← Crown molding bid calculator
A homeowner holds a competitor's number and asks you to match it. The number is almost never a lie — it is almost always priced for a different job. A per-foot quote written around 80 lf of paint-grade simple cove in one flat 8-ft room and the same 80 lf as stain-grade built-up crown in a two-story cathedral foyer with an LED cove are, at this calculator's own default crew rates, a $1,182.95 job and a $7,710.87 job. Matching the first number on the second job is not a discount. It is $6,527.92 of work the competitor's number never carried.
Open the free crown molding bid calculatorNobody hands over a quote that says "priced for paint-grade cove in a flat room." They hand over a total, or a per-foot rate. If your job is stain-grade, coped, in a foyer, with an LED cove, the competitor's number and your job can share every dimension — same linear feet, same room count — and still not be the same job. The two figures that actually tell you whether you can match it are the walk-away price for the scope in front of you, and the extra-work share: how much of the crew's time is corners, ceiling, access, demo, blocking, LED, and casing rather than the base run.
Using the calculator's own default crew rates ($42 wage, 32% burden, 15% overhead, 20% target margin) on its four preset jobs:
| Job | Linear feet | Walk-away price | Extra-work share of hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cheap special: paint-grade simple cove, 8 insides, one flat 8-ft room | 80 | $1,182.95 | 21.4% |
| Typical colonial: paint-grade, 16 insides, 3 rooms | 180 | $3,302.54 | 20.6% |
| Stain dining: stain-grade colonial, tray ceiling, 10-ft | 120 | $4,947.07 | 48.6% |
| Losing job: stain-grade built-up, cathedral foyer, LED cove | 80 | $7,710.87 | 60.2% |
The cheap special and the losing job are the same 80 linear feet. A per-foot price can only move with that one number, so it treats both rows the same. The extra-work share does not: it climbs from 21.4% of crew hours to 60.2% on the identical footage, because coped inside corners, a cathedral spring angle, a scaffold ticket, demo, blocking, an LED channel, and a casing match are all billed by the job, not by the foot. That is the $6,527.92 a matched per-foot number never had a line item for.
Ask what the competitor's quote actually describes — grade, profile, ceiling, corners, access, and extras — before deciding whether to match it. Open the crown molding bid calculator, load the preset closest to your real scope (or build it from your own linear feet, corners, grade, profile, ceiling, height, and extras), and read the walk-away price and the extra-work share for the job you are actually pricing. If the competitor's number sits below your walk-away price for that scope, it was priced for a different job, not a better crew. Copy bid summary turns the scope-aware price into a plain-text draft that names the grade, profile, and extras, so the conversation with the homeowner is about scope rather than about whether your price is fair.
This is the same arithmetic as how much to charge to install crown molding and should I charge $8 a foot for crown molding? It is not a millwork shop drawing, a structural opinion, a paint specification, or a price you should copy onto a contract without checking it against your own crew and invoices.
Not without checking the scope the competitor's number was priced for first. On this calculator's own default crew rates, 80 linear feet walks away at $1,182.95 as paint-grade simple cove in one flat 8-ft room, and at $7,710.87 as stain-grade built-up crown in a two-story cathedral foyer with an LED cove -- the same footage, a $6,527.92 gap. A quote a homeowner is holding almost always describes the first job. Matching it on the second means absorbing that gap yourself.
It is the share of crew hours that come from corners, ceiling shape, access, demo, blocking, an LED cove, and casing match -- everything a flat per-foot rate cannot see, because it is not linear feet. On this calculator's worked examples, that share is 21.4% of crew hours on the cheap paint-grade special and 60.2% on the stain-grade built-up foyer, using the identical 80 feet of crown. A per-foot price only ever describes the run; the extra-work share is what is actually different between two jobs that quote the same length.
On this calculator's own four preset jobs, the extra-work share of crew hours runs 21.4% (cheap paint-grade special), 20.6% (typical colonial), 48.6% (stain-grade colonial in a tray ceiling), and 60.2% (stain-grade built-up in a cathedral foyer). A linear-foot price cannot move with any of that -- it moves only with linear feet, which is identical in the first and last row.