Chimney & fireplace
Chimney Margin Calculator
Works margin on chimney work, where the inspection is where the margin actually is.
Result
Markup is measured against your cost, margin against the price you charge. A 50% markup is a 33.3% margin, not a 50% one. Pricing off the wrong one is the most common way a job that looked profitable turns out not to have been. Gross profit is what is left after the cost of doing the job. Overhead comes out of that: the building, the office wages, the vans, insurance, software and advertising. A healthy gross margin still loses money if overhead is larger.
Get a Free Business AuditHow the calculation works
Margin is gross profit as a share of price, calculated against revenue rather than cost, with the equivalent markup always higher. Both are shown. In this trade the margin varies sharply by service: inspection is almost pure labour and expertise with very little material, so it carries a high margin, while masonry repair carries materials, access and subcontract exposure and carries less. Knowing the margin by service rather than blended is what tells you which work to pursue.
What moves the number
- Service mix between inspection, sweeping, repair and installation.
- Whether access costs were recovered on the job.
- Travel, which erodes margin on short distant jobs.
- Seasonal pricing, since peak and off-season margins differ.
Where this one goes wrong
A blended margin across sweeping, inspection and masonry repair tells you very little, because they behave completely differently. Inspection and sweeping are high margin, labour-dominated services that scale with technician capacity. Masonry repair and installation carry materials, access, subcontract risk and weather dependency, and frequently return less margin for considerably more management. A business that only knows its overall margin cannot tell whether its repair work is subsidising the service side or the other way round, and that is the most useful thing to know when deciding where to grow.
Before you quote
- Track margin separately by service line, not blended.
- Check whether access costs were actually recovered on repair jobs.
- Compare peak and off-season margins on the same service.
Questions
About this calculator
Which chimney service is most profitable?
Usually inspection and sweeping, because they are almost pure labour and expertise with minimal materials, and they scale with technician capacity. Masonry repair and installation carry materials, access, subcontract risk and weather dependency, and often return less margin for more management.
Why track margin by service line?
Because a blended figure hides which half is carrying the other. Sweeping, inspection, repair and installation have genuinely different cost structures, and a business that only knows its overall margin cannot tell whether to grow the service side or the construction side.
Is margin different in the off season?
Often, because off-season pricing is frequently discounted to fill capacity while the costs are unchanged. That is a reasonable trade for utilisation, but it means the off-season margin is lower and should be measured separately rather than averaged into the annual figure.
The formula
margin = (price - cost) / price; markup = (price - cost) / cost
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How to use this calculator
- Price charged ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $420.
- Direct cost ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $210.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to gross margin, and change it back. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or saved.
A worked example
These are the figures the calculator opens with. Every number in the results column below is produced by the same calculation the page runs, so you can follow it through before putting your own figures in.
What goes in
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Price charged | $420 |
| Direct cost | $210 |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Gross margin main result | 50.0% |
| Gross profit | $210 |
| Same thing as a markup | 100% |
That job earns $210 of gross profit, a 50.0% margin. The same job described as a markup is 100%.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only price charged, this is what happens to gross margin. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Price charged ($) | Gross margin |
|---|---|
| $210 | 0.0% |
| $315 | 33.3% |
| $420 example above | 50.0% |
| $630 | 66.7% |
| $840 | 75.0% |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Price charged ($)
- A money amount, starting at $420.
- Direct cost ($)
- A money amount, starting at $210.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Gross margin | The headline result. A percentage. |
| Gross profit | A money figure. |
| Same thing as a markup | A percentage. |
Estimating is the easy part
The jobs you never hear about cost more than the ones you mis-measure. BDEVY builds the marketing, systems and automation that bring them in.