. Markup is profit divided by cost. Margin is profit divided by selling price. Because the selling price is always larger than the cost, margin is always a smaller number than markup on the same job — a 20% markup produces only a 16.67% margin, not 20%.
Neither number is "more correct" than the other, but they answer different questions: markup tells you what to charge, margin tells you what you're actually keeping as a share of revenue. Mixing the two up is one of the most common — and costly — pricing mistakes contractors make.
Worked Example
Using a $10,000 job cost with a 20% markup:
The same $2,000 profit is a 20% markup on cost, but only a 16.67% margin on the selling price — both are correct, they're just measuring the same profit against two different numbers.
How Markup Fits Into a Construction Estimate
Markup is only one part of pricing a job correctly. It doesn't automatically account for your overhead — rent, insurance, equipment, admin costs — or a specific target profit margin unless you build those into the job cost yourself before applying markup. QuickEstimate applies your labor cost, overhead, and target margin automatically to every estimate, so you're not repeating this math by hand on every bid.
- Start with your true labor cost — see the employee cost calculator
- Add materials and overhead to get your real job cost
- Apply markup to arrive at a selling price you can stand behind