← Egress Window Bid Calculator
This calculator vs. a flat "$1,800 installed" egress window special
"$1,800 egress window installed" is not a price for an egress window install — it is a price for one specific opening, one cut, and one well, quietly applied to every basement window the truck pulls up to.
What a flat "$1,800 installed" special is
A flat special is the fastest way to quote: one headline number on a postcard or a website, read off and repeated. Homeowners shop it because it is easy to compare between bids, and it is the number a customer holding a competitor's flyer will ask you to match on their own basement.
The number behind it was set for one job — usually the cheapest opening type (a vinyl hopper retrofit into an existing hole), the cheapest well (plastic), no drain, no cover, no ladder, no haul — and then reused for every egress window afterward, whether or not the next opening looks anything like a retrofit.
What this calculator is
This page keeps no account and sends nothing to a server. You enter the window count and opening type — vinyl hopper, slider, casement, or fiberglass — whether the opening is a retrofit into an existing hole or a new cut in wood-framed wall, CMU/block, or poured concrete, the well (plastic, steel, or stone), extras such as a cover, a ladder, a drain, and a dirt haul, who supplies the sash and well, the schedule, and your loaded labor and overhead. It prices the opening, the cut, the well, and the extras separately, and returns a walk-away price and an extra-work share below which the job loses money — for this opening, not a generic one.
| Job | $1,800 special | Walk-away price | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cheap special: 1 vinyl hopper, retrofit existing opening, plastic well | $1,800.00 | $1,662.19 | Covers, +$137.81 |
| Typical legal bedroom: 1 vinyl slider, new-cut masonry, steel well, cover, drain, ladder | $1,800.00 | $3,976.62 | Loses $2,176.62 |
| Losing job: 1 casement, poured-concrete cut, stone well, cover, drain, ladder, haul, interior finish | $1,800.00 | $7,315.25 | Loses $5,515.25 |
Worked using this calculator's own starting kits at a $42 crew wage, 30% payroll burden, 15% overhead on direct cost, and a 20% target margin — the form's own defaults, not a number invented for this page. Open the calculator's presets to check any row yourself.
| What a flat special does | What this calculator does instead |
|---|---|
| Charges the same headline price whether the job is a vinyl hopper retrofit into an existing hole or a casement in a new poured-concrete cut — several times the labor and material for the same words "egress window". | Prices the opening from the entered window type, scope, and well, so the two jobs above come out at different numbers instead of one. |
| Prices "an egress window" as one drop-in swap, with no separate line for sawing a new opening, setting a deeper well, or hauling the spoil out of the hole. | Times the cut, the well, and the haul as their own extra-work hours, so that work shows up instead of being absorbed into the sash price or skipped. |
| Assumes a plastic well and no drain, cover, or ladder, so a steel or stone well, a sump-tied drain, a safety cover, or an egress ladder gets quoted the same as one that needs none of that. | Adds well material, drain, cover, and ladder line items only for what was entered, so the two jobs price differently. |
| Bakes payroll burden into a round "labor rate" nobody re-derives, so the rate quietly drifts from the crew's real loaded cost. | Loads the entered hourly wage by the entered payroll-burden percentage every time, so labor cost tracks the actual burden rather than a memorized rate. |
| Gives the tech a price to quote, not a number to check a quote against when an owner asks to match a cheaper retrofit quote on a poured-wall new-cut. | Reports the walk-away price and the extra-work share of the job, so a shopped price can be scored against real cost before the tech commits to it. |
A flat special is not wrong because it is simple — it is wrong when it is applied outside the one job it was built for, and nothing about a postcard rate tells you when that has happened. This calculator does not replace judgment about your market; it replaces the arithmetic a flat rate skips.
Common questions
Why does a flat "$1,800 installed" egress-window special get the price wrong?
Because the labor and material scale with the opening, the cut, and the well, not with the word "egress window" alone. A vinyl hopper retrofit into an existing hole with a plastic well is a different job from a slider or casement in a new masonry or poured-concrete cut with a steel or stone well, a drain, a cover, a ladder, and a haul. A flat special quotes both the same and is wrong on one of them every time.
What does a flat special usually leave out entirely?
The cut, the well, and the dirt. A published installed price is set on a retrofit — swap the sash and the well, no saw, no new opening — and has nowhere to put the hours for sawing a new opening in masonry or poured concrete, setting a deeper steel or built-in-place stone well, adding a drain, a cover, and a ladder, or hauling the spoil. A tech pricing off the special alone is short before the saw starts.
How much does the cut and the well actually add over the retrofit special?
On this calculator's own worked examples, at a $42 crew wage, 30% burden, 15% overhead, and a 20% target margin: a retrofit hopper into an existing opening with a plastic well walks away at $1,662 — the $1,800 special covers it with room to spare. The same window as a new masonry cut with a steel well, cover, drain, and ladder walks away at $3,977, almost $2,200 over the special. A poured-concrete cut with a stone well and a haul walks away at $7,315, over $5,500 over the special. The cut and the well, not the sash, are what move the number.
Is a flat rate ever the right way to quote an egress window?
For the one job it was actually priced on — a retrofit into an existing opening, a vinyl hopper, a plastic well, no drain, no cover, no ladder, no haul — a flat rate can land close, and on this calculator's own numbers it does. The risk is applying it to a new-cut job without noticing, because the postcard rate does not know which job it is looking at and neither does the tech until the saw is out.
Does this calculator know what to charge in my market?
No. It has no data on local rates, permit fees, or what competitors charge. It takes the window count, opening type, cut, well, extras, who supplies the sash and well, the schedule, and your loaded labor and overhead, and turns them into a walk-away price and extra-work share for the job you describe — the arithmetic a flat rate skips, not a market survey.
Nothing here says or implies that quoting a flat "$1,800 installed" special is a bad-faith practice — it is a common, honest shortcut that works until the job stops matching the one the rate was set on. This page describes where that shortcut breaks down, not a fault in anyone who uses it.
Open the Egress Window Bid Calculator and price your own job.