Price pads, driveways and gravel lots from your own costs
You enter your dirt business once: overhead, crew and every machine. After that, every bid is priced from what your pit, quarry and machines really cost you, not from the hourly rate the outfit down the road charges.
- Know what an hour of crew and machine really costs Overhead and wages become one rate per labour hour, and each machine (loader, excavator, dump truck) gets its own cost per running hour.
- Price the whole job, not just the stone Subbase grading, fabric, hauling, spreading and compaction each get their own hours and machine.
- Quote in tons, yards and rolls Stone by the ton, fill by the yard, fabric by the roll, and the price per square foot at the end.
- Stop paying for the haul home Demobilizing, the yard-to-ton conversion, sales tax at the pit and the last 10% sit on a checklist that has to be answered.
- Send a proper site work quote A one-page customer quote with scope, quantities, deposit and terms for rock and spoils, ready to print or save as a PDF.
- See which dirt jobs paid The Job Log tracks every bid, won or lost, and the real hours each job took.
- One-time payment, no subscription
- Instant download
- Excel and Google Sheets
How it turns tons, yards and machine hours into a site work bid
Six tabs, in the order you'd bid a site.
- Start HereA walk-through you can finish in an evening, using the sample company as the model.
- Shop SetupYour overhead, crew and each machine, turned into a cost per labour hour and a cost per machine hour.
- Price ListBase, clean rock, riprap, fill, topsoil, filter fabric, silt fence and pipe, each in the unit you buy it in, with a date so stale prices get flagged.
- QuotePick materials, convert yards to tons, add crew and machine hours by stage, answer the hidden-cost list, and it builds the price with your cushion and profit.
- Customer QuoteThe one page the customer sees: scope, quantities, price, deposit and site work terms.
- Job LogEvery bid, won or lost, with the real hours after, so you see which kinds of dirt jobs actually pay.
What is a machine hour cost? It is what one hour of a machine running has to bring in to cover its payment, fuel, grease, upkeep and wear, before profit. The same $10,000 of yearly fixed costs is $5 an hour over 2,000 working hours, but more than $8 an hour over a short 1,200-hour season. The true hourly rate guide covers the labour side of the same math.
Prefilled example built-in
The file comes filled in with a made-up excavation company and its $26,433 parking lot quote, so you see a finished quote before you type in your own numbers.
The example company has a break-even of $66.75 per labour hour before machine costs. The job is a 210 x 105 ft gravel parking lot extension for a lumber yard: grade the subbase with a crown, lay 10 rolls of filter fabric, and haul in, spread and compact 561 tons of recycled class 5.
| A | B | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Part of the price | Amount |
| 2 | Materials with overage | $6,628.65 |
| 3 | Labour and machine time (about 116 hours) | $11,319.08 |
| 4 | Easy-to-miss costs | $1,574.76 |
| 5 | Markup, cushion and profit | $6,910.06 |
| 6 | Price to the customer | $26,432.55 |
That is about $1.20 a square foot and $47 per ton of base placed. The $6,910 is left after every cost, the owner's wage included, and the job earns $118.71 per labour hour. The full breakdown is on how to charge for excavation work.
$1,575
That is what the easy-to-miss lines alone added to this one example quote. It is about 31 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 copying the machine rate down the road loses money
Most small dirt outfits quote by the machine hour, and a lot of those rates get copied from whoever else runs a skid steer in the county. That rate knows nothing about your machine payment, your fuel, your insurance or how many hours your machine really works in a season. It also leaves out everything that isn't the machine running: the haul there and back, the grease-up, the site visit.
The sample Job Log shows what happens when the ground surprises you. One $4,200 basement dig was quoted at 22 hours, hit rock and took 44. At the example's $66.75 labour break-even alone, those 22 extra hours cost $1,468.50 before the machine's own cost, and a dig priced to make $800 finished $37.03 in the red.
The calculator fixes this two ways. Your machine rates come from your own payment, fuel and hours, so the rate covers your costs. And the customer terms bill buried rock and old foundations as time and materials, so the next surprise is paid for.
The haul home, yards to tons and the other dirt costs it catches
The Quote tab won't mark a bid ready until each of these lines has a Yes, No or N/A:
- Demobilizing: loading, chaining down and driving the machine back to the yard.
- Cubic yards converted to tons, because the pit sells by the ton and a job measured in yards comes up short without it.
- Sales tax at the pit or supply house, which is easy to miss when you price from a quote before tax.
- Crew drive time and the morning grease-up and walk-around, paid every day and billed only if it is on the quote.
- The last 10%: clean-up and dressing in the edges, which always takes longer than it looks.
- A rain delay re-grade. Left as No in the example on purpose, so the warning stays until you decide how to price wet weather.
Exactly what you get
One .xlsx file, downloaded right after checkout. It opens in Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets, with no subscription, no app and no login.
- The six-tab calculator, ready for your own machines and prices.
- A complete example dirt company, with a finished parking lot bid and a starter price list you can overwrite.
- Site work customer terms you can edit, covering quantities on the quote, rock and buried obstructions, where the dirt goes, and work added on site as a change order.
- A Job Log with a sample basement dig that hit rock and took twice its hours, the gap explained 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: skid steer and mini excavator outfits of 1 to 15
It fits owner-operators and small site work crews (about 1 to 15 people) pricing pads, driveways, parking lots, French drains, trenching, basements and lot clearing, including new dirt contractors who want to know what their machine hour really costs. One skid steer and a trailer or a fleet with dump trucks, it works the same, because every rate in it comes from your own machines.
It is not for heavy civil firms bidding from plan takeoffs in estimating software, for hauling-only or rental-only businesses, or for anyone who wants a blank form to fill in by hand. To check your labour rate first, try the free true hourly rate calculator.
Stop pricing dirt work from the machine rate down the road. Price every pad, drive and lot from your own machine hours and costs, catch the haul home and the hidden costs, and see which jobs made money.
Excavation & Site Work Pricing Calculator
$49.95 one-time
Buy now and download- One-time payment, no subscription
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- Excel and Google Sheets