Estimate Builder
Organize estimate inputs into a clear customer price.
Built for working contractors
Free Construction Calculators, Estimator Builder & Business Tools for Contractors.
Taplin Systems helps contractors estimate accurately, manage profitability, and organize their businesses—with free calculators, Estimator Builder, and practical contractor documents.
Quick job pricing / live calculator
Enter your total direct job cost and the gross margin you want to achieve.
Recommended selling price
$59,277.78How Taplin calculated this
Selling price = direct cost ÷ (1 − target gross margin). $42,680.00 ÷ (1 − 0.28) = $59,277.78. Estimated gross profit: $16,597.78; equivalent markup: 38.89%.
Popular contractor calculators
Start with the number in front of you.
Price work, recover your costs, and plan the job. No account required, and your entries stay in your browser.
Open a category to see its calculators.
30 calculators in 7 categories available to browse.
Crew Productivity Calculator
Measure completed output per labor-hour and crew-day, then calculate your labor cost per unit.
Open calculatorProject Duration Calculator
Estimate working days and workweeks for a defined scope using crew size, productivity, efficiency, and delay allowances.
Open calculatorOvertime vs. Additional Staff Calculator
Compare labor cost and completion time for overtime on your current crew versus adding workers to complete the same remaining workload.
Open calculatorTrue Employee Cost Calculator
Calculate annual employer cost and cost per productive labor-hour from wages, overtime, payroll burden, benefits, and paid nonproductive time.
Open calculatorCrew Size Optimizer Calculator
Find the lowest modeled-cost crew that can finish a defined scope within your working-day deadline, with diminishing productivity and whole-day labor costs.
Open calculatorEmployee vs. Subcontractor Calculator
Compare in-house employee labor with a subcontractor quote for the same scope, including productive time, supervision, setup, and a subcontractor risk allowance.
Open calculatorContractor Overhead Calculator
Convert annual operating overhead into monthly, working-day, and billable-hour recovery targets, and compare overhead against two distinct annual cost bases.
Open calculatorBreak-Even Revenue Calculator
Estimate annual and monthly revenue needed to cover fixed costs at the selected variable-cost rate.
Open calculatorAnnual Revenue Target Calculator
Set annual revenue to cover owner salary, overhead, employee costs, variable costs, and a desired net profit margin.
Open calculatorWorking Capital Calculator
Estimate cash tied up in concurrent projects while waiting for customer payment, then account for deposits and a separate cash reserve.
Open calculatorProject Financing / Carrying Cost Calculator
Estimate simple interest on materials and labor financed for their respective time periods, plus financing fees.
Open calculatorOwner Salary vs. Profit Calculator
Separate owner compensation from residual company profit, then check the owner-pay budget that preserves a target company profit margin.
Open calculatorLead-to-Revenue Calculator
Translate leads through appointment and close rates into expected appointments, projects, and revenue.
Open calculatorCustomer Acquisition Cost Calculator
Calculate marketing spend per acquired customer for a consistent campaign or attribution period.
Open calculatorAdvertising ROI Calculator
Compare attributed gross profit with advertising spend, and show both profit after ads and revenue ROAS.
Open calculatorMarkup & Margin Calculator
Calculate a selling price from costs and desired gross margin.
Open calculatorContractor Labor Rate Calculator
Calculate your true employee cost, overhead recovery and required customer billing rate.
Open calculatorOverhead Recovery Calculator
Compare cost-based and hourly overhead allocation for a job.
Open calculatorJob Profitability Calculator
Compare estimated and actual costs against job revenue.
Open calculatorChange Order Pricing Calculator
Price changed scope with direct costs, overhead, profit, and tax.
Open calculatorConcrete Calculator
Convert dimensions to volume, order quantity, and optional cost.
Open calculatorFlooring Calculator
Estimate boxes, waste, and installed cost.
Open calculatorDrywall Calculator
Estimate sheets from net wall area and installed cost.
Open calculatorDeck Calculator
Estimate deck boards, framing allowance, and labor.
Open calculatorRoofing Calculator
Estimate roof area from pitch, bundles, and installed cost.
Open calculatorFraming Calculator
Estimate straight-wall studs, plates, waste, and installed cost.
Open calculatorFree Estimator Builder
Build an estimate around your project.
Organize your scope, labor and material costs, quantities, and cost adjustments in one place. Choose the path that fits your job, enter your own prices, and print an estimate summary for your records.
Open Estimator BuilderFour detailed estimating options
Plan Custom Homes, ADUs, Additions and Remodels with flexible trades, room-level scopes and a shared pricing engine.
Quick Estimate
Start a fast estimate for repairs, decks, painting, electrical, plumbing, landscaping and other trades. Convert it into a detailed project without losing the original.
Built for Real Construction Businesses
Practical tools for the work behind the work.
Purpose-built for residential contractors, remodelers, carpenters, subcontractors, estimators, and small construction teams.
01
Price Work With Confidence
Set a selling price from your costs and target gross margin, then understand exactly how markup and margin differ.
02
Understand Your True Costs
Account for payroll burden, benefits, non-billable time, waste, overhead, and the other costs that shape a real job.
03
Transparent Calculations
Inspect the formula and your own numbers behind each result, then use the linked field guides to check your assumptions.
Made for real job decisions
Built from the work, not just the formula.
Taplin Systems develops practical tools around the estimating, pricing, and project-planning decisions contractors make every day. See the math, adjust the assumptions, and take the result back to your own project.
Contractor-focusedTransparent mathNo account requiredFree core tools
Turn the number into the paperwork
Professional contractor documents, built for the job.
Move from calculation to documentation with agreements, change-management forms, project administration tools, and contractor business systems. Available documents link to our Etsy shop; others are in preparation.
Contractor Learning Center
Learn the why behind the number.
Published, free guides to estimating, gross margin, labor burden, and change orders.
Estimating
Construction Estimating: Build a Complete, Defensible Price
Read the guideGross Margin
Gross Margin vs. Markup: Pricing Construction Work Correctly
Read the guideLabor Burden
Labor Burden: What an Employee Really Costs a Contractor
Read the guideChange Orders
Change Orders: Document, Price, and Approve Changed Scope
Read the guideNotes for the field
Want more practical contractor guides?
Request occasional manual updates about free guides, calculators, site improvements, and tools in development. No account or instant download.