Count the devices, set your own labor rate, then add materials, permits, overhead and profit. You get the bid and, more usefully, what it actually pays you per hour on site. Free, and no signup needed.
Work on this job
Materials, overhead and profit
A margin is a share of the price, so it can never reach 100%: at 99% the bid would be a hundred times your cost. Capped at 80% here. If you meant a markup on cost, a 100% markup is a 50% margin.
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These figures are estimates to help you bid a job. Adjust the labor hours and your hourly rate to match your own crew, your market, and whether the work is new construction, a remodel, or a service call.
It is a free tool that turns a device count into a priced bid. You list the work (receptacles, switches, fixtures, a new circuit, a panel change), and each item carries a typical labor time. The tool multiplies quantity by hours by your hourly rate, adds your materials and markup, adds permits and any other costs, then applies overhead and profit to reach a bid. It also shows the total hours and what the bid pays you per hour, which is the number that tells you whether the job is worth taking.
Add one row per type of work and set the quantity. Each item starts with a typical labor time per unit, which you can change: your own times are better than any average. Set your hourly rate, enter your materials cost and the markup you apply to it, then tick any permits, trip charges or equipment rental. Finally set your overhead and profit margin. Everything updates as you type, and nothing is sent anywhere.
Most electrical estimating is labor units: a standard time for each device or task, multiplied by how many of them, multiplied by a labor rate. Materials are priced separately and marked up, because you carry the cost of buying, collecting and warrantying them. Permits, inspection, trip charges and equipment rental are added as they occur. Overhead (your van, insurance, license, phone, the hours nobody pays you for) is then spread across the job as a percentage, and profit is applied last. New work in an open wall is faster per device than a remodel through finished drywall, which is why every hour figure here is editable. For more detail, see our guides on how to estimate electrical work and how to price electrical work.
This is the mistake that quietly costs electricians money. A 20% markup on a $1,000 cost gives a $1,200 bid, and your profit is $200 on $1,200, which is a 16.7% margin, not 20%. To actually keep 20% of the price you divide by 0.80 and bid $1,250. The calculator treats the profit field as a margin and divides, so the number you type is the share of the bid you keep. Overhead is applied to cost before that, because overhead is a cost, not a profit.
These are common starting points in the United States for residential and light commercial work. Treat them as a baseline and replace them with your own recorded times, which is the single biggest improvement you can make to your estimating.
| Work | Typical labor time |
|---|---|
| Replace a receptacle or switch | 0.35 h each |
| Install a new receptacle | 0.75 h each |
| Install a recessed light | 1.0 h each |
| Install a ceiling fan | 1.75 h each |
| Run a new 15 or 20 amp circuit | 2.5 h each |
| Install an EV charger circuit | 4.0 h |
| Panel replacement or service upgrade | 10.0 h |
| Electrician hourly rate | $75 to $130 / h |
| Permit fee | $50 to $350 |
Record your real times on the next ten jobs and replace the defaults with them, because your times beat any published average. Price a remodel higher per device than new construction, since fishing a wall is most of the work. Charge for the trip separately on small service calls, or a two-outlet job costs you money before you park. Put the scope, the exclusions and what happens if you open a wall and find aluminium wiring in writing, on a signed estimate, before you start. When the job is agreed, our free electrical quote template and estimate and quote generator turn the same line items into a document you can send in seconds.
Once the estimate is accepted, invoice the job straight away and keep the payment terms short:
From our invoice data: Shorter terms bring the money in sooner: invoices due on receipt are paid in 15.9 days on average and Net 30 invoices in 47.2 days, while the share paid by the due date barely changes (39.1% against 42.3%).
Source: Billbooks invoice payment study, 53,095 paid invoices from 180 businesses, 2007 to August 2026. See the invoice payment study
Sizing the service rather than pricing the work? That is a different question, and our electrical load calculator answers it in amps using the NEC optional method. This calculator provides estimates for planning purposes only. Your final bid should reflect your own costs, times, local rates and the condition of the building.
Bid the job here, then send a branded estimate and invoice, collect payment online, and track it all from one Billbooks account.
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