How to write a construction estimate (free construction estimate template)

Download the construction estimate template

Download the construction estimate template (Excel, .xlsx). No sign-up and no email. It opens in Excel and in Google Sheets: in Google Drive choose New, then File upload, then open the file with Google Sheets.

One file per job, with these tabs:

• Labor Rates — each craft’s base wage turned into a burdened hourly cost: Social Security, Medicare, federal and state unemployment, workers’ comp, general liability, benefits and paid time off.
• Estimate — one row per line of work: quantity, unit, labor hours per unit and craft, material cost per unit and waste, equipment, the sub package, and other costs. Every line is checked for a missing price, craft or quantity.
• Sub Bids — up to three bidders per trade package, with your price for whatever each one excluded added back, and the lowest complete price carried to the estimate.
• Summary — direct cost by type, contingency, overhead, profit and bond, your price rounded up, markup and margin, price per square foot, and every check still open.
• Proposal — the one page you send: scope and price by section, inclusions, exclusions, terms, the drawings you priced and how long the price holds.
• Job Setup, Checklist and Start Here — your markups and the 2026 payroll tax figures, what to check before the price goes out, and how to use the file.

Blue text is what you type. Black text is a formula. Yellow cells are settings to check before you start. The file comes with a sample job, a 3,200 sq ft dental office fit-out, so every check shows.

What goes into a construction estimate

An estimate is built in two layers. The first is direct cost: everything the job itself consumes, priced line by line from a quantity. The second is what turns that cost into a price: contingency, overhead, profit and, on a bonded job, the bond.

• Labor: hours per unit times the quantity, at each craft’s burdened rate.
• Material: cost per unit times the quantity, plus waste, plus sales tax where it applies.
• Equipment: rentals and owned equipment charged to the job, such as a lift, a skid steer or a crane pick.
• Subcontracts: the leveled, complete price for each trade package you buy out.
• Other: permits and plan review, dumpsters, testing, temporary utilities.
• Then contingency, overhead, profit and bond, in that order.

Start by writing down which drawings and specifications you are pricing, with their date and every addendum. It costs nothing at bid time and settles the first argument after award: whether a change is new scope or something that was always on the drawings.

Measure before you price. Quantities come from takeoff, by hand or in a takeoff tool, and the estimate prices them. The template starts where the takeoff ends.

Price labor at the burdened rate, not the base wage

The base wage is the smallest part of what an hour of labor costs you that people forget. Across the US construction industry in June 2026, employers paid an average of $36.13 an hour in wages and $15.84 an hour in benefits, so benefits were 30.5% of total compensation, or about 44% on top of the wage. $4.42 of that was legally required benefits alone. BLS

Some of the burden is set by law. For 2026, the employer pays 6.2% Social Security tax on wages up to $184,500, and 1.45% Medicare tax with no wage limit. IRS

Federal unemployment tax is 6.0% of the first $7,000 of each employee’s wages, less a credit of up to 5.4% if you paid your state unemployment tax in full and on time, which leaves 0.6%. Your state sets its own unemployment rate and wage base. IRS

The rest is yours to look up: your workers’ comp rate for each class of work, your general liability rate if it is charged on payroll, health and other benefits, and paid time off. The template’s Labor Rates tab adds them up per craft. Here is the sample carpenter:

Price that carpenter at $34.00 and every hour on the estimate is $13.99 short. On the sample job’s 754 labor hours, across four crafts, the gap between base wage and burdened cost is more than $10,000.

Our free job costing template uses the same loaded rates to track labor cost once the job is won, so the estimate and the job cost compare like for like.

Level your sub bids before you carry one

On most general contractor estimates, subcontracts are the biggest number. In the sample they are $368,950 of $438,693 in direct cost. So the bid you carry for each trade matters more than any line you price yourself, and the lowest base bid is often not the cheapest.

Leveling means comparing bids on the same scope. Write down what the package has to include. Read each quote for what it leaves out, put your own price on each exclusion, and add it back. The lowest complete price is the one to carry.

The lowest base bid is $6,550 more than the one to carry once its exclusions are priced. Carry the low base bid instead and you either buy the fixtures and the permit yourself, or argue about them with your sub after you have signed with the owner.

Get at least two bids for every package. One bid is a price, not a comparison. The template flags any package with only one bid, any package where the lowest base bid is not the lowest complete price, and any package that never reaches the estimate or reaches it twice.

Contingency, overhead, profit and bond

Contingency covers what you cannot price yet: conditions behind walls, gaps between the drawings. It is not somewhere to hide profit. Overhead is the cost of being in business that no single job carries: the office, the trucks, insurance and the people who are not on site. Work it out from your own books as a share of the work you expect to do this year. Profit is a decision, and it is the only one of the three you keep.

If the job is bonded, price the bond. On federal work, performance and payment bonds are required for any construction contract over $150,000. Where a bid guarantee is required, it is at least 20 percent of the bid price, up to $3 million. Acquisition.gov Acquisition.gov

Markup is not margin

Markup is what you add as a share of cost. Margin is the same dollars as a share of the price. They are not the same number: a 25% markup is a 20% margin. In the sample, everything above direct cost is a 23.6% markup and a 19.1% margin. If you know the margin you want, the markup that gets you there is the margin divided by one minus the margin: a 15% margin needs a 17.6% markup. The template’s Summary does the conversion.

Turn the estimate into a proposal

The client sees one page: the scope and price by section, the total, what is included and what is not, the drawings you priced, your terms, and the date the price expires. The template’s Proposal tab shares the price out across your sections in proportion to their cost, so the sections add up to the total, and leaves your markups off the page.

Write exclusions in plain words. Anything you excluded in writing is a change order later; anything you never mentioned is an argument. Our free change order template keeps those changes priced and signed once the job is under way.

Give the price an expiry date, shorter when material prices are moving. A price with no end date can be accepted months later at last season’s cost.

When it is accepted, the estimate becomes the job’s budget and the first billing breakdown. Our schedule of values template shows how to turn the estimate into the lines you bill against.

Reading the sample

The sample job is made up: a 3,200 sq ft dental office fit-out for a general contractor, with supervision, demolition, carpentry, doors and painting done in-house, and six subcontract packages.

• Four crafts on Labor Rates, from a $24.00 laborer to a $45.00 superintendent. Their burden runs from 33% to 48% on the base wage; the job’s labor, weighted by hours, carries 38%.
• In three packages, drywall and ceilings, flooring, and electrical, the lowest base bid is not the lowest complete price, so the Sub Bids tab carries another bidder. Fire protection has one bid and is flagged.
• Direct cost is $438,693 and the price is $542,200, about $169 a square foot: a 23.6% markup on cost and a 19.1% margin on the price.
• The proposal splits the $542,200 across nine sections and lists what is included and excluded, with the price valid for 30 days.

Every rate except the 2026 federal payroll tax figures is a placeholder, not a recommendation. Set your own on Job Setup and Labor Rates before you price a job.

When a spreadsheet stops being enough

One file per bid works while one person estimates. These are the signs it has stopped working:

• Every new estimate starts from a copy of the last one, and old prices travel with it.
• You win the job and type the estimate in again as a budget.
• Nobody can say how many bids are out, what they are worth, or which ones were won.
• After the job, you cannot compare what you bid with what it cost.

At that point the estimate belongs in the same system as the pipeline, the budget and the billing, so a won bid becomes a job without being retyped.

Where WorkHoist helps

A WorkHoist estimate is built the same way: sections, and lines with a quantity, unit, unit cost and cost type (labor, materials, subcontractors, equipment, permits and fees, overhead or contingency), each with its own markup if you want one, or priced as a lump sum. Overhead and profit are set as percentages on the estimate, and the totals update as you change the lines. Estimates can be saved as templates and duplicated, and each one is tied to the lead and client it is for.

The proposal comes from the same estimate. You choose whether the client sees every line or only section totals, whether the markup shows or every price is shown at the sell price, how long the price is valid, and whether it carries a signature block. When the job is won, you create the project from the estimate and its budget is filled in line by line at cost, so job costing starts from the numbers you bid, and the first pay application’s schedule of values starts from that budget.

Questions contractors ask

What should a construction estimate include?

A construction estimate should include the direct cost of every line of work, priced from a quantity: labor hours at the burdened rate, material with waste and sales tax, equipment, subcontracts and other costs such as permits and dumpsters. On top of that come contingency, overhead, profit and, on a bonded job, the bond. The proposal built from it should name the drawings priced, the inclusions and exclusions, the terms and how long the price is valid.

Is there a free construction estimate template?

Yes. WorkHoist’s construction estimate template is a free Excel file, with no sign-up or email, that also opens in Google Sheets. It turns each craft’s base wage into a burdened labor rate with the 2026 federal payroll tax figures, prices each line of work, levels subcontractor bids with their exclusions added back, adds contingency, overhead, profit and bond, and produces a one-page proposal.

How do you calculate labor burden in construction?

Add everything an hour of labor costs beyond the base wage: employer Social Security tax (6.2% up to $184,500 of 2026 wages) and Medicare (1.45%), federal unemployment (0.6% of the first $7,000 after the full state credit), state unemployment, workers’ comp, general liability if it is rated on payroll, health and other benefits, and paid time off. Divide the total by the base wage. Across the US construction industry in June 2026, benefits averaged $15.84 an hour on $36.13 of wages, about 44%.

What is the difference between markup and margin?

Markup is what you add as a percentage of cost; margin is the same dollars as a percentage of the selling price. A 25% markup is a 20% margin. To find the markup that gives the margin you want, divide the margin by one minus the margin: a 15% margin needs a 17.6% markup.

How do you compare subcontractor bids?

Compare them on the same scope. Write down what the package must include, read each bid for what it excludes, price each exclusion yourself and add it back to that bid. Carry the lowest complete price, not the lowest base bid, and get at least two bids for every package so you have something to compare.

How much overhead should a contractor add to an estimate?

Work it out from your own books: your overhead for the year, the costs no single job carries, divided by the direct cost of the work you expect to do that year. That gives the percentage to add to each estimate. Profit is a separate decision on top of overhead, and contingency is a separate allowance for what you cannot price yet.

Do you need a bond to bid construction work?

It depends on the job and the owner. On federal construction contracts, performance and payment bonds are required for any contract over $150,000, and where a bid guarantee is required it is at least 20 percent of the bid price, up to $3 million. Private owners and states set their own rules, so check the bid documents.