← Hydro-Jet and Sewer Camera Bid Calculator
This calculator vs. building your own spreadsheet
A spreadsheet can hold the same footage, access, and condition line items this calculator does. Where a hand-built sheet most often drifts from a correct bid is the margin formula, the loaded wage, and keeping three mutually exclusive access methods from double-counting.
What each approach actually does
A spreadsheet can track every input this calculator
does — trip hours, line footage past the included run, access
method, roots, grease, a second line, hose run from the truck, material
costs, loaded wage, overhead, and target margin. None of the arithmetic
is exotic on its own. What tends to go wrong is the formula that turns a
pile of costs into a price: price = cost * (1 + margin%)
computes a markup, not a margin. At a 30% target on $700 of direct cost
plus overhead, that mistake prices the job at $910 instead of the $1,000
a true 30% margin requires — a $90 gap that reads as a correct bid
right up until you check what share of the price is actually profit.
This calculator uses price = totalCost / (1 -
targetMargin / 100), so the margin you type is the margin you get.
It also loads the hourly wage by payroll burden before multiplying by
hours, keeps toilet-pull, new-cleanout, and roof-vent access mutually
exclusive so there's nothing to double-count, and applies overhead to
the full direct cost — labor, materials, and travel together
— rather than to labor alone.
| Question | Where to answer it |
|---|---|
| Can a spreadsheet hold the same footage, access, and condition line items? | Yes — the fields are the same either way. |
| Does typing a 30% target margin into the price formula actually return a 30% margin? | This calculator — a hand-built cost * (1 + margin%) formula returns a markup, which understates the price for the same target. |
| Is the payroll burden rate actually wired into the labor cost, or just sitting in its own cell? | This calculator loads the wage by burden before multiplying by hours, every time. |
| Could two access-method cells (toilet pull, new cleanout, roof vent) get filled in and double-count hours? | This calculator keeps the three mutually exclusive. A spreadsheet with one column per method can't guarantee that on its own. |
| Is overhead applied to the whole direct cost, or only to the labor row it happened to be wired to? | This calculator applies it to labor, materials, and travel together. |
| I want a running log of every job I've bid, or a shared file for a bookkeeper. | A spreadsheet — this calculator stores nothing and keeps no history. |
This tool needs no account and no sign-in: it is a static page, the arithmetic runs in your browser, and once it has loaded it keeps working with the connection off.
Common questions
Isn't a spreadsheet just as accurate as this calculator?
It can hold the same fields -- trip hours, footage past the included run, access method, roots, grease, hose run, materials, wage, overhead, and target margin. Where a hand-built sheet most often drifts is the formula that turns total cost into a price: writing price = cost * (1 + margin%) computes a markup, not a margin. At a 30% target on $700 of cost, that mistake prices the job at $910 instead of the $1,000 a true 30% margin requires -- a $90 gap that looks like a correct bid until you check what share of the price is actually profit.
What does this calculator get right that a spreadsheet bid sheet often gets wrong?
Three things past the margin formula: it loads the hourly wage by payroll burden before multiplying by hours, so a burden rate typed into its own cell but never wired into the labor formula can't silently understate labor cost. It keeps toilet-pull, new-cleanout, and roof-vent access as mutually exclusive, so there's no risk of a sheet that lets two access-method cells get filled in and double-counts the hours. And it applies overhead to the full direct cost -- labor, materials, and travel together -- rather than to labor alone, which a sheet built one line at a time can miss if overhead was only wired to the labor row.
When is a spreadsheet the better choice?
When you want to keep a running log of every job you've bid, customize the line items for a service this calculator doesn't cover, or share a file with a bookkeeper. This calculator stores nothing and keeps no history -- it exists to get one job's price right on the spot, not to replace your records.
Open the Hydro-Jet and Sewer Camera Bid Calculator to price your own job.