Quote vs Actual Job Profit Tracker

Who this is for

Any trade that quotes fixed-price jobs — builders, plumbers, electricians, decorators, landscapers. If you've ever finished a job, got paid, and had a nagging feeling it "didn't feel worth it" but couldn't say why, this tool answers that question in numbers instead of gut feel.

Why do margins vanish on jobs that looked profitable when you quoted them?

Three things eat margin quietly: underestimating days on site (the job that was "meant to be two days" runs to three and a half), uncosted trips back for snags or forgotten materials that never get billed, and materials creep — prices rise between quoting and buying, or you end up buying more than you scoped. None of these show up until you actually total the job up afterwards, which is exactly why most trades never catch it.

What margin should a trade actually be targeting?

As a rough guide, most healthy trade businesses aim for 25%+ gross margin on labour-and-materials jobs once your day-cost properly reflects overheads (van, insurance, tools, admin time, holiday pay you're not getting from anyone else). Anything consistently under 10% means you're barely covering your real costs — you're working for wages, not profit. Negative margin means the job cost you money to do.

What do I do if a certain type of job is always red?

Look for the pattern rather than treating each bad job as a one-off. If every kitchen re-plumb or every extension groundworks job comes out red, you've got two honest options: reprice that job type properly (your quoting process is underestimating something structural — usually days or materials), or stop selling it and put that capacity into the job types that are consistently green. Chasing turnover on a job type that quietly loses you money every time isn't a growth strategy, it's a slow leak.