Your crew hourly wage, payroll burden, overhead on direct cost and target net margin are the same on every job you bid. Save them once and every trade bid calculator here opens with your numbers instead of a stranger’s ballpark.
Kept in this browser only, on this site’s own storage. Nothing is uploaded, and clearing your browser data clears it. Forgetting them leaves the numbers already on this bid alone.
Keep this bid so it is still here when the customer calls back. Every number on this form is saved together, under a name you choose, along with the figure it gave you, and restoring one puts the whole job back exactly as you priced it. Mark each one won or lost when you hear — the ones you have not heard back on stay listed as waiting, with how long they have been out. Once a few have come back, this panel says how long yours actually take, and how many are still out past that. Once enough of them have been decided, it also says whether the bids you save here have been landing differently lately than they used to. Once a few here are decided, this panel says what the ones you won averaged against the ones you lost, so you can see where your price tips. On a lost bid you can also note what the job went for, if you heard — then it says how far off you actually were, which is the part guessing gets wrong in both directions. On a won one, note what the job came to once it was done and this panel says what those jobs actually kept, so you can see whether the ones you are winning are worth winning — and it tells you how many of your won jobs are still missing that figure, rather than going quiet about it. Restoring a bid also pins the figure it was saved at above this panel, so when the customer asks what it costs without the tear-off, the new number is shown against the one they already have — and by how much, in money and in percent.
Kept in this browser only, on this site’s own storage. Nothing is uploaded, and clearing your browser data clears it — download a backup to keep a copy or open your bids on another device. Bids are kept per tool, so these are the ones you saved here.
FOR PLUMBERS AND WATER-HEATER INSTALLERS
Price the vent, the gas upsize, and the attic — not a flat $1,200 swap.
Homeowners search “how much to replace a water heater” and come back with one number. A 50-gallon electric tank in a garage is not a condensing tankless on a 3/4-inch gas upsize with a sidewall vent and an attic carry. Enter the machine, the location, and the path. You get the installed price, dollars per gallon, and how many times a typical garage swap this house really is.
Pricing a water softener install instead of a heater swap? The water softener bid calculator prices pipe run, copper versus PEX, and iron filter — nothing uploaded.
The heater and the house
The labor follows the type and the location. The gas line follows the tankless, not the old tank. Mixing those two is how a $1,200 bid fails on the first visit.
Add-ons the flat price forgets
These are the lines that turn a same-day tank swap into a real ticket. Starting dollars are takeoff points, not a standard.
Your rates
Starting hours and material dollars are takeoff points, not a standard. Replace them with the truck’s last invoice.
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
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installed price
Walk-away (total cost)
Profit at target margin
Labor hours
Loaded wage
Labor cost
Materials
Overhead
Effective billing rate
Dollars per gallon / GPM
Vs a typical 50-gal electric garage swap
Labor split
Common questions
How much should I charge to replace a water heater?
There is no flat installed price. A same-day 50-gallon electric tank in a garage is a different job from a condensing tankless on a 3/4-inch gas upsize with a sidewall vent and an attic carry. This calculator prices the heater type, the location, the vent, and the gas or electrical path from your own wage and material inputs.
Is this a plumbing-code ruling or a first-hour-rating calculation?
No. Outputs are arithmetic on the numbers you enter. Capacity hints are starting points, not a first-hour rating, fuel-gas table, or manufacturer clearance you can stamp or submit.
How much does upsizing the gas line add to a tankless bid?
On a 10-foot run at this calculator's default wage, burden, overhead, and margin, moving a gas tankless from "existing line looks adequate" to a 3/4-inch upsize adds 4 labor hours and $270 in materials — about $804 more on the bid ($1,525.94 to $2,329.59). Most 1/2-inch lines that fed the old atmospheric tank cannot flow enough gas for a condensing tankless, so pricing the existing line as reusable is how a competitive-looking bid loses money on the first callback.
What does panel work add to an electric tankless bid?
At this calculator's defaults, a 7 GPM electric tankless priced on "existing circuit looks adequate" comes to $1,433.20. The same job priced on the panel work an electric tankless usually needs — two or three dedicated 40 A 240 V circuits, not the single 30 A breaker the old tank used — comes to $2,700.97: 3.2 more labor hours and $620 more in electrical materials, about $1,267.77 higher. Pricing the old circuit as reusable on an electric tankless is the electrical-side version of the gas-line mistake above.
Want the margin, walk-away price and overrun headroom as well, or pricing a different trade? Price this job in the Bid Price Engine, one calculator for 121 trades.