Names no specific product or company. This compares a free calculator against the generic pricing habit every entry-door shop competes with: one flat number — commonly a "$1,200 installed" special — advertised the same regardless of configuration, material, rot, or extras.
A brochure or a yard sign needs a number before anyone has seen the opening. "$1,200 installed" is a perfectly fine headline price, and no calculator replaces having one. What follows is not an argument that the flat number is wrong. It is what that same number stops showing you the moment an opening is real and you know its configuration, material, rot, and extras.
Both rows below are this calculator's own built-in starting jobs — the two ends of its catalogue — priced at its own shipped shop rates: a $42/hr crew wage, 32% burden, $85 travel and equipment, 16% overhead, a 32% target margin. The only thing that changes between them is the job.
| Question | The brochure opening — 36" steel prehung, square, one story | Where the special loses — fiberglass, 2 sidelights, 8 ft rot, brickmold, storm, 2nd story |
|---|---|---|
| What the flat special charges | $1,200 — the door | $1,200 — the door, unchanged |
| Extras past the brochure hang | None — square opening, no rot, no sidelights | 2 sidelights, a transom, 8 ft of jamb rot, brickmold, a storm door, smart-lock prep, paint, a 2nd-story porch roof |
| Total crew hours | 5.00 h | 21.35 h — more than 4× the crew time |
| Material cost | $465.00 | $2,992.00 — sidelights, rot repair, brickmold, and a storm door do not live in a per-door special |
| Total cost before any profit | $959.55 — well under the $1,200 flat special | $4,942.35 — far above the $1,200 flat special |
| What the $1,200 flat special actually nets | $240.45 above cost — a real margin, though still under the calculator's own 32% target | −$3,742.35 — a loss more than three times the flat price itself |
| This calculator's price at a 32% target margin | $1,411.11 | $7,268.16 — $5,857.05 more than the brochure opening, for the same $1,200 headline |
| Effective crew rate the $1,200 flat special actually pays | $240.00/hr (5.00 billed hours) | $56.21/hr — a 77% cut from the brochure opening, at the identical advertised price |
A flat special answers "what do I charge for a door," not "how much rot, glass, and trim this opening needs." Both live inside the same $1,200 either way. The calculator splits them out — no extras on the brochure opening, $2,992.00 of material on the harder job — so sidelights, rot repair, brickmold, and a storm door are visible numbers instead of one flat guess that happened to work out on a good day.
This is the one that costs real money. The flat special charges $1,200 whether the opening is the brochure door or the hardest job in the catalogue, but the cost behind it is not the same — on this calculator's own defaults, the brochure opening clears the flat price by $240.45, and the harder job runs $3,742.35 over it. A shop quoting "the $1,200 special" on every call can sell every job on the price sheet and still lose money on the ones that turn out to need sidelights and rot repair, with nothing on the ad to say so.
For advertising, it plainly is. A yard sign or a brochure cannot show a live calculator, and a homeowner calling for a price wants one number, not a form. The sensible arrangement is both: run the flat special to get the call, then run this calculator once you know the configuration, material, rot, squareness, and extras, to check whether that job's version of "the $1,200 door" still covers the opening — and, on a job far enough from the brochure opening, whether it needs a real bid instead.
Every figure on this page is this calculator's own worked example, computed from its own built-in starting jobs and shipped default shop rates, not a claim about any real shop's business or an industry benchmark. Your rates, wages, and overhead will produce different numbers — the point is which numbers to produce, not what they should come out to.
No, and it should not go away. A brochure or a yard sign needs one number, and "$1,200 installed" is a fine headline price. The point of this page is not that the flat number is wrong — it is that the flat number is the same whether the opening is a square 36-inch steel prehung or a fiberglass unit with two sidelights, a transom, eight feet of jamb rot, brickmold, a storm door, and a second-story porch roof, and only a full bid separates the two.
On this calculator's own shipped defaults, yes, comfortably. The cheapest preset — a 36-inch steel prehung in a square, rot-free one-story opening — comes out to $959.55 in total cost before any profit is added, so the flat $1,200 special clears it by $240.45, just $211.11 short of this calculator's own $1,411.11 target-margin price.
A fiberglass unit with two sidelights and a transom, eight feet of jamb rot, brickmold, a storm door, a smart-lock prep, paint, and a second-story porch roof costs $4,942.35 on this calculator's own defaults — $3,742.35 more than the flat $1,200 special, before a dollar of profit. Sidelights, rot repair, brickmold, and a storm door do not live inside a per-door special.
No, and it is not trying to. The flat number is what you advertise to get the call. This calculator is what you run once you know the configuration, material, rot, squareness, and extras, to check whether that job's version of "the $1,200 door" still covers the opening — and, on a job far enough from the brochure opening, whether it needs a real bid instead.
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