Septic & well
Well Service Pricing Calculator
Prices well work from cost upward, where the rig and the travel are the overhead that has to be recovered.
Result
Overhead and margin are taken as shares of the selling price, which is why the cost is divided rather than multiplied. Adding 15% to cost does not produce a 15% margin. 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
Direct cost divided by one minus overhead and margin together, so the price carries both. The overhead in well service is concentrated in two places. The equipment is specialised and expensive relative to how often it is used, since a hoist or service rig sits idle between calls but costs the same monthly. And the service area is usually rural, so travel time per job is high and unbillable in most pricing models. An overhead rate that ignores windshield time will be short by a meaningful amount in a trade where two hours of driving for a one hour job is ordinary.
What moves the number
- Equipment ownership against how many jobs a year it actually performs.
- Travel time across a rural service area, which is paid and not billed.
- Licensing and bonding, since well work is a licensed trade in most states with its own requirements.
- Emergency response expectation, because a household with no water is not a job that waits.
Where this one goes wrong
Travel is the overhead that gets missed. In a dispersed rural service area the driving can exceed the working time, and pricing from a bench rate that assumes a short commute quietly funds it out of margin. Either build it into the overhead rate honestly or charge a mileage or zone component, but do not leave it unpriced. The other consideration specific to this trade is that no water is an emergency for the household, so after hours and same day response is frequently expected. If you provide it, price it as the premium service it is, because absorbing emergency response into standard rates means the routine work subsidises the callouts.
Before you quote
- Include realistic travel time in the overhead rate or charge it explicitly.
- Confirm your licensing and bonding obligations for well work in your state.
- Price after hours response separately rather than absorbing it.
Where the rules come from
Questions
About this calculator
How should travel be priced in a rural service area?
Explicitly, either inside a properly calculated overhead rate or as a mileage or zone charge. In a dispersed area driving can exceed working time, and a rate built on an assumption of short travel funds the difference out of your margin without anyone noticing.
Should emergency well service cost more?
A household with no water needs help immediately, which means after hours availability, disrupted scheduling and often overtime. That is a genuinely more expensive service to provide. Pricing it the same as scheduled work means the scheduled work is subsidising it.
Is well work a licensed trade?
In most states yes, with its own licensing, and often bonding and reporting requirements including submitting well logs. The specifics are state level and differ, so confirm what applies where you operate rather than assuming a plumbing licence covers it.
The formula
price = direct cost / (1 - overhead% - margin%)
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How to use this calculator
- Labour cost ($). Burdened: wages plus tax, insurance and the vehicle, not the hourly wage.
- Materials cost ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $120.
- Other direct costs ($). Permits, disposal, equipment hire, subcontractors.
- Overhead rate (%). Overhead as a share of revenue. Work it out from last year's accounts.
- Target net margin (%). Enter your own figure; the page starts at 15%.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to price to quote, 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 |
|---|---|
| Labour cost | $340 |
| Materials cost | $120 |
| Other direct costs | $0 |
| Overhead rate | 22% |
| Target net margin | 15% |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Price to quote main result | $730.16 |
| Direct cost | $460 |
| Overhead recovered | $160.63 |
| Net profit | $109.52 |
| Gross margin | 37.0% |
| Markup on direct cost | 58.7% |
Quote $730.16 to cover $460 of direct cost, recover $160.63 of overhead and leave $109.52 of net profit. That is a 58.7% markup on cost.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only labour cost, this is what happens to price to quote. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Labour cost ($) | Price to quote |
|---|---|
| $170 | $460.32 |
| $255 | $595.24 |
| $340 example above | $730.16 |
| $510 | $1,000 |
| $680 | $1,270 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Labour cost ($)
- Burdened: wages plus tax, insurance and the vehicle, not the hourly wage.
- Materials cost ($)
- A money amount, starting at $120.
- Other direct costs ($)
- Permits, disposal, equipment hire, subcontractors.
- Overhead rate (%)
- Overhead as a share of revenue. Work it out from last year's accounts.
- Target net margin (%)
- A percentage, between 0 and 80, starting at 15%.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Price to quote | The headline result. A money figure. |
| Direct cost | A money figure. |
| Overhead recovered | A money figure. |
| Net profit | A money figure. |
| Gross margin | A percentage. |
| Markup on direct cost | 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.