← Carpet installation bid calculator
An owner sends a screenshot: “$2 a yard, installed carpet.” It reads like a real quote. Run it against this calculator's own suggested rates and it isn't close on any job — not even the flat, no-stairs living room it was written for. On the cheapest preset, $2/yd doesn't clear the price of the carpet itself, before a single crew hour gets counted.
Open the free carpet installation bid calculatorUsing the calculator's own default crew rates (a $38 wage, 30% burden, 15% overhead, 20% target margin, $55 travel and equipment) on the four jobs it ships as starting presets, each priced from its own floor, stairs, scope, pattern, and extras:
| Job | Net yd² | $2/yd special | Walk-away price | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cheap special: 400 sq ft living room, stretch-in, solid, no stairs | 44.4 | $88.89 | $2,167.01 | Loses $2,078.12 |
| Typical house: 900 sq ft, stretch-in, solid, 13 stairs, tear-out, furniture | 100.0 | $200.00 | $6,361.54 | Loses $6,161.54 |
| Losing job: 400 sq ft + 14 stairs, patterned glue-down, tear-out, haul | 44.4 | $88.89 | $3,919.59 | Loses $3,830.70 |
| Whole house: 1,600 sq ft, 21 stairs, patterned, tear-out, furniture, haul | 177.8 | $355.56 | $12,199.63 | Loses $11,844.07 |
Every row loses, and not narrowly. $2/yd was never a walk-away price for any of these jobs — the calculator's own suggested carpet invoice runs $22 per billed yard before pad, adhesive, tack strip, or a single crew hour is counted.
Take the cheap special apart. The carpet invoice for that 400 sq ft floor — the raw material, nothing else — is $1,075.56. The $2/yd flyer price for the same floor is $88.89. The material alone is over twelve times the flyer's entire number, and the flyer hasn't yet paid for pad ($266.67 more), tack strip, the crew's 7.3 hours, or a dollar of overhead and margin. A number that low was never priced to be paid in full — it is written to get the phone to ring, not to install a real floor.
The cheap special and the losing job share the exact same 400 sq ft floor, so $2/yd prices identically at $88.89 for either one. The only thing that changes between them is scope: a flat living-room stretch-in in solid colour versus a patterned glue-down with 14 stairs, a tear-out, and a haul-away. That difference alone takes the shortfall from $2,078.12 to $3,830.70 — about 1.8 times worse for the identical square footage, before the flyer's baseline shortfall is even considered.
The trap is not “the floor got bigger.” It is “the floor stayed the same size and picked up stairs, a glue-down slab, and a tear-out, and the per-yard number I quoted from never had those in it.” An installer who matches the flyer number on square footage alone — without checking whether the job is actually stretch-in or glue-down, solid or patterned, flat or full of stairs — is the one who finds out the wraps and the dump ticket ate the whole margin.
Open the carpet installation bid calculator, load the matching starting job from the “Choose a starting job…” preset list, and put the owner's per-yard number (times your net floor yards) into “price you're considering.” The calculator scores it against the walk-away price for the scope you actually priced, not the scope the flyer was written for.
This is the same arithmetic as how much to charge to install carpet and this calculator vs. MeasureSquare. It is not a flooring-spec determination, a moisture test, or a price you should copy onto a contract.
No. On the cheapest preset — a 400 sq ft living room, stretch-in over pad, solid colour, no stairs — $2 a yard on 44.4 net yards is $88.89. The carpet invoice alone for that floor is $1,075.56, and the full walk-away price is $2,167.01. The flyer number does not clear the material cost, let alone the labor.
Because $2/yd is below wholesale. This calculator's own suggested carpet invoice is $22 per billed yard before pad, adhesive, tack strip, stairs, or a single crew hour. A flyer price that low was never meant to be paid in full — it is a number written to get the phone to ring, not a price anyone installs a real floor for.
Yes. Both the cheap special and the losing job are 400 sq ft, so $2/yd prices identically at $88.89 for either. Add 14 stairs, a patterned glue-down, a tear-out, and a haul-away to that same floor and the shortfall against the walk-away price grows from $2,078.12 to $3,830.70 — about 1.8 times worse for the identical square footage.