How to price a building job without losing your shirt

Price too high and you lose the job. Price too low and you win it — then watch your margin vanish. Here's how to price a building job properly, step by step, so neither happens.

Step 1 — Measure the job accurately

Everything starts with quantities. Work through the drawings and measure every element: groundworks, concrete, blockwork, timber, roofing, first and second fix. Guessing quantities is the single biggest cause of a job going wrong. If you're not confident measuring off drawings, this is exactly the step to get help with.

Step 2 — Price the materials at real rates

Take your measured quantities and price them against current merchant prices — not what materials cost last year. Prices move, and a quote built on stale rates loses money the day you send it. Compare across merchants too; the same basket can vary by 10% or more.

Step 3 — Cost the labour honestly

Work out how many days each trade needs and cost them at what they actually charge — including your own time. Builders routinely under-cost labour because they forget the days that aren't glamorous: setting up, clearing up, waiting on materials, snagging.

Step 4 — Add overheads and margin

Your quote has to carry more than the direct cost of the job. Add:

• Overheads — insurance, vehicle, phone, tools, admin time.
• Contingency — a buffer for the things you can't see on the drawings.
• Profit margin — the reason you're in business. This is not optional.

Step 5 — Price the variations separately (and get them signed)

The job you quoted is rarely the job you build. Extra work — variations — is where margin is won or lost. Price every variation as it comes up, and get it approved before you build it. "He said he'd pay for it" is not a contract.

The mistakes that cost builders money

• Pricing on a hunch instead of measuring.
• Using out-of-date material prices.
• Forgetting overheads and pricing at cost.
• Doing extra work without a signed variation.
• Never tracking actual cost against the quote as the job runs.

The faster way to price accurately

Doing all of this by hand, at night, after a full day on site, is why so many builders never price properly. AI Trades Pilot does the heavy lifting: send your drawings and get a fully priced Bill of Quantities back the same day, compare materials across merchants, and track live cost against your quote as the job runs — so you catch a job going over while you can still do something about it.