What to charge to install flooring or tile
Price the laying by the square foot of floor you measure, and buy the floor by the box, with your extra for cuts in it. Those are two different numbers, and the gap between them comes out of your pocket unless the price covers it. Cost the boxes, add the rest of the materials, your hours of getting the room ready and your hours of laying, pick a price above that, and divide by the measured square feet.
By TailGateBid. .
You lay one number and buy another
A room is measured once, and that is the floor you lay and charge for. The cartons hold more: the extra for cuts, and then whatever it takes to reach a whole box. In the job worked through below, 384 square feet are bought to lay 335.
So a price for a square foot laid has to carry more than a square foot of floor. This page costs the boxes you buy and divides by the floor you lay. The cuts are then paid for by the price, and not out of your pocket.
If the customer buys the floor, empty the box for what a carton costs you. The sum is then your hours, the rest of the materials and the trips.
From the rooms to the boxes
- Each room's length times its width, added up, is the measured floor, and the size of the job.
- The extra for cuts goes on top. MSI Surfaces says to add 10% for its own vinyl plank. Mullican Flooring recommends 7 to 12 percent for its hardwood, and says a diagonal installation will result in more waste. Use the figure the maker of your floor gives.
- Divide by the square feet in one box and round up. Those are the boxes, and the boxes at what one costs you is the floor.
- Add the rest: underlayment, baseboard, thresholds, glue, thinset and grout, whichever this floor takes.
- Your hours of getting the room ready and your hours of laying, at what an hour costs you, plus the materials and the trips, is what the job costs you. Pick a price above it and divide by the measured square feet.
Work out what a job costs you
Start with the rooms
These boxes add the rooms up into square feet, count the boxes to buy, and put the size, the materials and your hours in the calculator below.
A room that is not a rectangle is two rows. A new row opens when the last one is filled.
It starts at 10, one flooring maker's figure for its own plank. Use the figure the maker of your floor gives.
Printed on the carton, for plank and for tile alike. The boxes are counted from it.
Leave it empty if the customer buys the floor.
Underlayment, baseboard, thresholds, glue, thinset and grout: whatever this floor takes.
Moving furniture, pulling up the old floor, fixing what is under it.
The laying or the setting, the cuts, the baseboard back on, the cleanup.
Type the length and the width of a room. The square feet show here.
Two people for a day of 8 hours is 16.
A rental, dump fees, a sub.
Type the size of the job to see a price for each square foot.
If you want it checked. Leave it empty if not.
Type your hours and what an hour costs you, or your materials. The answer shows here.
Two rooms, priced
An example with made-up numbers, not a going rate
Say a kitchen is 12 by 16 feet and the room beside it 11 by 13: 335 square feet. Say you add 10% for cuts and the carton holds 24 square feet: 16 boxes. Say a box costs you $58, a made-up price: $928, and $140 of underlayment and baseboard makes $1,068. Say getting the rooms ready takes 6 hours and laying takes 14: 20 hours, which at $57.05 an hour is $1,141. Say the trips cost you $36. The job costs you $2,245. Charge $3,208 and you keep $963, which is $30 of every $100. That is $9.58 a square foot, laid.
The same two rooms at five prices
An example with made-up numbers, not a going rate
| Price | You keep | Of every $100 |
|---|---|---|
| $2,495 | $250 | $10 |
| $2,807 | $562 | $20 |
| $3,208 | $963 | $30 |
| $3,742 | $1,497 | $40 |
| $4,490 | $2,245 | $50 |
The hours before the first plank
- The box for getting the room ready is there because those hours have little to do with the square feet. Two rooms of one size can be hours apart before a single plank is down.
- Furniture. If you move it, the hours are yours. If the customer does, say so on the quote.
- What is there now. Carpet, old vinyl and old tile each come up their own way, and each leaves by the load. Put the haul on the quote as a line of its own.
- What is under it. You do not know until the old floor is up. Price what you can see, and say on the quote that anything found under it is a change the customer approves first.
- Doors and baseboard. Baseboard off and back on, and any door that no longer clears a thicker floor.
A wait is a trip
- Some floors do not go down the day they arrive. Mullican's instructions for its solid wood floor say it is crucial that the flooring is acclimated in the climate-controlled area where it will be installed until its moisture content reaches the specified levels, and that this is settled by moisture readings on the day of the installation, not by how long the floor has sat.
- So for a floor like that the delivery is one trip, the readings may be another, and the laying a third, and nobody can promise the day in advance. Read the maker's instructions for the floor you are quoting before you promise one.
- If you set tile one day and grout it the next, that is two trips as well. See what a trip costs you, and count every one.
What gets missed
- The part of a box. You pay for whole cartons. What is left belongs to somebody: say on the quote whether it stays with the customer for repairs.
- The pattern. If a diagonal or a herringbone takes you longer and wastes more, both the extra and the hours go up for the same square feet. Price it as its own job, not at your price for a straight lay.
- Tile by the piece. The flooring and tile calculator counts tile by the piece and by the box, from the same rooms, and gives the lines for the quote.
- The small room. A bathroom is few square feet and nearly all cuts. Price it from its hours, not from a price for a square foot.
- The deposit. Boxes are bought before the first plank goes down. Work out a deposit and the sales tax, and check what your state allows before you ask for one.
On a quote
In TailGateBid laying goes on a quote as a line charged by the square foot, with the boxes as a line of their own. TailGateBid for flooring and tile has a quote worked through that way, and shows how three floors go on one quote as options the customer picks between.
The hour under every figure on this page is what an hour costs you. If that is still a guess, start there.
Where each number comes from
- When this page works out a price for you, it never aims to leave you more than $90 of every $100. TailGateBid's own price suggestions stop at the same place. A price you type yourself can leave more.
- The ladder shows the prices that leave about $10, $20, $30, $40, $50 of every $100. The steps are our choice: a ladder to read across, not advice.
- The box for the extra for cuts starts at 10 percent. For its own vinyl plank, MSI Surfaces says to add that much to the total for mistakes, cuts and damage. Starting there is our choice. Another maker may ask for another figure for its own floor: use theirs. MSI Surfaces, how to measure a space for luxury vinyl flooring, . (our choice, change it)
A calculator works from the numbers you type. Check the answer against your own books.
This page is about one kind of job. TailGateBid works for any trade, and Bid Partner is built to price a job in any of them: how it works for your trade.
Sources
Related
- Flooring and tile calculatorRooms into square feet to lay, square feet to buy with your extra for cuts, and boxes or tiles, with lines to put on a quote.
- Flooring and tileSquare feet to lay and boxes to buy on one quote, with the choices of floor side by side.
- What an hour costs youIn the example, $25 an hour of pay turns into $57.05 for every hour you can bill.
- Trip and minimum chargeIn the example, a job 25 minutes away costs $93.92 before any work is done. See what your smallest job costs with the trip in it.
- Deposit and sales taxOn a sample quote, 7.25% of $2,035.00 is $147.54 of tax, and a 10% deposit on the total is $225.75.
On a TailGateBid quote laying the floor is a line by the square foot and the boxes are a line of their own, each at your price.
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