Price panel changes, rough-ins and service calls from your own costs
You put in what your electrical shop costs to run once. After that, every quote starts from your crew, your van and your supply-house prices, not from a number you heard another shop charges.
- Know what a billable hour really costs you Wages, payroll costs, insurance, the van and the bucket truck become one break-even rate per billable hour.
- Price the whole job, not just the wire Utility coordination, tear-out, the service mast, the panel, the inspections and the finish each get their own hours.
- Quote the way your customers buy You get one fixed price for the job, built from hours and parts, and the minimum charge covers the short service call.
- Stop paying for the trips yourself The meter release wait, return trips and code items the inspector will want sit on a checklist that has to be answered.
- Send a quote that looks like a real shop's A one-page customer quote with scope, price, deposit and electrical terms, ready to print or save as a PDF.
- See which jobs made money The Job Log keeps quoted hours next to real hours on every job, won or lost.
- One-time payment, no subscription
- Instant download
- Excel and Google Sheets
How it turns breakers, wire and crew hours into a panel quote
Six tabs, used in order. You set up the shop once, refresh prices when copper moves, and build one quote per job.
- Start HereThe order to set things up in, about one evening's work before your first electrical quote.
- Shop SetupYour wages, payroll costs, overhead, van and lift go in; the floor rate every electrical hour has to clear comes out.
- Price ListWhat you pay for panels, breakers, wire and conduit, each with the date you last checked it, so an old copper price stands out.
- QuoteMaterials, labour by stage, the permit and utility fees, and the don't-forget list, with the price building as you go.
- Customer QuoteThe page your customer signs: scope, price, deposit and terms.
- Job LogQuoted hours against real hours, so the next service change is priced closer.
What is a break-even rate? It is what one billable hour has to bring in to pay every wage, yours included, and every shop cost before profit. On an electrical crew, the hours spent at the desk and at the parts counter are not billed, so the billed hours carry them. The electrician hourly rate page works it through.
Prefilled example built-in
The file comes filled in with a made-up electrical shop and its $6,816 panel upgrade quote, so you see a finished quote before you type in your own numbers.
The example shop is an owner, a journeyman and an apprentice, with a break-even of $69.89 per billable hour. The job takes a house from 100A to 200A: new panel, outside meter/main disconnect, new mast and aluminum service cable, grounding and bonding, a whole-home surge protector and three hardwired smoke/CO alarms.
| A | B | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Part of the price | Amount |
| 2 | Materials, permit and utility fees | $2,147.40 |
| 3 | Labour and van | $2,111.48 |
| 4 | Easy-to-miss costs | $683.92 |
| 5 | Markup, cushion and profit | $1,873.09 |
| 6 | Price before tax | $6,815.89 |
The easy-to-miss lines add about 10% to the price. The profit is left over after the owner, journeyman and apprentice are all paid, and the job pays $119.84 for every labour hour. The full walk-through is on how much to charge for electrical work.
$684
That is what the easy-to-miss lines alone added to this one example quote. It is about 13 times what the calculator costs. Miss them once and the file has paid for itself.
- One-time payment, no subscription
- Instant download
- Excel and Google Sheets
Why lowballing to win electrical jobs loses money
New electrical contractors often price low to win work, figuring they will raise prices once they are busy. The trouble is that a low price leaves no room for the job that runs long, and on electrical work something always runs long: an old panel that fights you, a wall with a fire block, a wait for the utility.
The sample Job Log shows it. One $1,400 job was quoted at 9 hours and took 16. At the example's $69.89 break-even, those 7 hours over the quote cost $489.23, and a job priced to make $250 lost $128.18 instead.
The calculator fixes the first half by pricing every job from your real rate and the full list of trips and waits, so the price has room in it. The Job Log fixes the second half: after a few jobs you know how long your panel changes and rough-ins really take, and quote from that.
Meter release waits, inspection trips and the other electrical costs it catches
The Quote tab won't mark a quote ready until each of these lines has a Yes, No or N/A:
- The walk-through and writing up the quote, time you spend on every job, won or lost.
- Return trips for rough-in, the inspection and the finish.
- Waiting on the meter release and the utility reconnect, standing time that is still paid time.
- Code items the inspector will want once you touch the service, like smoke/CO alarms and a bonding bridge.
- Load calculation, panel schedule and change-order paperwork, desk hours no customer sees.
- Patching holes you cut. Left as No in the example on purpose, so the warning stays until you either price it or exclude it in writing.
Exactly what you get
One file, sent as an instant download at checkout. It works in Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets, with no macros, no subscription and no login.
- The six-tab calculator, ready for your own shop numbers.
- A complete example electrical shop, with a finished 200A upgrade quote you can check line by line.
- Electrical customer terms you can edit, covering the permit and power-off time, customer-supplied fixtures, patching, the warranty, and problems found once walls are open handled as a change order.
- A Job Log that shows your win rate and which jobs ran over their hours, the habit covered in job costing.
How it compares
Most owners price a job one of these ways. Here is what each one gives you.
| Copying another company's price | A free estimate template | Estimating software | This calculator | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starts from your own costs | No | No | Varies | Yes |
| Makes you answer the easy-to-miss costs | No | No | Varies | Yes |
| Shows which jobs made money | No | No | Varies | Yes |
| Works in Excel and Google Sheets | – | Yes | No | Yes |
| Cost | Free | Free | Usually a monthly fee | $49.95 once |
Who it's for: electrical contractors of 1 to 15 people
It fits electrical contractors with about 1 to 15 people doing residential service, panel changes, remodel wiring and small commercial work, plus electricians going out on their own who want their real rate before the first bid. Solo electrician with one van or a crew of 15, service calls or whole-house rewires, it works the same, because every rate and price in it is yours.
It is not for large commercial estimating from full plan sets with big takeoffs, and it is not a tool for load calcs or panel schedules. To see your rate before buying, try the free true hourly rate calculator.
Stop lowballing electrical work to win the job. Price every panel change and rough-in from your own costs, catch the trips and waits that usually get missed, and see which jobs made money.
Electrical Contractor Pricing Calculator
$49.95 one-time
Buy now and download- One-time payment, no subscription
- Instant download
- Excel and Google Sheets