How to price carpentry jobs

Pricing carpentry comes down to the same equation as any job: price = materials + labor + other job costs + overhead + profit.

What makes finish carpentry different is that one room is priced in three units at once. Base and crown go by the foot, doors and casings by the opening, and wainscot by the square foot, each with its own speed. A price built on one of them gets the others wrong.

This guide shows where your labor hours per unit come from, then prices a hallway door package and a dining room wainscot start to finish. Wages and material prices vary by metro and by week, so every dollar figure is yours to fill in.

For the general method, see how to price a construction job. For software built around trim work, see the carpentry industry page.

How carpentry work is measured

Finish carpentry uses three units, often on the same estimate:

• Running trim, by the linear foot: baseboard, shoe, crown, chair rail, handrail and stair skirt. Measure the room's perimeter, then take out the door openings for anything that sits on the floor. Crown runs the full perimeter.
• Openings and pieces, by the each: prehung doors, slabs, casing sets, window casing with stool and apron, cased openings, stair treads, mantels and closet units. Count them by type.
• Wall treatments, by the square foot: beadboard, wainscot panels and shiplap. Multiply the run of wall by the height of the treatment.

Count casing by the side, not the door

A door that gets new trim on both faces is two casing sets. One side of a standard door takes about 17 feet of casing: two 7-foot legs and a 3-foot head.

The formula for a carpentry price

Every line on a carpentry estimate follows the same pattern:

1. Quantity × labor hours per unit = labor hours for that line.
2. Labor hours × your full hourly labor cost = labor cost. That cost is the wage plus labor burden: payroll taxes, workers' compensation and benefits.
3. Materials at what you will pay near the job now, with waste added.
4. Other job costs: disposal, delivery and anything you rent.
5. Overhead for every labor hour: a year of overhead divided by the hours your crew bills.
6. Profit, as a markup on the total cost or a target margin.

The labor rate guide and the labor rate calculator build your real hourly cost from pay, burden and billable hours. Do it once, and every room after it uses the same number.

Where your labor hours per unit come from

The hours per unit are the part of the price only you can supply, because they belong to your crew. A published table can't know how fast your carpenters cope crown, how square the walls are in the houses you work on or how far the saw sits from the room. Your own jobs can.

Record hours and quantity, then divide

Job costing is how you get them. On every trim job, record the hours each line took and the quantity it covered, then divide. Keep these units so the numbers stay readable:

• Running trim: per 100 linear feet
• Panels: per 100 square feet
• Openings: per piece

After a handful of jobs you have hours you can price from.

One number per line, not one trim rate

Count labor hours, not crew hours

A two-person crew working an 8-hour day is 16 labor hours.

Crown and openings are the slow work

A foot of crown takes far longer than a foot of baseboard, because it is coped at inside corners and fastened overhead.

Then compare the openings: one window casing with stool and apron takes as long as a long run of base. A room with four windows and two doors carries more trim hours in its openings than in its perimeter.

Doors, grade and who paints

Prehung or slab: ask before you price

Replacing a door with a prehung unit means pulling the old casing and jamb, setting the new unit and casing both sides, four lines before hardware. Hanging a new slab on the existing jamb takes fewer hours, but it keeps the old jamb, hinges and casing.

The slab is the cheaper job only when the jamb is sound and square and the client is happy with the trim.

Paint-grade or stain-grade: track them apart

Track your hours for primed, paint-grade trim and stain-grade work separately. Stain-grade oak or poplar takes longer on every cut, wastes more and leaves no room for caulk to hide a gap. Raise the hours and say why.

Who paints: put it in the scope

Filling and caulking is the last step on every job, its own line by the foot of trim; priming and painting is another. If the painter paints, write "trim left filled, caulked and ready for paint" in the scope.

Older homes: add a lead-safe line

Pulling trim in a house built before 1978 brings in the EPA lead rules and a lead-safe setup line.

Taking off carpentry materials

Turn each quantity into what you buy, with waste added and rounded up to the purchase unit.

• Running trim: around 10% extra is a common starting point for base, shoe and chair rail, a little more for crown and rooms full of short runs. Divide by the stock length and round up, with full lengths for long walls.
• Casing: about 17 feet per door side, and the legs, head and apron for each window from its size, plus stool board. Buy lengths that give each leg one piece.
• Wall panels: wall area plus waste, then check the layout. Panels cut to wainscot height can waste far more than the waste factor says.
• Doors and hardware: by the unit. Confirm the swing, size and jamb width for each opening before you order.
• Fasteners, adhesive, caulk and filler: by the pound, tube or quart.

Price every item at what you will pay near the job this week. Moulding and door prices move, and stain-grade species cost more than MDF.

Worked example: a door package and dining room wainscot

Example: A homeowner wants four hallway doors replaced: two bedrooms, a bath and a linen closet. All get new prehung units, new casing on both sides and new privacy knob sets. In the dining room, they want:

• Beadboard wainscot with chair rail and new baseboard
• A new cased opening to the living room
• The window cased with stool and apron
• The kitchen doorway recased on both sides

The house was built in 1994, so no lead-safe setup applies. The client's painter will paint.

Measure the dining room

The dining room is 14 by 16 feet. The quantities:

• Wall run: perimeter 2 × (14 + 16) = 60 feet, less the 5-foot cased opening and the 3-foot kitchen doorway, is 52 feet. The window sits above the chair rail, so the run continues under it.
• Wainscot: 52 feet × 3 feet high = 156 square feet.
• Baseboard and chair rail: 52 feet each, and the old base comes off the same 52 feet.
• Setup: one protected work area in the hall and one in the dining room.
• Casing sets: 4 doors × 2 sides, plus 2 sides at the kitchen doorway, is 10 sets.
• Trim to fill and caulk: base 52 + chair rail 52 + 10 door sides at 17 feet (170) + the window, two 5-foot legs, a 3-foot head and a 3-foot apron (16) + the cased opening, 7 + 7 + 5 = 19 feet a side, both sides (38) = 328 feet.

Labor hours

Say your crew's own records show the hours per unit below. They are example inputs to show the arithmetic, not a standard: use your own.

The check: 1.5 + 2.6 + 3 + 7 + 2 + 10 + 4.16 + 15.6 + 4.68 + 2.5 + 2 + 9.84 + 2 = 66.88 labor hours. For a two-person crew, that is 33.44 hours each, about four working days.

Where the hours go

• Hallway doors: 0.75 + 1.75 + 1 + 1 + 0.5 = 5 hours each, so 20 hours for the four.
• Dining room trim, wainscot and openings, with the kitchen casing: 33.54.
• Setup, fill and caulk, and cleanup: 13.34 more.

Filling and caulking alone, at 9.84 hours, takes longer than setting the four prehung doors.

Materials

With around 10% waste on running trim and panels, and the rest from geometry and the coverage printed on each product:

• Doors: 4 prehung units and 4 privacy knob sets, with shims for the doors and the cased opening.
• Casing: 10 sides × 17 = 170 feet, plus 16 for the window and 38 for the cased opening, 224 feet, in lengths that give each leg one piece. Add stool board for the window and 19 feet of jamb board for the cased opening.
• Baseboard and chair rail: 52 × 1.1 = 57.2 feet of each. In 16-foot lengths, 3.58, so 4 of each.
• Beadboard: waste-factor math says 156 × 1.1 = 171.6 square feet, or 5.36 sheets of 4 × 8, so 6. The layout says more. Cut to 3 feet high, each 8-foot sheet gives two 4-foot-wide pieces, and 52 feet of wall needs 52 ÷ 4 = 13 pieces, so 7 sheets. Buy 7.
• Caulk: 328 feet of joints plus the beadboard seams, from the bead coverage on the tube, rounded up.
• Adhesive: for the beadboard and doors, from the coverage on the tube, rounded up.
• Nails and filler from each line.

Price each item near the job this week and add them up. Call the total M.

Building the price

Markup is not margin

With a 25% markup, the price is the total cost × 1.25, a 20% margin. A 20% markup is only about a 16.7% margin. The markup vs margin guide explains the gap, and the job cost calculator adds the lines up.

Check the price against past jobs

Check the price per door against door swaps you have done, and the dining room against similar rooms. If either is far off, find the missing or doubled line.

Common carpentry pricing mistakes

• One rate per foot for everything. Crown, openings and wainscot each have their own speed. Price them as their own lines.
• Casing one side of the door. New doors usually need casing on both faces. Count sides, not doors.
• Forgetting fill and caulk. It is the last step on every foot of trim, and on a big job it is a day of work.
• Leaving painting unspoken. If you are not painting, say so in writing.

How to present a carpentry estimate

• Group the lines by room, or by doors, running trim and walls, so the client sees what each part costs.
• Name the materials: profiles, sizes, paint-grade or stain-grade, door style and hardware finish.
• Mark client-supplied items, such as doors or a mantel the client bought, so the scope is clear.
• List exclusions: painting, drywall repair behind old trim and flooring.
• State your workmanship warranty.
• Set the deposit. A deposit before you buy doors and moulding is common. The progress billing guide covers how to structure it.

The carpentry estimate template lays these sections out, and the carpentry invoice template bills the deposit and the balance. For a one-off, the free estimate generator makes a clean PDF.

Pricing carpentry with BuildWell

BuildWell builds a carpentry estimate from a description of the job, such as "replace four hallway doors with prehung units, case both sides, new privacy knobs; beadboard wainscot with chair rail in a 14 by 16 dining room." The AI decides what work the job needs and how much; it does not set prices.

BuildWell prices materials at stores near the job and labor at the metro's median wage for each trade on the job, plus your overhead and markup.

You can change any quantity, hour or price, or mark doors the client bought as client-supplied. The client signs on their phone.

A carpentry pricing checklist

• Running trim in linear feet, with door openings taken out of the base
• Openings counted by type, and casing counted by the side
• Wall treatments in square feet, with the panel layout checked
• Grade noted: paint-grade or stain-grade
• Labor hours line by line, including setup, fill, caulk and cleanup
• Materials with waste, at current prices near the job
• Lead-safe setup on pre-1978 houses
• Overhead on every hour, then profit and a per-door check