How to raise your prices as a contractor

Most contractors raise prices years after they should have, in one uncomfortable jump, because they are waiting for a signal that never arrives.

The signals you already have

You are booked weeks out. You are winning nearly every bid you send. You are turning work away, or taking jobs you resent. Material and insurance costs have moved and your rate has not. Any one of these is a reason to look at your numbers; winning almost everything you quote is the clearest of them, because a healthy close rate is not 100%.

Work out what you actually need to charge

Start from the cost of an hour — wage, payroll burden, insurance — then add the hours you cannot bill (driving, quoting, chasing invoices, admin), then overhead, then the profit you intend to make. The number that falls out is usually well above what people charge by instinct. Published wage data is a useful floor, but it is a wage, not a rate: it excludes every one of those layers.

Raise on new quotes, not on agreed work

Never reprice a job you have already quoted or started. New pricing applies to new estimates from a chosen date. Existing customers with work booked finish at the agreed number — that is what protects the relationship while the rate moves.

You do not owe anyone an apology

New customers have no idea what you charged last year. For repeat customers, a short factual note — costs have risen, here is the new rate, here is when it starts — is enough. Long justifications read as uncertainty and invite negotiation.

Expect to lose some work, and check which

A price rise that costs you no customers was probably too small. What matters is which ones leave: if you lose the slow-paying, scope-creeping, hardest-to-please jobs first, the increase is doing exactly what it should.

Make the higher price easier to say yes to

A clear itemised estimate that shows what is included, what is excluded and what was assumed justifies a higher number better than any conversation. Customers rarely compare rates directly; they compare how confident and specific the two bids in front of them look.

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.

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