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The number a homeowner wants is a published “$799 installed” water-softener special, or a price they saw for a garage hang on a coupon site. That number is not a takeoff. A 32k PEX hang with ten included feet is not the same job as a 64k copper cut-in with an iron filter, a 40-foot brine drain, haul-away of the old unit, and a brine-tank receptacle. The trip is the same. The hours are not.
Open the free bid calculatorWell-pump calculators price drop-pipe footage, a pitless, and a VFD. Water-heater calculators price a vent, a gas upsize, and an attic. Septic-pumping calculators price a tank lid, a hose, and extra gallons. A water-softener job is a water-treatment install: the unit, the run from the main, how the pipe is cut in, and the iron or RO that is not in the coupon. Quoting all of that from a published special is how the first soldered cut-in eats the field margin.
Each extra foot past the included run is time that never appears on the coupon. Copper is billed as its own hours and material. An iron filter, a long brine drain, haul-away, and a brine receptacle are adders that get forgotten on a brochure special. On the sample rates a 64k salt unit with an iron filter, 45 feet of copper, a long drain, haul-away, and a receptacle prices about $4,968 ($110 per foot of pipe, 12.3 crew-hours). The same shop’s 32k PEX hang-only special prices about $1,318 ($165 per foot, 2.9 hours, walk-away $856). Matching the brochure job’s $799 special on the copper-and-iron house is how that job becomes a loss — the walk-away on the heavy job is already $3,229.
A salt-free TAC unit with 40 feet of copper and no brine drain is not the 32k PEX special minus 100%. On the sample rates that salt-free job prices about $2,150 ($54 per foot, 7.2 crew-hours) — more than the brochure hang, not because TAC is slower but because 30 extra feet of copper do not live in a published garage special. A 48k salt unit with a copper cut-in, 25 extra feet, and haul-away prices about $2,601 (7.4 hours). Treating either as a blended add-on is how the special that looked fine turns into a loss after the first soldered run.
A $42/h tech loaded at 32% payroll burden is $55.44. Margin is a share of the price you send, not a markup on cost. The walk-away price is total cost — below that the job makes nothing before you take a dollar home. Replace every rate with your invoices before you send either number.
This is not a water-quality report, a treatment specification, a building-code determination, a permit, an engineering stamp, or a recommended market price. It is arithmetic on the numbers you type. Grain capacity, hardness, pipe material, drain, and whether an iron filter is required are yours to confirm.
Charge from the trip, the hang, extra pipe past the included run, copper versus PEX, grain capacity, iron or RO, the brine drain, haul-away, loaded labor, overhead, and a margin that is a share of price. A default 32k salt/resin PEX garage hang that stays inside the included footage, at the sample rates in this calculator, prices around $1,318 — about $165 per foot of pipe run.
Homeowners count the hang. Extra pipe, copper cut-in, an iron filter, a long brine drain, haul-away of the old unit, and a brine receptacle do not scale with that number. Matching a cheaper special written for a 32k PEX garage hang is how a 64k copper-and-iron job becomes a half-day loss.
A softener-and-iron job is not a hang-only special. On the sample rates a 64k salt unit with an iron filter, 45 feet of copper, a long drain, haul-away, and a brine receptacle prices around $4,968 ($110 per foot, 12.3 crew-hours), while a 32k PEX hang-only special prices around $1,318 ($165 per foot, 2.9 hours).