The kitchen
Pick a common job to start, then replace every rate with a tile invoice and a crew you have timed. Changing scope, pattern, or wall fills starting hours and material only when you have not already edited that field.
Hours and material rates
These start from the scope, pattern, and wall you picked. They are ballpark crew figures, not a tile catalog or a guarantee.
Your costs
Payroll burden covers employer taxes, workers’ compensation, liability insurance, and paid time off. Underestimating it is how a $35 / SF splash that looked profitable was not.
Leftover boxes and the next wall
Tile is sold by the box. A 33 SF buy is not 3.3 boxes — it is four boxes at 10 SF each, and leftover after the kitchen may or may not cover a laundry return. Leftover already on the van is already-paid stock unless you decide to credit it; this does not change the headline bid.
Your bid
- Wall
- Buy with waste
- Travel
- Crew hours
- Loaded labor
- Tile, grout, board
- Cuts, demo, extras
- Travel & other
- Overhead
- Total cost
- Profit
- Price per SF
- Effective hourly rate
- Walk-away price
A bid link carries your own rates — wage, burden, overhead, and target margin — so the page reopens exactly as you left it. Send it to yourself or your crew. The numbers ride after the #, which is never sent to a server, so copying a link uploads nothing. The customer should get the price, not the link.
Same wall, three scopes
| Scope | Hours | Price |
|---|
Same wall, four patterns
The upgrade a homeowner is asking for when they say “can we do herringbone instead?” — same wall, same scope, starting pattern kits. Matching the subway special on a herringbone wall is the losing bid.
| Pattern | Hours | Price | vs subway |
|---|
Leftover boxes
The kitchen buy is rounded up to whole boxes. Leftover on the van credits the buy. A second wall is covered only if leftover after this splash still has the waste you already assumed. Do leftover boxes cover the laundry wall?
- Boxes to buy
- Leftover after kitchen
- Box round-up you eat
- Leftover credit (if stock is free)
- Second wall
Same wall, who bought the tile
The $35 / SF “just set what I bought at the store” special. Zeroing the tile invoice is not a free install — outlets, cooktop cuts, and the trip still cost money, and a short or wrong-lot buy is a second trip. Should I install customer-supplied backsplash tile?
| Who supplies | Hours | Your bid | At their number |
|---|
Same wall, when you can work
The “can you do Saturday so I can cook?” special. An empty weekday is the bid you already have. They-cook-around-you is the same wage on a slower set. After-hours is time-and-a-half plus a second evening trip because you cannot leave mud overnight. Should I tile a backsplash after hours?
| Access | Hours | Your bid | At their number |
|---|
Where the hours go
Transparent arithmetic from your own inputs. The starting hours and material rates are common ballpark figures, not an industry standard, a benchmark, or a guarantee — time your own crews and replace them.
Common questions
How do I bid a kitchen tile backsplash so the price reflects the wall and the pattern?
Enter the wall’s square footage and edge length, pick the scope (tile-only, new prep, or demo-and-replace) and the pattern (subway running-bond, herringbone, mosaic, or large-format), then replace the starting hours and material rates with your own crew’s numbers. The calculator prices the job from wall size, pattern waste, extras like outlets, a cooktop cutout, and Schluter, and your loaded labor rate — not from a flat per-square-foot number that cannot see any of that.
Why does a published $35 per square foot special lose money on a herringbone demo job?
Because a flat rate assumes every splash is the same job. Herringbone burns more tile to waste and more hours to cut and align than a subway running-bond stack, and demo-and-replace adds a pull on top of the same prep as new prep. The three-scope and four-pattern comparisons put the herringbone-demo price against the subway-tile-only price on the identical wall, so the gap a flat rate hides becomes a number.
Should I install tile the customer already bought instead of tile I supply?
It depends on whether zeroing the tile invoice actually saves you money once outlets, the cooktop cutout, the trip, and a short or wrong-lot buy are still on you. The who-supplies comparison prices you-supply, owner-covers, and short-or-wrong-lot on the same wall so you can see whether the customer’s number still covers your labor once their tile choice risks a second trip.
Do leftover tile boxes from the kitchen cover a laundry or pantry wall too?
Only if what is left over after the kitchen buy, rounded up to whole boxes, still carries the waste rate you assumed for that job. Tile sells by the box, not by the square foot, so a 33-square-foot buy at 10 square feet a box is four boxes, not 3.3 — and the leftover credit only applies if you decide that stock already on the van is already paid for.
Does anything I type get uploaded when I use this calculator?
No. The whole calculator runs in your browser: it makes no network requests, your wall size, wages, costs, and prices stay in your own browser’s local storage so the page remembers your bid on the next visit, and a bid link carries those numbers in the URL fragment itself, which browsers never send to a server. Only an anonymous local tally of which features were used is kept, and it is opt-out from the footer.
Should I tile a backsplash after hours or on a weekend if the customer asks for it?
It depends on whether the extra rate covers time-and-a-half plus the second evening trip you need because mud cannot be left overnight. The when-you-can-work comparison prices an empty weekday, a job where they cook around you, and after-hours or weekend access on the same wall, so you can see whether their preferred schedule still clears your target margin.
What does payroll burden change about the bid?
Payroll burden is the employer taxes, workers’ compensation, liability insurance, and paid time off layered onto the crew’s hourly wage before it becomes loaded labor cost. Underestimating it is a common way a job that looked profitable on the wage alone was not — the calculator applies your burden percentage to every hour in the job, not just the base wage.
Is this a published tile price guide or industry standard?
No. It is an estimate built from the scope, pattern, and rates you enter, not a catalog or a benchmark. The starting hours and material figures are common ballpark numbers meant to be replaced with your own timed crew and your own supplier invoices; the calculator does the arithmetic, not the pricing judgment.
Hand the customer a proposal
The price above is for you. This is the page you print or save as a PDF and give to the customer — your details, their details, the scope, the deposit split, and a line for them to sign. Your business details are saved on this device so you only type them once; the customer’s details are never saved.
Everything on the printed page is text you typed or a number this calculator worked out. It contains no warranty, lien, or cancellation wording — those depend on your jurisdiction and your contract, and this tool is not the place to invent them.