← Crown molding bid calculator
A homeowner brings you a published “$8 a foot installed crown” Facebook special. It reads like a safe number for any run. Priced at this calculator's own default crew rates — a $42 wage, 32% burden, 15% overhead, 20% target margin — it does not cover the walk-away price on any of the four jobs the calculator ships with, and the gap between the cheapest and the most expensive is not small.
Open the free crown molding bid calculatorUsing the calculator's own default crew rates on its four preset jobs, each quoted at $8 a foot on its own linear footage:
| Job | Linear feet | $8/ft quote | Walk-away price | Shortfall |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cheap special: paint-grade simple cove, 8 insides, one flat 8-ft room | 80 | $640.00 | $1,182.95 | $542.95 |
| Typical colonial: paint-grade, 16 insides, 3 rooms | 180 | $1,440.00 | $3,302.54 | $1,862.54 |
| Stain dining: stain-grade colonial, tray ceiling, 10-ft | 120 | $960.00 | $4,947.07 | $3,987.07 |
| Losing job: stain-grade built-up, cathedral foyer, LED cove | 80 | $640.00 | $7,710.87 | $7,070.87 |
$8/ft never breaks even here, but it does not fail by the same amount twice. It is worth naming because it is the sharpest comparison in the table: the cheap special and the losing job are the same 80 linear feet. Grade, profile, ceiling, and access alone turn a $542.95 shortfall into a $7,070.87 one — thirteen times worse on identical footage.
A per-foot number moves in a straight line with linear feet: it cannot see grade, profile, ceiling shape, or how you reach the crown. The walk-away price moves with all four. 80 lf of paint-grade simple cove in a flat 8-ft room copes nothing and climbs no scaffold. The same 80 lf of stain-grade built-up in a two-story cathedral foyer with an LED cove is coped insides, two stacked pieces of stock, a spring-angle change, a scaffold ticket, and an LED channel — none of which a per-foot dump ever carried.
The trap is not "the run got longer." It is "the run stayed the same length and the owner is asking for stain-grade built-up in a foyer instead of paint-grade cove in a bedroom, and the number I quoted from never had that scope in it." A carpenter who matches the Facebook special on footage alone — without re-checking grade, profile, ceiling, and height — is the one who finds out the copes and the scaffold ate the whole margin.
Open the crown molding bid calculator, load the matching starting job from the "Choose a starting job…" preset list, and put the owner's per-foot number (times your linear feet) into "price you're considering." The calculator scores it against the walk-away price for the scope you actually priced, not the scope the flyer was written for.
This is the same arithmetic as how much to charge to install crown molding and this calculator vs. Jobber. It is not a millwork shop drawing, a structural opinion, a paint specification, or a price you should copy onto a contract.
No, not at professional crew rates. Under this calculator's own default crew rates ($42/hour wage, 32% burden, 15% overhead, 20% target margin), $8 a foot does not cover the walk-away price on any of its four example jobs — not even the cheapest one. On 80 linear feet of paint-grade simple cove in one flat 8-ft room, $8/ft ($640.00) is $542.95 under the $1,182.95 walk-away price.
Because $8 a foot is quoted from the linear footage alone, and the walk-away price is not. On the identical 80 linear feet, swapping paint-grade simple cove in a flat room for stain-grade built-up crown in a two-story cathedral foyer with an LED cove raises the walk-away price from $1,182.95 to $7,710.87 — the same $640.00 quote goes from $542.95 short to $7,070.87 short, thirteen times worse on the same footage.
No. 180 linear feet of paint-grade colonial ($1,440.00 at $8/ft) is $1,862.54 short of its $3,302.54 walk-away price, and 120 linear feet of stain-grade colonial in a tray ceiling ($960.00 at $8/ft) is $3,987.07 short of its $4,947.07 walk-away price. The shortfall tracks grade, profile, ceiling, and height, not linear feet alone.