The surfaces
One row per deck surface. Height above grade is what turns a patio platform into posts, guardrail, and fall-protection time. Material prices and hours are ballpark starting points — replace them with your own tickets.
Railing, stairs, and tear-out
Railing is priced by lineal foot, not by deck square footage. A guard is typically in play around 30 inches off grade — this is not a code table. Stairs are a carpentry job the square-foot rule never saw.
Your costs
Payroll burden covers employer taxes, workers’ compensation, liability insurance, and paid time off. Footing counts are a span estimate from the surface size and height — not an engineered layout.
Hand the customer a proposal
The price above is for you. This is the page you print or save as a PDF and give to the homeowner — your details, their details, the scope, the deposit split, and a line for them to sign. Your business details are saved on this device so you only type them once; the customer’s details are never saved.
Everything on the printed page is text you typed or a number this calculator worked out. It contains no warranty, lien, or cancellation wording — those depend on your jurisdiction and your contract, and this tool is not the place to invent them.
Your bid
- Deck square feet
- Surface labor hours
- Height / guard share of labor
- Railing hours
- Stair hours
- On-site hours
- Travel hours
- Total labor hours
- Loaded labor cost
- Decking + framing material
- Railing material
- Stair material
- Footings
- Demo disposal
- Trip + permit + other
- Overhead
- Total cost
- Profit
- Price per sq ft
- Effective hourly rate
- Railing share of price
- Walk-away price
Where the labor goes
Transparent arithmetic from your own inputs. Starting material prices and hours are common ballpark numbers, not a lumberyard quote, an IRC table, or a guarantee. This is not a finding that any deck is permitted, structurally sound, or guard-compliant.
Common questions
What does this deck estimate include?
The price adds up each surface’s framing and decking by material and height, railing by the lineal foot, stairs by risers and width, estimated footings, demo disposal, a trip fee, a permit line, overhead, and your target margin — all built from the rates you type in, not a fixed price list.
Why does height above grade change the price so much?
Once a surface is around 30 inches off grade a guard is typically expected, and past about 6 feet the framing, posts, and access time increase again. The calculator applies extra framing and post-set hours at those two thresholds automatically, which is exactly what a flat per-square-foot rate cannot see.
Does this check building codes or guardrail requirements?
No. The height thresholds used here are typical residential starting points, not an IRC or local code table, and footing counts are a span estimate from surface size and height, not an engineered layout. Permit cost is a single dollar figure you enter yourself.
Is my data uploaded anywhere?
No account and no network requests — the calculator runs entirely in your browser. Your inputs can be kept in this browser’s local storage so the page remembers them, and a share link encodes only the quote fields in the page’s URL hash rather than sending anything to a server.
What’s the difference between the job price and the walk-away price?
The job price already includes your target margin. The walk-away price is the break-even total cost underneath it — labor, materials, footings, disposal, trip fee, permit, and overhead — the number below which the job stops being profitable at all.
Can I price a job with stairs but no railing, or railing but no stairs?
Yes. Railing lineal feet, stair runs, and demo square footage are each optional and priced independently, so a low deck with stairs and no railing, or an elevated deck with railing and no stairs, only adds the costs that actually apply to it.
How is this different from a paid app like QuoteIQ?
QuoteIQ is a paid subscription app for quoting and tracking every job an ongoing deck business runs. This calculator connects to nothing: you price one job in your browser, with no account to make, cancel, or pay for. See this calculator vs. QuoteIQ for which job fits which situation.