Pre-loaded with electrical trade overhead defaults. Enter your job costs — get your exact bid price and profit margin.
Electrical contractors typically operate with higher markups than general contractors due to licensing requirements, specialized tool inventories, vehicle costs, and the liability of working with energized systems. Industry benchmarks put electrical markup between 20% and 35% on direct costs, translating to a true gross margin of 17–26%.
One of the most common electrical pricing errors is forgetting to include labor burden — the employer-paid costs on top of wages including FICA (7.65%), workers' comp premiums (which run high for electricians), unemployment insurance, and benefits. For a journeyman electrician at $35/hr base, the fully burdened rate is typically $45–50/hr. Enter your burdened labor cost in the calculator, not the base wage.
For commercial electrical work, factor in prevailing wage requirements on public projects — these are often significantly higher than market rates and must be calculated correctly or you'll lose money on the job.
Electrical contractors operate in one of the higher-markup trades for good reason: licensing requirements, the cost of maintaining a vehicle stocked with inventory, workers' compensation premiums for electricians, and the significant liability of energized systems all drive overhead higher than most trades. The industry benchmark for electrical markup is 20–35% on direct costs, translating to a true gross margin of 17–26%.
But the benchmark is just a starting point. Your actual markup must come from your real overhead rate. An electrical contractor running two fully-stocked vans, three journeymen, and an office admin will have a fundamentally different overhead structure than a solo operator working out of a pickup. Use this calculator to find your number — not the industry average.
The most common electrical pricing mistake is using base wages instead of fully burdened labor rates. A journeyman electrician at $38/hr base wages actually costs $49–54/hr once you add employer FICA (7.65%), federal and state unemployment insurance, workers' compensation (which runs 12–18% of wages in most states for electricians), and any benefits contributions. Enter the fully burdened hourly rate multiplied by estimated hours in the labor cost field — never base wage alone.
| Project Type | Typical Markup | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Residential service calls | 35–60% | Dispatch overhead, small job minimum |
| Residential panel / rewire | 25–35% | Defined scope, moderate complexity |
| New residential rough-in | 18–28% | Volume, predictable scope |
| Light commercial | 20–30% | Coordination overhead, permit complexity |
| Large commercial / industrial | 12–20% | Competitive bid, prevailing wage may apply |
Electrical contractor overhead typically runs 12–18% of revenue. Key overhead drivers include: vehicle payments and fuel (often the largest single line item for multi-van operations), electrical license renewals and continuing education, liability insurance (higher than average due to fire and electrocution risk), tool and equipment replacement, and any warehouse or shop space for material storage.
Beyond the markup-margin confusion, electrical contractors lose money by forgetting permit fees on jobs where the client expects them included, underestimating job site travel time on multi-location service routes, not accounting for material price fluctuations on large material-heavy jobs, and failing to include a contingency for concealed conditions (especially on older homes where wiring may not match drawings).