← Home elevator bid calculator
Families shop accessibility contractors on “Mom comes home Friday — same $18,995 on Saturday?” A home elevator unit ships from the factory. Next-day air is a ticket on top of the unit invoice. Working around someone who just came home is a slower set. Saturday is overtime, a second dispatch, and a weekend inspector. Matching the weekday Facebook special on that rush is how a sold aging-in-place install becomes a loss.
Open the free home elevator bid calculatorOn a typical two-stop through-floor cheap special — $52 wage, 32% burden, 15% overhead, 20% target margin, ten miles — weekday they leave bids $28,108.09 (walk-away $22,486.47). Discharge week while they stay, with next-day air freight, bids $32,645.87 (+$4,537.78, walk-away $26,116.70). Saturday / after-hours bids $35,919.76 (+$7,811.66, walk-away $28,735.80). Those add-ons are the access kits. They do not change the drive or the shaft.
| When they need it | Hours | Bid | vs weekday |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekday, they leave | 50.4 h | $28,108.09 | — |
| Discharge week, they stay | 60.7 h | $32,645.87 | +$4,537.78 |
| Saturday / after-hours | 53.6 h | $35,919.76 | +$7,811.66 |
If they already shopped the $18,995 pneumatic dump, you lose money even on a weekday slot. Walk-away after-hours is $28,735.80. Sending the weekday $28,108.09 on Saturday still loses $627.80. A three-stop hydraulic in a new wood shaft is a different crew week: weekday $87,736.52, after-hours $103,411.19; $18,995 loses even on weekday (after-hours walk-away $82,728.95).
A stair lift is a chair on a rail. Next-day rail freight is a few hundred dollars. A home elevator is a 400–1,400 lb unit, a hoistway or a floor cut, and an AHJ. Saturday still needs an inspector. The calculator prices all three access windows on the house you already measured so you can quote the rush instead of matching the weekday dump.
Open the home elevator bid calculator, enter the house you are standing in, and read the three-way when-they-need-it table. It uses starting expedite and inspector kits so a typed other-cost line does not leak into the weekday row. Nothing is uploaded.
This is the same arithmetic as how much to charge to install a home elevator. They asked for glass after shopping the tube? See acrylic vs glass home elevator cab. Customer already bought the unit? See should I install a customer-supplied home elevator. It is not an elevator specification, a structural design, a building-code determination, or a reason to refuse a customer — it is the walk-away number on each access window.
Only if the Saturday or discharge-week number still covers cost. On a typical two-stop pneumatic cheap special — $52 wage, 32% burden, 15% overhead, 20% target margin — a weekday empty-house set bids about $28,108. Discharge week with next-day air freight and a slower occupied set bids about $32,646. Saturday overtime plus a weekend inspector bids about $35,920. Matching the published $18,995 pneumatic dump loses money on every window.
No. A weekday slot is factory ground freight, an empty house, and a weekday inspector. Discharge week is next-day air on a 400–1,400 lb unit plus a slower set while they stay home. Saturday is overtime, a second dispatch, the same air ticket, and a weekend inspector. A stair-lift rail is a $485 next-day crate. A home elevator is not that crate.
You eat the air freight, the overtime, and the weekend inspector. Matching $18,995 on the cheap special loses money even on a weekday slot — walk-away after-hours is about $28,736. Sending the weekday $28,108 on Saturday still loses about $628. On a three-stop hydraulic shaft the after-hours walk-away is about $82,729.