Electrical estimate template — and a generator that fills it in

What belongs in an electrical estimate, from wire footage to inspection, and a generator that drafts one from a plain description.

Generate this estimate now

Describe the job in plain words. No email needed to see your first estimate — about fifteen seconds for a small job, a little longer for a big one.

What you get — see the format first

A complete estimate you can send to the customer, built from the rate you enter:

Description	Qty	Unit	Unit price	Total
Labor — itemized by task	hrs	hour	your rate	—
Materials — with your markup applied	qty	ea / sq ft	cost + markup	—
Permits, disposal, access	—	—	—	—

Plus a plain-English scope summary, assumptions (what had to be guessed), exclusions (what you are not doing — the section that prevents most change-order arguments), and a validity period. Printable, or send the link.

Every figure comes from the rate and markup you supply. We never fill in a market price for you.

3 free electrical estimate and bid templates

An estimating spreadsheet that opens in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets, or prints to PDF. Pre-filled with the line items a electrical estimate should contain, plus a checklist of what electrical estimating most often leaves out — so you price it before you send, not after.

Blank — the line items, ready to price by hand.
Auto-calculating — same sheet with the maths built in; type a quantity and a rate and it totals itself. Formulas work in Excel and Google Sheets.
Printable — a clean one-page layout to fill in on site or save as PDF.

Blank (Excel / Sheets) Auto-calculating Printable PDF

How electrical jobs are bid

Electrical is bid per device and per circuit, plus panel work priced on its own. The device count is the easy part; the variable is the path — fishing through finished walls, drilling through joists, or working in a crawlspace multiplies the labor per outlet several times over. Permit, inspection and the return trip to meet the inspector are real hours on most residential jobs.

What a electrical estimate should contain

Panel, subpanel or breakers by amperage
Wire by gauge and footage, and the conductor material
Conduit, boxes, devices and covers
Trenching or fishing walls — priced separately, since it dominates labor
Permit and electrical inspection, including the utility coordination if the service changes
Temporary power or an outage window if the service is being cut
Labor as hours × rate, journeyman versus apprentice where it matters

What gets left out of electrical estimates

Utility disconnect and reconnect scheduling on service upgrades
Grounding and bonding brought up to current code, which an inspector will require
AFCI/GFCI protection added because you touched the circuit
Drywall and stucco repair after fishing walls

What the labor actually costs

$30.38/hour — US median wage for electricians, May 2025 ($63,190/year).

That is a wage, not your billing rate. It excludes payroll burden, insurance, the hours you spend driving and quoting, overhead and profit. Billing at or near it means working the job for free once those land — which is where underpricing starts. What your multiplier should be depends on your business, so put the rate you actually bill into the generator and every line prices from your number.

Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook — national median, May 2025. Wages vary widely by metro.

Your prices, not internet averages

Generic AI quotes national averages. BidWand builds a price book from every estimate you send and every rate you correct, so by the fifth bid it prices like you do — your labor rate, your markup, your exclusions.

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