Know the minimum price you can charge before you lose money on a job
Free tool by ThePocketBoss - enter your job costs and see exactly where break-even falls so you never underprice a project again.
Wages, labor burden, and subcontractor costs for this job
All materials, supplies, and equipment rental for this job
Insurance, vehicle, tools, office costs (typically 10-20%)
Your proposed price to the customer - see if it clears break-even
Your break-even price is the absolute minimum you can charge on a job without losing money. It covers labor, materials, and your share of overhead - but leaves zero profit. Every dollar above break-even is money in your pocket.
When a customer pushes back on price, you need to know your floor. Without a clear break-even number, you might drop your price below cost and actually pay to do the work. This calculator gives you that hard number so you negotiate from a position of strength.
ThePocketBoss tracks your actual costs on every job - labor hours, materials, and expenses. Over time, you build a library of real cost data that makes your break-even calculations more accurate, so you stop leaving money on the table.
Break-even is the price at which your revenue exactly equals your costs. You don't make money, but you don't lose any either. It's your pricing floor.
Most contractors aim for 15-25% profit margin above break-even. So if your break-even is $5,000, charge $5,900-$6,700 to build in profit and a buffer for surprises.
Rarely. Some contractors will do it for a high-value repeat customer or to fill a schedule gap, but consistently pricing below break-even will put you out of business.
Most small contractors have 10-20% overhead. Add up your annual fixed costs (insurance, vehicle, tools, office, software), divide by your annual revenue, and multiply by 100.
ThePocketBoss tracks every dollar on every job so you never price below break-even again.
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