← Holiday Light Bid Calculator
This calculator vs. RealGreen
Two different shapes: RealGreen is business-management software for running a holiday lighting company's marketing, inventory, scheduling, and job history across a season. This page is a free, private worksheet for one question — what should this one house cost, given its eave footage, trees, access, and takedown, before you quote it.
What each tool is for
RealGreen sells business management software with a product line aimed specifically at holiday light installation companies. Its published description of that line covers marketing services, inventory management, estimating and scheduling, and job tracking — the operational spine of a company that installs lights for a few hundred properties between October and January. It is sold as an ongoing account for a business, not a single-job tool. RealGreen's own pricing page is not reachable from this session to confirm today's plan names or dollar figures, so none is invented here: only its well-documented identity and category — business-management software for the holiday lighting trade — are stated, and no dollar amount for RealGreen appears on this page.
This calculator does none of what RealGreen does. It does not market your services, hold your inventory, route your crews, or keep a customer record on a server. It takes one property's eave linear feet, tree, bush and column counts, storeys and roof pitch, an access premium for the runs that need a ladder set three times, material cost per linear foot, the takedown-to-hang labour ratio, off-season storage, loaded wage and payroll burden, overhead, travel, and target margin, and turns that into the per-job price and the walk-away price below which the job loses money — plus, if you already have a number on the table, a check of whether it clears that floor, and a printable customer proposal for that one job. It runs free in any browser, keeps no account, and uploads nothing you type.
| Question | Where to answer it |
|---|---|
| I run a lighting company and need marketing, inventory, scheduling, and job history in one system across a whole season. | RealGreen, or a comparable holiday-lighting platform — running a whole company is not something this calculator does. |
| What should I charge for this one house, given its eave footage, trees, and roof pitch, before I quote it? | This calculator — free, instant, private, no account. |
| How much does a second storey and a steep pitch actually add to the bid? | This calculator's storey, pitch, and access-premium inputs, not a flat surcharge. |
| Am I pricing takedown and off-season storage, or quietly absorbing them? | This calculator's takedown ratio and storage lines, which feed the same walk-away price as the hang labour. |
| Is the number the homeowner just countered with still above my walk-away cost? | This calculator's compare-to-proposed-price check. |
| How does the math behind a holiday lighting bid actually work? | This calculator's own pricing walkthrough. |
| Do I need to create an account or sign up to use the tool? | This calculator: no. RealGreen is used through a business account. |
Most holiday lighting contractors get different value from each: RealGreen (or a comparable platform) for running marketing, inventory, scheduling and job history across a company and a season, and a private calculator like this one for an instant, no-login gut-check on what one house should cost before a business system is involved. This page's own figures are a pricing model, not a scheduled job, an invoice, or a signed proposal.
This tool needs no account and no sign-in: it is a static page, the arithmetic runs in your browser, and once it has loaded it keeps working with the connection off — which matters on a driveway in December.
Common questions
Should I use this calculator or RealGreen?
They do different jobs, and a holiday lighting business of any size may end up using both. RealGreen sells business management software with a product line aimed at holiday light installation companies: marketing services, inventory management, estimating and scheduling, and job tracking, run as an ongoing account for the whole company. This calculator does one narrower thing: starting from eave linear feet, tree and bush and column counts, the number of stories and whether the roof is steep, an access premium for hard runs, material cost per linear foot, the takedown-to-hang labour ratio, off-season storage, loaded wage and payroll burden, overhead, travel, and target margin, it turns that into the per-job price and the walk-away price below which the job loses money. It runs free in any browser, keeps no account, and uploads nothing you type. A lighting company already running marketing, inventory, scheduling and job history across a full crew and a full season is better served by RealGreen or a comparable platform; an installer who wants an instant, private gut-check on what one house should cost before opening a business system is in the right place here.
Does this calculator handle takedown and storage?
Yes, and they are usually where a holiday lighting bid goes wrong. Takedown is entered as a ratio of the hang labour rather than a flat guess, because a crew that took eight hours to hang a roofline does not take eight hours to pull it down. Storage is entered as its own line so that the months the product sits in your building between seasons are priced rather than absorbed. Both feed the same walk-away price as the hang labour, so a bid that looks profitable on hang day and loses money in January shows up before you send it.
Is this page affiliated with RealGreen?
No. This site is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by RealGreen. RealGreen is a trademark of its owner, named here only to describe what this calculator is and is not.
Open the Holiday Light Bid Calculator to price your own job.