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Free labor calculator for construction. Estimate crew cost, loaded hourly rates, labor burden, overhead, markup, and profit for accurate bids.
Calculator inputs
Enter measured project values. Results update only when you choose Calculate.
Method
Labor is the line that buries margin. A framing crew can hang 200 to 300 SF of wall per carpenter per day on open commercial framing — and 80 SF per carpenter on a retrofit with floor protection, occupied conditions, and limited material storage. Same headcount, same wage rate, three times the cost. The calculator math is simple; the productivity assumption is where the bid lives or dies.
Use this for crew-based labor budgets on a specific project: framing a single house, hanging drywall on a TI, finishing concrete on a slab. Reach for AGC labor surveys or your own job-cost history (not RSMeans defaults) for production rates when you can — the gap between national-average and your-crew-on-this-jobsite is usually the swing factor.
List every role on the crew with headcount, base wage, and expected hours. Foreman, journeyman, apprentice, and operator are four different costs — and four different production rates per hour.
Workers comp class codes alone can swing labor cost 15 percent or more between framing (high mod) and admin (low mod). Apply the right WC rate and any union or prevailing-wage fringe per the wage determination.
Multiply baseline production hours by inefficiency factors: occupied building (1.10x to 1.25x), shift work or compressed schedule (1.05x to 1.15x for overtime fatigue plus the wage premium), winter conditions north of latitude 40 (1.10x to 1.30x in January), restricted access (1.10x to 1.40x).
Allocate overhead per labor hour the way your G&A actually behaves, then apply the markup that hits target margin (not target markup — see the markup calculator).
Take the production rate (SF per crew-hour, lf per crew-hour, or units per crew-hour), divide the quantity by the rate to get crew-hours, multiply by crew size to get labor hours, then load it with wage, burden, overhead, and markup. Track actuals to refine the production rate next bid.
A reasonable open-shop floor is 25 to 30 percent (FICA + FUTA + SUTA + WC + a thin benefit load). 35 to 45 percent is common with health, retirement match, and PTO. Signatory union work with full fringes can hit 60 to 80 percent. Always use your actual number once you have one.
For bids, fold it into the labor sell price so every hour recovers its share. For job costing and P&L, keep direct labor and overhead in separate buckets — that is the only way to know if margin slipped on field execution or office burn.
Almost always in productivity, not the wage rate. Walk three closed jobs, calculate actual production rates per task, and replace your default catalog numbers with field reality. Then add explicit risk lines for difficult access, occupied conditions, and weather windows.
Separate plan workflow
This calculator solves one bounded formula from the inputs shown. BuildVision AI supports reviewed plan takeoff, complete-document CSV, and editable quote lines; the estimator owns pricing and final bid approval.