The one-page job-cost spreadsheet every service-business owner should use
A simple, single-page spreadsheet that calculates true job cost across labor, parts, drive time, overhead, and target margin. Copy-paste-ready, no software required.
Most service-business owners have a rough sense of what their jobs cost. Few have an accurate one. The gap between rough sense and accurate measurement is where margin disappears.
Here's a one-page spreadsheet you can copy into Google Sheets or Excel that calculates true job cost — and the price you'd need to charge to hit your target margin.
The columns
Set up these columns:
| Column | Header | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| A | Line item | Free text |
| B | Quantity | Number |
| C | Unit | "hour", "each", "mile" |
| D | Cost per unit | Dollars |
| E | Line total | =B*D |
Then below the line items, six summary rows:
| Row label | Formula |
|---|---|
| Subtotal direct costs | =SUM(E2:Exx) |
| Overhead allocation | =Subtotal × overhead % |
| Total cost | =Subtotal + overhead allocation |
| Target margin % | (you fill in) |
| Suggested price | =Total cost / (1 - target margin) |
| Margin at suggested price | =Suggested price - Total cost |
That's the whole sheet.
How to fill it in for a typical job
Take a residential HVAC repair call as an example.
Direct cost line items:
- Labor: 2.5 hours × $40/hr loaded labor cost = $100
- Drive time: 0.75 hours × $40/hr = $30
- Parts: capacitor at $25 each, 1 each = $25
- Truck stock pull: 1 each × $5 = $5
Subtotal direct costs: $160
Overhead allocation (typically 25-40% of direct costs for a small operator covering insurance, vehicle, office, software, marketing, owner draw):
- Overhead % = 30%
- Allocation = $160 × 0.30 = $48
Total cost: $160 + $48 = $208
Target margin: 50%
Suggested price: $208 / (1 - 0.50) = $416
Margin at suggested price: $416 - $208 = $208
So a quote of $416 hits 50% margin on this job. A quote of $300 — which feels reasonable — actually hits ($300 - $208) / $300 = 30% margin. A quote of $200 loses money.
What gets people wrong
Loaded labor cost, not just wage. A tech earning $30/hour in wages costs you closer to $40-45/hour all-in once you include payroll taxes, workers comp, health insurance, paid time off, and benefits. Use the loaded number.
Drive time is real. It's tech time you're paying for. Bake it into the cost line, not "free."
Truck stock cost. Even if the part came off the truck, the truck stocking cost (handling, capital tied up in inventory, restocking labor) is real. A small per-job allocation captures it.
Overhead is always more than people think. First-time users of this spreadsheet typically guess 15-20%. The accurate number for most small service businesses is 30-40%. Calculating it precisely (annual overhead / annual direct cost) is worth doing once a year.
Target margin is a choice. 50% gross margin is a healthy target for residential service work. Some trades and some specific job types can hit higher (60-70% on simple repairs). Some run lower (30-40% on installs and replacements). Set the target deliberately per job type.
When to use it
On every install or replacement quote. These are the high-dollar jobs where margin errors are expensive. Run them through the spreadsheet before quoting.
On any unfamiliar job type. New service offerings, new trade specialties, jobs you haven't done before — use the spreadsheet to set baseline pricing, then adjust as you accumulate real data.
Quarterly retrospective on completed jobs. Pull a sample of 20 completed jobs from the last quarter. Calculate actual margin (real revenue - real cost) and compare against the target. Patterns emerge — certain job types consistently hitting margin, others consistently underperforming. Adjust pricing accordingly.
What it doesn't replace
This is a per-job tool. It doesn't replace:
Annual pricing review. Your blended rate, your service-menu pricing, and your overhead allocation should be reviewed at least annually based on changing labor costs, parts costs, and business mix.
Account profitability tracking. Some customers are profitable, some aren't. Job-level tracking aggregated by customer surfaces unprofitable accounts.
Competitive market awareness. Your costs are your costs, but your prices have to land in the range customers find acceptable. The spreadsheet tells you the floor; market research tells you the ceiling.
Building it out
Once the basic spreadsheet is in place, common extensions:
Job-type templates. Pre-fill common labor, drive, and overhead numbers for "service call," "tune-up," "install," "warranty work."
Rate-tier overrides. Standard, after-hours, weekend, emergency — each with different labor multipliers and overhead allocations.
Per-tech variability. Different techs have different productive billable hours per day; loaded labor cost can vary slightly.
Profitability dashboard. Aggregate completed jobs into a weekly margin trend.
If you'd rather have this built into your FSM software than maintained as a spreadsheet, ServiceGrid's job cost calculator does it inline as you build the quote, plus a free downloadable spreadsheet version on the same page.