Hone your renovation bids: win at a real margin
A bid is a promise about money. Make it bottom-up, with the unknowns priced in.
Remodels rarely lose money on the framing. They lose it in the gaps: the line nobody added, the markup nobody took, the surprise behind the tub. Here is where renovation bids leak profit, and how to walk into the job at the margin you planned.
Where the margin leaks
The pricing traps that quietly cost contractors money.
Forgetting general conditions
The permit, the dumpster, the rental, the porta-john. The client never sees them as line items, but they are real money. Left out, they come straight off your profit.
Bidding with no contingency
Every remodel hides something behind a wall. A bid with no contingency is a bid that loses money the first time you open one up. Price the unknowns; you know they are coming.
Marking up subs by habit
A sub's bid passed through at cost pays you nothing for the coordination, the warranty, and the risk you carry. Mark it up on purpose, not by reflex.
Where the money is
The levers that actually move your take-home.
Overhead and profit on the loaded cost
Markup is not margin. Put overhead and profit on top of the fully-loaded cost, not the bare materials, or you walk in thinner than you think.
Allowances you control
An unselected fixture is an allowance, not a guess. Set it, mark it up, and the client's upgrade becomes your upside instead of your overrun.
Win the right jobs
Chasing every bid at a thin number is busier and poorer than winning fewer at a real margin. Know which jobs are worth your number.
What to track
The few numbers worth watching.
Win rate
Out for decision, won, lost. It tells you whether your number is too high, too low, or whether your follow-up is the real problem.
Bid versus actual
Did the job land where you bid it? The gap between the bid and the real cost is the most honest feedback a contractor ever gets.
Open pipeline value
What is out for decision is your near-future revenue. Watch it on the pipeline so you know when to go chase more.
Set Anvil up for it
How to make Anvil price your trade the honest way.
Build it bottom-up
Line items by scope, each with material plus waste plus labor, or a sub bid with your markup. Anvil rolls them into bare cost, then general conditions, contingency, and overhead plus profit.
Save your trade rates
Set your default contingency, overhead, profit, and sub markup once (Settings, on Business), so every new bid starts from your numbers, not the presets.
Send a real proposal
Export a clean, itemized proposal. A professional document wins jobs that a number scrawled on the back of an invoice does not.
Know your trade.
The cost engine is free. Put your real numbers in and see what to charge.