The run
Start from a common job, then replace every figure with your takeoff. Changing method, diameter, or surface never overwrites a rate you already typed.
Your crew rates
A $42/h tech loaded at 35% is $56.70. Quoting the raw wage on a published $125-a-foot special is how an 80-foot driveway open-cut that looked fine turns into a two-day loss after the first sawcut.
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 customer — 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
- Method and run
- Surface and extras
- Crew hours
- Loaded labor
- Pipe / liner / fittings / fees
- Restoration (labor + patch + dump)
- Travel + equipment
- Overhead
- Total cost
- Profit at this price
- Price per foot of run
- Effective hourly rate
- Walk-away price
A bid link carries your own rates — wage, burden, overhead, and target margin — so the page reopens exactly as you left it. Send it to yourself or your crew. The numbers ride after the #, which is never sent to a server, so copying a link uploads nothing. The customer should get the price, not the link.
Same run, three methods
Where the hours go
Where the cost goes
Transparent arithmetic from your own inputs. Starting hours and material rates are common ballpark figures, not an industry standard, a plumbing specification, or a code determination — replace them with your own takeoff.
Common questions
Is $129.60 a foot a rate I can quote from?
No — it is the finished price divided by the run, not a unit rate. The default job prices at $10,368.03 over 80 feet, but a large share of that is the excavator mobilization, the permit, the connection at each end, and restoration, none of which double when the run does. A 160-foot replacement is not $20,736. Use the per-foot figure to compare against a competitor’s per-foot quote on a similar run, then price the actual job from its own depth and access.
Where do 40.75 hours go on a single sewer line?
Almost none of it is pipe-laying. The hours cover excavation to depth, shoring and spoil handling, the tie-in at the house and at the main, backfill in lifts, compaction, and the inspection wait — at a $56.70 loaded rate that is $2,310.53 of labor against $3,655 of material. Depth is the variable that moves this most: the same 80 feet at eight feet deep is a very different day from four feet.
Why is the permit only $150 on a $10,000 job?
Because it is the permit fee itself, not the cost of complying with it. The inspection wait, the required bedding material, and the tie-in method your jurisdiction specifies are all in the hours and materials above. Treat the $150 as a placeholder to replace with your own authority’s schedule — some charge per connection, some by run length, and a few require a separate right-of-way permit for the portion in the street.
Does this include putting the yard back?
Only the backfill and compaction. Replacing driveway, sidewalk, mature landscaping, or irrigation that sat over the trench is not in the default number, and on a front-yard run it is frequently the largest surprise on the final invoice. Price restoration separately and say so on the proposal, so the homeowner is not comparing your complete number against someone else’s excavation-only one.