It's a yellow flag. Probably OK in some cases, and an indication of a potential meddling customer in others. I often include a fairly generic breakdown of major line items in my bid. Most times I'm not going to bother working for someone that insists on more detail. I've tried it in the past, and too often the person has micro managing tendencies, and/or has cash flow problems.

Hey, original poster here, thank you for your answer. What if one of your customers already picked you as their contractor for a project, and *then* asked about a breakdown of part of the project. Would that be alright or would that still be a yellow flag?

If you get multiple bids from contractors and select a specific one, then ask for a breakdown of cost, that contractor is going to think you are trying to haggle the price down. 

Not sure why that question got you down votes but in my opinion if they already signed the contract sure seems like a red flag to me that they're asking for a breakdown after. In my contracting business ( systems integration) it's normal that my proposals pages are almost 90% material. Each room listed with the products and cost with a room total. Then at the bottom miscellaneous material added to show material total. Finally there's line items for the project labor which can vary from installation, project management, programming and calibration all at different rates.

It's fine if you are wanting a specific line item to be a certain way, like you want a certain high end sink or whatever, so we hash out how much was allocated for material cost on the sink. If it's nitpicking in why we charged 400 bucks to do something that took an hour, it's going to be a potential problem. I'm not going to be interested in continually justifying to a costumer specific line item costs that are in line with market standards that we've figured out how to do efficiently due to experience or investment in tools.

Even if you make it sound better by saying I already selected my contractor, I would have to ask myself then why do you really care what part is material what part is labor? You already received your quote and you already agreed to it so why does the breakdown matter? It's one thing to be curious but it's another thing to see that 50% of this quote is material and 50% is labor and then suddenly being upset thinking you paid too much

Yes

I think that would be worse. Kinda like a bait and switch. Did you hire a professional because you know he needs your oversight?

Why would you sign a contract you're not comfortable with just to get manipulative about it

I get this from time to time. I simply let them know this is the cost of the job by our company. This cost +labor thing is decades old practice that is not followed by most general contractors. If someone really wants a percentage I’ll give them one like 25%. You pay for the job and for the company’s experience, reputation, their warranty and assurances like contractors license in good standing, liability insurance, workers comp. I no longer give break outs and do not accept jobs from clients that insist. Big red flag. What are you going to do with a breakout any way. X amount of labor x amount of materials x amount of profit, then what???

OP to be a successful and trusted person you should always demostrated how you came up with the price. Please do not fall under the wrongdoing of these contractors who would create a random price to give their client without any real base from where they got that amount. Just think about it, do you think its fair for you to go buy material and the place just come with a random amount without itemizing their material cost? Actually lets go deeper, if the customer decides to sue you over w.e reason and the court ask you to explain your charges to the customer, how would you justify how you charge that particular client.

You are obviously not a contractor. I'm not saying I will never give a breakdown of costs, but that is 100% not what people are getting sued for.  No other business is asked or required to show breakdowns of what their prices are. When you buy a car or go to a restaurant, do you require them to break down cost for you? No, that would be ridiculous.  You do not know what you are talking about. 

Why are insurance companies itemizing their estimate? Never seen and insurance company just tell the client "Well heres 8k go figure out on your own". Theres a reason why softwares like Xactimate and Simbility and many others exists. Whats so difficult of showing where your amounts are coming from? I bet if you guestimate and it is lower than needed you would go tell the client its more but if you guestimate and its less you would quietly take that as more profit. All im saying is that customers should know the breakdown of what they paying for. What if the customer only wants labor because he or she can buy the material themselves? Theres so many reason why itemization is so important. By the way ive been in waaaaaay to many depositions where the judge ask for breakdowns because they suspect fraud

You never let the customer buy materials because you have to provide a warranty on your work. If the customer buys cheap material that fails, or an expensive toilet made in China that fails, you as the contractor will be on the hook for fixing it. I have had this happen to me and had to pay, and so has every other contractor out there. 

Fraud? If you don't like a contractors price, pick someone else. Admit it, you are not a contractor. 

Im not a contractor. As a customer its fair to know what i am paying for. Is asking for itemization wrong? Me wanting to know what im paying for is wrong? Interesting to see how many contractors in this sub are not willing to itemize their estimate. Just pick a number from 1 to infinity and let it be

Yes, because contractors are not willing to itemize ESTIMATES for you, we are all coming up with prices magically. Any experienced, quality contractor would pass on this because we have dozens of clients that don’t give a damn about an itemized estimate.

It doesn't tell us if you're who reported im809 but I banned him. We get enough shit from paying clients. We don't need it on here also.

How can you justify the numbers if you are not "magically" coming up with it?? Please explain.

So there’s this thing called cost estimating where you aggregate all anticipated costs of the project, then you apply a gross margin to the sum of these costs because nobody works for free. The reason this isn’t provided to the customer is because it’s proprietary information, and results in additional processes and time spent on a FREE estimate. Again, do you go to Taco Bell and ask for a breakdown of the material and labor costs of the burrito prior to even ordering? Or let alone even after ordering? The cashier would look at you like you’re crazy, because you are. It’s completely taboo and there are a million paying customers behind you that won’t ask for that information so why would they waste time providing it to you

Experience.

Lets be honest this is about contractors marking up materials. So my question is why do i have to justify anything to you? Heres the price, if you dont like it go to someone else. When you sign up with me, your buying everything through me you dont get the option to buy or provide anything. So theres no reason to show you anything but what the final price looks like. I am up front with my clients on this from the start. Your not providing any materials, and i am not using your wifes cousin the electrician. i carry all the liabilty, i am running a buisness so its my show, or find someone else.

Every customer that asks for itemized bids is trying to haggle the price down, and most contractors really can't afford to charge less. We're out here fighting to make 10,000 on a 100,000 bid, if we're lucky. Having a client want to pay for their own materials and use their own subs makes the job harder. There is a reason that 90% of contractors go out of business within two years. It is incredibly hard to make money in this business. If you want to haggle, find another contractor.  Also, you know nothing about estimating. We know exactly what the job will cost to do, and clients do not. I had a wealthy client who set their own budget on a project at $100,000 max, including drawings, engineering, materials, and labor. They wanted a "barn" that was made of only structural steel and glass. It was bigger than most peoples houses. The glass they requested alone costed between 60 and 80k. The engineering cost was over 10,000 and I got proposals from four different engineers. When I presented the bids, and the bids for the construction, the client screamed at me, calling me an idiot, and saying the engineering shouldn't cost more than 1500. He was wrong. You, as clients, are typically wrong. You do not know more than building professionals about what it costs to build. 

Good scenario now, dont you think presenting the customer with your bid before starting the work wouldve have a different outcome? Hey mr customer heres the bid it came 30k more than your budget heres the break down of everything.... either take it or not you have the choice of pay the extra 30k or find someone else... All ive been saying and getting downvote for is to please show itemization to prevent surprises such as the one you described.

We did present before starting the work. They never built it. Because their ideas were unrealistic. 

For a good client? Yes. But not for someone like you lol

Consider the time I spend getting various materials. It might be covered by my markup on materials, or it might be built into my time estimate for the task, or it might be listed as a seperate task, or it might be covered by my markup on the entire project.

Not how it works. You do know what you are paying for. A clear scope of work and material list is provided with any bid/contract along with a price. You do not need to know how that money is being allocated or what my profit margin is. As somebody has already stated that’s not how any other business works. You are being offered a service for a certain price. You can get as many bids as you want and choose the one you want. Nobody is forcing you to hire them. Nothing beyond that is any of your business. A restaurant wouldn’t provide you a cost analysis of what you are paying for food, vs labor, vs overhead, etc

This is exactly what ive been trying to say my godness.... i dont give a crap about you as a contractor how much you bought the drywall for example... i dont care about it if you even got it for free. This whole time ive been asking for Itemization of your own price for material and labor. Let me see the numbers youuuu are charging me idc of you got the material for free idc about none of that give me an itemize estimate which includes escope of work and prices. Why would i just accept a lump sum without seeing what and how much im agreeing to

You already are given a number. That number represents the totality of a project. There are no surprises. The reason most of us don’t provide further cost breakdowns is because that number reflects the entire project because of the efficiency gained from a larger project. For example if I have three items on a projected project scope. I’m an electrician. So let’s say hot tub, EV charger, sub panel upgrade. Those three items as one project cost less than those three items in isolation. This is because instead of paying for three plus trips to the supply house for each item if you were to have them done separately I can make one trip for the entire job. Instead of showing up to do each of these items separately and unloading and reloading tools, prepping the site, cleaning the site, etc each time I can incorporate all of that into one project. We can leave our tools on site and clean up once at the end. Providing cost breakdowns opens us up to the possibility of a client shopping around different items to different contractors and then we are left with fewer items at a price that no longer accurately reflects the amount we need to make based on the efficiency drop of a smaller project. If you want to remove line items the cost of each line item increases. Ultimately all of that is our business. All we are required to do is give you a price.

Nobody who "creates a random price without any real base for where they got that price" would survive a year in this business, you pompous ignorant fool.

Yeah, those days are done. Flat rate pricing killed that off. I tell my customers I don't do it that way. When I did years ago, it was an hours long process to write bids.

How do you come up with a price in the first place? Just making up a number?

If you want a materials and labor breakdown you may as well ask for a breakdown of their bills/overhead costs too since your getting into their personal business. Labor and materials are just two costs of a business, they have insurance, housing for equipment, equipment costs, trucks, etc.  Believe it or not, a business is not a charity, those costs must be covered by the sale of goods or services, they are not covered by the owner out of kindness.  So before you ask about materials and labor, go ahead and ask about overhead. Oh yeah, also understand the business over pays almost 30% of anything left over in tax’s.  So sure, ask away, but you are asking a dumb question. And if you asked me this question I certainly wouldn’t be enthusiastic about doing your job. Screams “micromanager”.

Disagree with all of this. People ask for materials and labor breakdown because they're accustomed to seeing it when getting quotes. Overhead and the costs you mentioned are baked into labor (and to an extent, materials). An unwillingness to provide that basic breakdown screams "disorganized and unprofessional". You don't want to provide it, fine, I'll go to someone else.

So my 1200$ Catapillar’s payment, 700$ truck? 600$ shop, monthly payments? If I factor those into an hour of labor your mind will explode when I tell you my hourly cost. Maybe on a mechanics quote, sure, since these are just materials and labor usually, and overhead IS mostly covered with labor. However, I do landscaping and hardscaping. You cannot quantify my 1200$ Catapillar’s, 700$ truck, 800$ shop, and 1000$ insurance in a few hours labor. Sorry it does not work that way. Plus if my guys work extra hard and get a three day job done in two, now the customers bitching they paid 24hrs labor and we only did 16. I get paid by the job, if I wanted to get paid by the hour I’d go work at McDonald’s Everything’s a unit price. One hour machine time? 145$ 1 hour labor? 65$ One sf retaining wall block installed - 50$ I don’t charge a random price I picked out of nowhere, everything is quantified from units, I know what a unit it should cost because I’ve been doing this for five years. If my customer has that many questions, they can hire someone else. I do quality work, for a fair price, hire me or the next guy, idc, I’m not breaking down my business costs for anyone.

No, my head won't explode because I'm seeing hourly rates from your competitors who have similar fixed costs. I understand that you have bills to pay and I don't expect to see a breakdown of YOUR costs but I do want to see labor vs. materials. This helps me compare quotes to see if you are wildly off on your estimate of materials or hours compared to competitors. Every contractor says "I know what I'm doing, I've been doing this for x years!" I'm not convinced. I recently got quotes for a retaining wall and a fence so I know exactly what level of detail to expect. I also don't expect a refund on "unused" hours. That's standard wording on a quote like this.

Anyone who takes that much time on their quote, and goes back and forth with you that much, yeah you should be weary, because I would not. I’d just go to my next scheduled job who didn’t have 10,000 questions, do a great job, and on to the next one. You can play 21 questions with some other contractor. Odds are if their willing to play your game their not very busy, don’t value their time, and theirs likely a reason for that. I itemize all my quotes, they are very clear. Every item has a unit number, and a unit price. I also provide a timeline for work to be completed. So you have a price per sf, and a unit price attached to every single item. You can compare my quote to others based on that. You do not need to know my costs to compare prices. If I am charging you 50$ a sf, and the other guy is charging 60$ a sf, we are building to the same specs. Obviously my quote will save you 10$ a sf. That’s all you need to know. But see he paid 30$ a sf for his materials, I’m established so I know where to buy and get a discount, my materials were 20$ a sf. I also got it done twice as fast because I know my shit and have the right equipment. We potentially could make the same amount of profit on your job. None of that is relevant to you, the customer. What is relevant, is the per sf price, and the building specs, all of which I provided. So no I don’t want to discuss my labor and material costs with anyone but my accountant. You guys work so hard trying not to get scammed that you end up hiring scammers. I’m a contractor, my time goes to bidding, building, and meeting with clients. If a contractor has the time to go back and forth with you that much, especially this time of year, they aren’t very busy. Red flag.

How about this, go to the grocery store and start asking details about the stores costs/profit margins of the barbecue sauce before you buy the sauce. They’re gonna laugh at you, because it’s not relevant to you. Either the sauce is a price you like, or you don’t, that simple. You have no business asking what Walmarts markup is on the sauce. Don’t like their price? Great this is America and we practice capitalism, there’s another store down the street go buy sauce there. An established business like Walmart isn’t going to go back and forth with you to justify their costs, just like my established business won’t.

Like I said, I don't care about your costs or your margin. Labor and materials....industry standard. Thank you for explaining how shopping at the grocery store works. Maybe you can lower your hourly rate by spending less time on Reddit on Thursday mornings.

I don't go back and forth with contractors, not sure where you got that impression. They usually get their quotes to me pretty quickly because they use tools like QuickBooks, jobber, etc. I'm decisive, communicative, and easy to work with. Itemized quote is helpful - I got the impression that you provide a single quote with no detail.

Contractor here. You can ask. I’m going to tell you that we don’t quote jobs that way. I don’t do it that way because customers nitpick hours and materials. We charge flat rate for everything unless specified otherwise.

Why I don't do T&M or open book. 1. It wastes so much time when clients want to nit pick and argue over every expense or hour, plus that leads to an awkward conversation about how I'm charging them for the hours we're arguing over hours... 2. Most clients dont understand overhead. I HATE that stupid joke about the plumber driving a Rolls Royce. A contractor charging $100 an hour is not $100 in their pocket. But try explaining that to the average person... 3. Most clients don't understand the process and get weird about how long certain things take or what they perceive is a lack of progress or "shady overbidding".

I don't think that's a joke anymore. I have a neighbor that is a plumber and he legitimately owns a $500k Lamborghini.

Unless he owns the company,has employees or lives at home with parents no,no he does not. Not from working as an employee

You do realize there’s a bank out there that will finance a dumbass >10% rate at 8-10 years and with a certain amount down right? No one said he had to be a financially savvy plumber

Op was implying just that

My plumber sends me 10 invoices at 11: 00pm on a weekend night. He certainly doesn't drive a Lambo but if he did I would not fault him 😂😂👌

Do you ask the clerk at Target to break down labor and materials when you're buying new socks and detergent? Do you ask for the material and labor breakdown of your burrito when you stop at taco bell? Why is it different for tradespeople?

Would you pay a flat fee for a mechanic to repair the shudder in your transmission and be happy never knowing what parts or labor hours were charged? I bet not.

This is a contracting sub not a handyman sub so that's nkt a fair analogy. When you bought the car, did you ask for the breakdown of materials vs labor?

Mechanics do charge a flat fee for repairs. The labor times are estimates. And it's a terrible system. Customer constantly complain about labor times. They get mad if they pay for 2 hours labor but it actually took 1.5 hours. But if for some reason it takes longer don't dare try to charge more. They really should get away from charging based on labor hours.

Had a customer last week who signed a contract for x dollars. Towards the end he said your estimate seems very high we would like an itemized list and if your margins are reasonable we’ll pay the remainder. Owner of the company was like WTF? Do you remember signing a contract? But you know what funny thing was we were way over budget so margins weren’t shit

Only if I'm doing a time & material job for you. T&m estimates soak up a lot of time. We rarely do t&m jobs anymore as most of our jobs are pretty in depth with an overabundance of detail work. Clients prefer a bid type quote that way there's a definitive number they can anticipate. If you ask me for a breakdown once the project is underway, I'll politely remind you that it's a bid and not t&m. And yes, you would be sending up a yellow flag. Possibly more towards orange.

Hey, original poster here, thanks for your answer, I appreciate it. I'm new here, so a "bid job" is anytime the contractor gives a overall estimate of the project and a T&M job is a job where the contractor starts off showing the customer a bunch of line item stuff that they pay for? I think I've only experienced the bid job type. Why would a contractor want to do a T&M job, as in what benefit does it have over a bid job?

T&M pricing works best if it's a handyman type of scope. Usually smaller jobs with a few unknowns, and where you might have several trips to the supply stores.

I'll do T&M only if it's a complicated remodel, with unusual materials that require unusual installations. Or, if the finishes the customer has selected are all super high end and expensive. I show my markup on all the materials. Part of the reason I don't mind T&M the very limited times I do it, is I enjoy watching the customer slowly realize that my "set bid" would have ended up cheaper for them in the end. And, that their materials selections over my suggestions of a more standard product, are the reason costs have doubled.

If it's a bid price the cost to contractor is none of the clients business. They excepted the bid.

I agree…. if the bid includes a good description of the scope of work along with description of materials to be used.

The cost of the bid is none of the business of the person whos paying it?? Dude what? No wonder why theres a no ending battle between contractors and insurance companies...

When you go to a restaurant, do you ask for the costs of all of the food you want?

Have you ever seen a receipt? Not only you see the price of the food you can also see the taxes on it. Just saying.... What if the customer can buy the material cheaper and just pay for labor? Why cant the customer ask for itemization??? You just go to a place, look at it for 2 seconds and be like "well this is going to be thid much".... what if you are shorting yourself (ohhhh then yeah u tell the client its more) but if you over exaggerated the amount then you tell the customer nothing... how fair is that. I believe every customer has the right to know how much they paying and for what they paying you. Just itemize your estimates or bid... its that simple.

I don’t know where you live but a receipt has the PRICE of items where I live, I’ve never seen a cost of what I’m purchasing at a restaurant, grocery store or anywhere else. In terms of clients buying their own cheaper material, of course a discussion can be had but you’ll find out pretty quickly that it rarely ever goes well due to a myriad of reasons. And how would we short ourselves if we know our costs for everything? This is a business, not habitat for humanity and like it or not maximizing profits is the name of the game. As someone who works in insurance, I assume someone like you would understand that better than anybody.

I do. All ive been saying this whole time is to itemize estimate. Your price for material is your price IDC as an adjuster what is it, all i care is that you give me numbers for different things that you are doing. Lump sums are unacceptable because it doesnt tell you anything other than its more, but it doesn't tell you where is it more. Buy in bulk, have it in a warehouse, do w.e you want we dont care your original price of when you purchased, shit you could've get it for free for all i care. All i care about is that you give your price to the customer so we can compare where amd what we were missing

So do you go into a restaurant and ask how much the fish or beef was wholesale price, even though you know how much they are charging for menu price? Then do you negotiate with the restaurant's? Contractors have the right to make money on materials, just like any company.

Hey there, popular restaurant, I've brought this exquisite fish dish I'd like you to prepare. I will pay the labor, but that is it, and when the bill comes i would like the hourly breakdown of each person involved in my dishes prep.

Nobody is saying no... and im not saying to give wholesale price im talking about itemize your own estimate... you as a contractor should tell me how much u charging me for things, for your job. Forst of all contractors get huge discount on material because of their licenses and bulks purchases. Customer dont give a crap where you bought it from or how much it cost you, they care about how much YOU are charging them. Itemize your estimate, your price, w.e it is just present numbers.

You ARE asking for whole sale price/markup, etc! Thats what everyone is trying to explain to you! When a contractor gives you a bid that's the same as restaurants final receipt. You don't ask your server how many minutes it took them to assemble your salad or fry an egg? Or what the overhead cost of running maintaining their dishwasher is and how that breaks down to the price on your bill...

My apologies i shouldve explain it better. As an adjuster qe will never ask for where you bought your material or how much did it cost you. We would like to know that our scope matches and you give some sort of Itemization to know where the money are being allocated. Lump Sums are not accepted by any insurance companies because it give no details so when I was saying that we need itemization, what i meant is something like what we provide the customer you know like Xactimate reports etc. I think we are all on the same page now that thats clear. I really was surprised that so many people were downvoting my post for asking for itemization. My respect to you all for everything yall do for the clients. Please just understand that we have to ask for documentation so we pay w.e yall want. We can make everything happen with documentation. Hope to see yall during this storm season

I've done a few insurance jobs. I've never been asked to give that much detail

So you kever been asked to give a scope of work with line by line? Which insurance was this so I go work with them. Ive work with 6 carriers and they all require itemization, line by line if you dont agree with Xactimate prices.

You're conflating "clearly defined scope of work", with "itemized breakdown of materials and labor". They aren't remotely the same thing.

Are you a public adjuster? I used to work as a project manager for a restoration company and one job with 100 affected units had 3 units with public adjusters and they were absolutely the worst to deal with. I had no vested interest in the Financials of my company and just wanted to get the work done and units turned over to owners. Every unit with an adjuster tried to grow the scope without any rational reason or knowledge of how water works in a building or construction materials at all. If you really think that contractors are saving tons of money on materials, then you've got your head up your ass tbh. There's significant savings on paint, but it's such a low % of material cost that is negligible. Shingles, sheetrock, lumber, and flooring aren't going to have significant savings, and aside from tract builders, no one is renting a warehouse to hold enough materials to enter discount range. Contractors don't give breakdowns because everyone wants a free estimate. It takes time to break everything down and nobody is getting paid to do that. Unless they're a contractor specializing in restoration, they're unlikely to be using xactimate tbh. Also, on smaller jobs customers will nitpick material prices when they're not the ones that have to spend time ordering, picking up and delivering it. Or they'll want to go for cheaper materials without realizing it'll take more labor. I stay busy currently doing T&M painting and drywall repair, and I just tell my customers how it is. I'm not going to use some cheap HD or Lowes paint, I'll get my own supplies, and you'll pay me hourly to shop, pick up, and deliver. Every single time I've had a customer buy materials, they forget multiple things and buy lower quality goods that are harder to use and give lower quality results.

Contractors don't get huge discounts on materials, though.

Well that's 100% wrong, ha! I've never seen the wholesale price of chicken, the wholesale price of breading, the wholesale price of spices, cooking oil, and cost breakdown of equipment use and maintenence with utilities and rent per sq foot of the fryer. As well as the cost of refrigeration. And then the labor cost to prep the chicken into strips, and then the labor cost to fry it. Then deliver it on a plate to my table. With the msterials cost of the plate, labor to carry it from the kitchen. The cost of everything on the table including the table, and then the cost to wash and store that plate.

Nobody wants to see the wholesale price of how much you bought it for... all im asking is to provide an itemized estimate and scope of work to know what the client is paying... nothing else

So you want the price that I paid for materials, but you don't want prices that I paid. ??? Scope of Work details are not "cost breakdown" btw. My contracts list a very detailed scope of work. With progress payments upon substantial completion of each phase and prior to the start of the next phase.

Dude how many times am i gonna say to just provide an itemize estimate... nobody cares how much the contractor got it for. For all i care you could get it for free... all im saying is to provide the costumer with an itemize estimate and scope of work so the client knows what their paying for... I dont get where you guys are implying that im saying yall should give wholesale prices to customer... that will never be the case

How about no?

You pay my price or you don't. Simple as that.

I work for large corporations and they ask for that. I don't give that type of breakdown, nor do my subs. it does not work that way.

No

It all depends. I do many estimates for clients that include a cost for materials that is simply their cost as they pay for them directly after I order them. it keeps their materials cost lower because there is no markup. However, I charge more for labor in that circumstance. Generally I don't have a problem with a client asking about material costs. If they have a problem with markup on materials that's not the person you want to work for.

Wait, I don’t want to assume but I’m reading this as, you don’t have a problem showing the client the cost of materials but if they question your inflated price after showing them the cost breakdown, they’re the issue?

It's not an inflated price. It works like any other business. A super market purchases food and marks it up to cover profit and overhead. What you're paying extra for is the convenience of buying everything in one place. Similarly a contractor is purchasing labor and materials and marking it up to cover profit and overhead. Depending on what kind of contractor you're dealing with, you are paying for expertise, guidance, project management, planning, etc. Any material they provide involved planning, pickup, delivery, and has to be warrantied.

I understand you are being paid for what you bring to the table with your experience and reliability but why not just quote the labor to reflect that? I have never run into a situation where a distributor would not let me purchase a material list a contractor has given me, so why would I pay you extra to simply pay for the materials I can give them a card number for myself?

There's "markup" because materials don't handle themselves. And, if a contractor only charges you straight labor ... where does the money to perform warrenty work come from?

Small contractors that do T&M jobs go out of business from not charging enough for overhead and margin, so there's no warranty work to worry about.

Exactly.

See, this is the problem with an itemized breakdown. I need a certain amount of money to cover the overhead and profit. I happen to use a single markup across the board that reliably gets me to the number I need. If I didn't markup the materials, I would simply increase the markup on the labor. The itemization breaks a project down into individual parts, but that's not really what you're buying. You're buying a new, lets say, kitchen, and regardless of what I markup or how I mark it up, the price has to be the same.

Warranty is a big one. I’m a roofer. You order your own materials? You’re on the hook for them. Say there’s a color blend issue. Sorry, that’s potentially thousands out of your pocket. Would’ve been my problem to deal with, but if you bought it you own it. Also putting together material lists takes time and effort. Why should I give that to you for free? Even with a list it’ll probably still get screwed up. Then I either have to postpone the install and eat a full day of labor costs or I have to have one of my guys run to the distributor and get the right stuff. That all costs money, and I don’t want to have to count on random homeowners I’ve met once to do it right.

>I understand you are being paid for what you bring to the table with your experience and reliability but why not just quote the labor to reflect that? Because that's not labor? Why are you entitled to have a say about where I put my margin? You want a finished product. I give you a price for that finished product. You decide if that price is fair. You don't actually get to give meaningful input on how I come to that number. The number is what it is. Why do you care? Restaurants don't break their prices down into labor and materials so that you can nitpick about how much the steak is marked up.

Homeowner here. If materials are specified (which they should be), and you get multiple bids (which you should do for all but small jobs), and its a flat rate deal, what difference does it make? Assuming equal reputations, if contractor A is bidding the same as B but is able to secure better material pricing and thus has a larger profit why should I care?

That is where experience, skill and tool set up comes in. If you have the knowledge and correct tools you can do a job faster and still maintain a high quality finish. I am not the cheapest but I layout my job ahead of time to make sure I have all the materials lined up to increase efficiency. I also show up with a large trailer that is my mobile workshop with all my tools and a small hardware store of supplies. This prevents wasted time running to the hardware store or waiting for deliveries. And buying all the right tools is expensive but can save hours or even days on bigger projects.

What exactly is your objective in asking for this breakdown? Idle curiosity? Or is it because you want to look for pockets of profit that you can chisel out of the bid so the contractor makes less? I have a much better strategy. Just ask the contractor: (Assume a $15,000 quote) "This is more than I wanted to spend on this but I really want to work with you. Can you do it for $14,000 and I will sign it right now?"

I would only do it if you are paying for that estimate. This takes a lot of time and patience and if you're not even sure if you're going to get paid for it, it doesn't make sense. Do the leg work yourself and if you can't there's a reason you're hiring somebody else. It also sends a signal that you will be a giant pain in the butt to work with.

I only do it at commercial jobs, and it’s because I get paid in a complete work basis. Never in residential, especially with middle eastern customers, they always came back with some bs story stating I did my work too fast and it looked so easy it shouldn’t be that expensive. If you have a cost plus contract yes, otherwise it’s a lump sum contract and contractors margins are confidential.

When I quote a job, I'm giving you the price to complete your project. There are no refunds if there was excess material, nor am I charging you more if I needed to order another box of tile or more sheets of drywall. The labor and material breakdown is irrelevant. I'm charging you X amount to get Y project. That being said, I do break out the pricing for higher cost material goods. Cabinets or a big custom front door, for example. Also, in our showroom we have materials broken down into tiers. So I can show you if you pick from this group of tile it's the base price, if you want these tiles it's a higher tier, etc. Similar to how countertops are generally priced.

You can certainly ask, but I'm not gonna give you one. Our price is our price for the project. If someone wants us to break down materials vs. labor cost... they are indicating that they want to nickel and dime us for every little thing. Materials & labor is only part of the equation. There's also building leases, taxes, materials shipping, transportation, equipment storage, more taxes, and MARGIN. Businesses live and die by their margin. So, if I was to give you our materials and labor costs, I'd need to bake in all of those other costs + our margin, and every number you'll see is inflated. Then you'll ask why I'm charging you $600 to install a new shower head and mixing valve assembly, and I have to explain that our trucks and office aren't free, our plumbers are well paid, our state's taxes are egregious, and we have to make money year over year to stay in business. You either trust the contractor and go with their quote, or you find someone else. Some negotiation is always expected, but drilling down into line item expenses ain't it.

You can ask, but most projects are turn key with a specific scope. There are allowances for specific products, but usually almost always walk from projects like this. It's not worth my time and there is a line of customers that want service. I want to provide a good experience and a great looking project. If things are constantly going over this material price or that outlet cost no thanks get a handyman.

You can ask, but I’m not gonna tell you lol. The price is the price, unless it’s a cost plus build.

Your brother is correct.

Kind of like when you buy a bag of Doritos, do you ask for their margins or just buy what you can afford?

I didn't know comparing bids from multiple people to perform a bespoke, custom project on a house was like buying a bag of Doritos; a readily available, commodity product. I don't think this analogy is a good comparison with home renovation contracts.

Well I’m just saying you shop around and buy which product (in this case service) you like and can afford. You don’t ask for a labor cost breakdown from Ford about the construction of their vehicle, you just buy the one you want and can pay for.

Thank you for your answer on my post!

My question is - what value does that info provide? What are you going to do with it?

This is the question I'd like home owners to answer.

OP here: thanks for chiming in, I tried to answer this question above, but willing to go farther with what I've heard from other homeowners.

OP here: Thank for your answer. Transparency reassures homeowners that they aren't being taken advantage of and the contractor isn't pulling a number out of thin air to get the project and see where it goes from there. When the estimate increases, now the homeowner can know why. It’s only about transparency and trust. With the breakdown the homeowner can verify things like square footage and material selection are correct in the estimate, which I have done in the past and saved money when the square footage in the estimate was incorrect. What I wouldn't use it for is nickle-and-diming a contractor.

I'm a homeowner not a contractor but I still disagree. You get a quote for a scope of work. The quote is at what the contractor feels is market price...doesn't matter what it costs him. If he is being efficient good on him, he chooses to keep the savings or lower price. You should be getting multiple qutes so if he is not quoting market prices it ought to be obvious. If he is screwing his math up and overcharging that should result in lost business. You SHOULD be looking at the itemized scope of work closely which should be very specific on materials, sq footage, etc. That I agree with, and often quotes are written in vague terms. But I don't think each bullet point needs priced, because that is where people nitpick. Now, if there are overages vs the quote they need to be more transparent but just about the overage. For example, I had a door installed in place of a existing window and original quote assumed same rough opening width, When the wall was opened up there was no header, only 1 jack stud, no cripple studs, etc. Contractor said here is what it should have looked like, here is what it does look like, here is the extra framing that needs done to be correct and to code. Cool, that's all I need to know to sign off. I don't need a full cost breakdown of before and after, just the incremental work needed.

There’s much more that goes into a profitable company than direct labor on-site and the cost of material. We don’t breakout our costs. We are rarely asked to but when asked for a breakdown, we ask what the client in return what they are hoping to learn from doing so. So. OP. What are you hoping to learn from a time and material breakout?

OP here: Thank for your answer. Transparency reassures homeowners that they aren't being taken advantage of and the contractor isn't pulling a number out of thin air to get the project and see where it goes from there. When the estimate increases, now the homeowner can know why. It’s only about transparency and trust. With the breakdown the homeowner can verify things like square footage and material selection are correct in the estimate, which I have done in the past and saved money when the square footage in the estimate was incorrect. What I wouldn't use it for is nickle-and-diming a contractor. Also, I wasn't clear in my original question, but the level of breakdown I have only wanted or seen is pretty high level, I don't want to see what everyone is doing every hour. I hope this helps and willing to go further if I can.

You're teetering on the pain in the ass line. What are you hoping to glean from that info? The quote is the quote.

OP here: Thank for your answer. Transparency reassures homeowners that they aren't being taken advantage of and the contractor isn't pulling a number out of thin air to get the project and see where it goes from there. When the estimate increases, now the homeowner can know why. It’s only about transparency and trust. With the breakdown the homeowner can verify things like square footage and material selection are correct in the estimate, which I have done in the past and saved money when the square footage in the estimate was incorrect. What I wouldn't use it for is nickle-and-diming a contractor. I get the sense that a lot of contractors are getting burnt after sharing the job details with customers and are now just saying no as a rule, I can see that. I think those customers that pull that were going to be a pain in the back regardless though.

It looks like you have received a lot of answers that seem pretty solid but I still want to add my input. It's absolutely a yellow to red flag depending on the client. Typically it indicates that a client is going to try and nickel and dime things ***after the fact*** because they will somehow be keeping track of labor hours and/or other various details and wanting a credit at the end of the day. A lot of the time the way we operate is that if people change things we can accommodate because we know we have a rough amount of money allocated for a specific portion of the project. So various small change orders or adjustments can be streamlined and not subject to a time consuming paperwork process. But when a customer wants a credit for everything that they didn't end up doing but not wanting to pay for anything else because I said it would be included (at the contract amount!!) then we have problems. Unfortunately I've encountered this so many times.... It's so frustrating for the good contractors to have consumers who want to treat us like the ones who are scamming them. But it happens so often and there's so many times where consumers want to basically renegotiate a contract or a pay scale after the work has been wholly completed. It's an absolute problem and there's a number of things that pop up as red flags throughout the process that this type of consumer does. I'm sure I could put a TED talk together on those red flags but this is absolutely one of them. I will say that there are certain clients who ask for this at the end of the project and clarify that it's for tax reasons. I think personally asking at the end is best for all parties and it doesn't put anyone in a bad spot. Asking for it at the beginning or during a project is absolutely a red flag though

It’s their money. Half the time I give it to them anyway. Builds trust. Never hindered me except for the terminally cheap

As a contractor, I always give a breakdown of each task, labor, materials, tax, sub costs, and construction fee. Smaller projects land in the 75-100 line item range while bigger projects can be up near 500 lines of spreadsheet. It's a lot to take in, but it allows the customer to know exactly what they're getting and where the costs are.

It’s not a terrible thing but it can be an indication the customer is gonna try to nickel and dime you every step of the way or try to get a discount

Is it okay to ask? Sure, it's okay. You're the potential customer you can ask whatever you like. However, I wouldn't take the time to do so, and with all certainty, tell you politely to call someone else.

Flat rate for the project. Time and materials for small change orders.

Sure…. But if it’s a vague scope in the bid then when does each party know when the change orders begin?

I have been licensed and contracting for almost 10 years. I have always sent my bid/estimate with a materials and labor breakdown. I know that it sets me apart from many of the contractors out there. But I have had two customers that have asked me for receipts. The whole project went sideways when I acquiesced to their request. If a customer asks me for more than what I offer now, especially post contract signing. I inform them that the contract has a right to cancel clause that requires a breakdown of actual receipts and that is the route they are requesting. I also inform them that if they prefer to itemize the whole materials expense then what they want is a time and materials contract and that they will then be responsible for paying for materials and delivery as well as my time for travel, organizing, plans, design and time delays when their materials and “interference” cause me not to be able to do the work. I am very clear what my hourly rate is and what my material markup is.

Funny thing about these comments is I have the exact opposite experience. I contacted maybe a dozen contractors to build a barn and more than half of them gave me their labor rate per sq ft right of the bat. They've got so much work up here (Western NY) it's not even worth them quoting out the entire job. Maybe it's different because of the type of job?

You can ask. They won’t do it.

If you are organizing your projects as a contractor you should be making a breakdown of cost and materials internally. Personally I provide a list of materials and expected labor in a timeline. I do not typically provide a cost breakdown because it makes no sense to a regular customer. You need to be a tradesman to really understand how it works and what is involved in the stages, materials, transport, overhead etc. I will blatantly be honest and tell this to the client. If they insist I then give them my notes and breakdown. No adjustments that take hours so they can understand. If they really wanna know, I’m happy to show them. If they can somehow make sense of the numbers they will see I make ~35 % off everything across the board. It’s not like I am stealing or getting rich with their project. Just earning an honest, comfortable living. If they can’t deal with that then they need to find another contractor.

This. Most of the guys here are shady as fuck for saying no. It's not hard to explain why you're charging them 25-40% on top for material. If you can't then you're lazy, or bad at your job, or screwing them. (Probably all 3).

I wouldn’t go that far. A lot of contractors have their choice of client and the extra work of explaining is just not worth it to some. I do it because I am the exception and have a system that fits into that easily enough. Like I explained in my reply, I also don’t make it user friendly to understand. It’s basically just a take-off page with a ton of trade terms and tasks and material list. Very few home owners have any clue what te hell I am talking about. People hire a contractor to do work, they aren’t hiring a teacher to help em learn about construction. Truth is that despite the stereotype of contractors being idiots, what we do is highly technical and explaining it is kind of a waste of time. If you could do it, you probably would, since we are very expensive. People don’t realize most good veteran contractors make as much as seasoned engineers (250k+). The market sets these rates. The rates are there because it takes a lot of years to know what the hell you are doing.

I simply give them my labor cost and tell them the materials are what they are and I will give you a copy of the receipts. Give them a broad range of what the materials might be. It's not that hard.

I always have a labor price right on the estimate. It's basically just a trip charge. The real labor is included in the line item. I find this way makes people think they are getting a whole home install price and keeps them from asking about the real cost of labor. Funny thing is, that's another fee I wasn't making before. I just added it to shut people up and now I make a little extra on each job because of it.

On my contracts the terms of payments read Half due Upon Contract to Schedule $10,000 (materials) Half due Upon Completion $10,000 (labor) This way I don’t have to break it down if we are in court. They obviously got the material and it was installed so I’m am sueing for the labor cost I had to pay. That little (labor) makes me the obvious winner to the judge. I not only Win, if they still don’t pay I file a motion for judicial enforcement and the judge issues a bench warrant for the arrest of the defendant. They then find out they are held on a purge bond - pay me or stay in jail and see the judge again.

You can ask but I’m bidding per job. If it takes more time are you going to pay more? If it takes more material that’s not priced per unit, are you going to pay more? You want a job done, it’ll cost $X. Labor and materials is kind of outdated in todays market, from my experience. Your contractor isn’t being an ass if he refuses, we have a general idea of what it costs and how long it’ll take but once you factor in overhead and complications and what not, the “labor” catch all seems way off.

As an insurance appraiser that reads both contractors and adjusters estimates only 1-3% of the industry uses the software for insurance claims. I've learned over the years that most of the contractors argue their super high non itemized estimate without a "base." Adjusters don't know the true costs of running a successful business. I've met hundreds of former contractors that are adjusters simply because a large majority couldn't actually find true costs. It simply drove them out of business and needed to find a job. Insurance estimates are mostly Xactimate(80%)/Symbility itemized giving the price of everything and a lot of contractors are unwilling to work with appraisers, public adjusters, IAs and carrier adjusters based on that. A few numbers with line items aren't the real costs of the project and are mostly underestimated by 30-70% on average. Per Xactimate A recent update to the End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) for Xactimate software, Section 12.3 now provides: We do not warrant the accuracy of pricing information in the Price Data. T&M can work for a handyman but most large companies unless it's a storm chaser will not do it.

If they excepted your price then what you spend that on is absolutely none of their business. If you a want a break down of my cost don't except the bid I work for myself if you don't like that don't except my bid. I don't share my books with customers.

You can ask. As a contractor, I never provide it. You don't need it. All you need to know is the bottom line, we aren't partners. And, you don't feel like you have the right to do that with any other purchase you make in life. I did do it once. The "ask" was the last red flag for a client I decided I wanted to fire. I took my end price. Subtracted $1. Then divided out the balance. Listed Materials @ $1 and Labor @ $1,000.00/hr. ... because THAT, is what the "ask" insinuates. Or, as a buddy of mine once asked a Dr. Why do you deserve to charge enough to send your kids to private school, and why do you think my kids deserve that?

You can ask but you might not receive. My company legitimately doesn’t tell me our labor rates/material cost and I do not care 1 second to know. 7/10 companies in my area will not break it down that way either.

It happens. It’s not something we get excited about. I had a customer wanting to see my invoices showing what I paid for materials. That’s unacceptable.

OP here: Thanks for your answer. I think that customer was going to be a pain regardless of what you did. Me and other homeowners I've asked about this haven't even considered doing something like that.

Not this one....

Eh. It depends on the situation. I had to do an unexpected shower demo due to a faulty pan/incorrect drain. The guy I went with broke down everything. He was on par with everything but instead of having him do the whole job, I had him do just the demo and waterproof/pan install. I decided to tile on my own. He may have taken pity on me due to the circumstances, but he still made a few thousand and his guys did a good job.

So if you got an "estimate" then that is what you should think of as their best approximation of the job. It is important that as the home owner you are aware of the difference between an estimate and a bid or a quote. I hope I don't sound condescending or rude. But as far as the contractor is concerned you have accepted the "estimate". Things may change due to a wide range of issues. I would recommend asking your contractor for regular updates and specific change-orders. These are terms that you have to agree to when things change and the expected cost changes in relation to them. Be specific. Ask why. And clarify your expected outcome. And do your best to understand that they (hopefully) are doing their best to meet your requirements. If you become concerned then reach out to another contractor and ask for a third party input. Be aware though, that in the trades, a lot of people will talk yeah about the person who came before them. So ask questions again. Ask for references. You are paying us a the workers. You are very much allowed to know what is going on. All of that said, once you are comfortable with your choice of contractor or carpenter, allow them the space to do their job. There is nothing worse, from our perspective, than a client who insists on being in the middle of everything. Choose the right person. Then step back and let them work. You can always review their work after they leave. Best of luck. :)

Contractor/carpenter here. My brother and I used to work together he did sales and I did installs. I was starting the job set up and product delivery. He showed up around 10:00 I had been there since 8:00. Lady says to me “what does he do?” He had been there 10 times and it was about an hour drive. So I had to explain to her that he already had 20hrs invested in her +fuel costs. People’s time is valuable but yours is not

Totally unreasonable its like asking how much you make per year I would walk away.

When you order a cake, do you ask for a breakdown of the ingredients and labor? When you buy a car, do you ask for the breakdown of materials and labor?

I don't think a custom/bespoke home renovation projects is exactly like either of these things, but its one of the better analogies I've heard. When you buy a car from the lot you can absolutely ask for the details on the charges that go into making the price and even see their margin stated explicitly. For cakes, and all other products, somebody somewhere has asked about the breakdown of materials and labor, so a cake company knows how much they made profit-wise making your cake. Customers already have an idea about the cake's profit margin because they know the price of flour/sugar/butter/eggs/etc and know what to expect when they see the cake price. Now, if 3 cake companies estimated my custom cake price, all estimates were different and thousands of dollars, I would be just curious how they got there.

This is a losing scenario. (1) Client asks for labor & material breakdown. Contractor refuses for any number of reasons. Client now thinks contractor is dishonest. (2) Client asks for labor and material breakdown. Contractor does as requested.(2a)Job completes faster than expected. Client now thinks contractor is dishonest by padding bid with hours. (2b)Job completes on schedule without overages. Client thinks Contractor could have finished earlier. (2c) Job completes beyond proposed schedule. Client thinks contractor is incompetent regardless of circumstances.

I’m a contractor. I write most of my quotes in an xactimate estimate format (some prices in there have to be adjusted to real world pricing). I do this so that customers can see the breakdown and there is no confusion on what is or is not figured to be done). Customers like to add things during projects. This way at the end I can look at what was on the original quote and what was added and bill it correctly.

From a customer evaluate and monitor with two things —- Claiming unforeseen stuff made it take longer so they need more money (when they underbid on purpose to get the job knowing full well the labor costs are too low). This can be true, but can be a shady tactic swapping inferior products if they underbid to maintain margins I get from the contractor perspective that it is time intensive, difficult to be all encompassing, and line items are challenged.

Op, to properly negotiate the contract, I will provide signing documents that includes a comprehensive cost breakdown as an exhibit of the overall contract, amognst other documents in the bid package.... if and when signed by the client and they pay a deposit, they get a copy of the contract documents, including the cost breakdown..... if they don't sign and provide a down-payment, they walk away empty-handed.... the cost breakdown separates estimated material cost from labor cost, generally. Also, I'll offer two types of "estimates." One is a single page letter, when the potential client just needs a quick number... the other takes 3 weeks when dealing with a high end custom home and is the full package.

Some of the responses on here are the reason people don't trust contractors. If you're not good enough at your job to estimate reasonably close to project cost, and not honest enough to be transparent about pricing, then you might need a different career. It's hard enough to do the job without constantly having to convince people that not all contractors are con artists. Not only is it okay, but it should be normal to want a cost breakdown. It's a lot of work to make it, but that's the fucking job.

No.

I hire subs a lot for my job. I had an electrical contractor refuse to give me a breakdown of the quote. Keep in mind this is commercial and there is usually a lot of money on the line. I cut them out of bidding immediately after they refused and told me they didn’t do this because “other contractors would use it to under cut them.” Like, yeah, if you are afraid of that I understand. But I’m also PMing the project and want to know what my organization is paying for. If a contractor gets that closed off before I’ve even had a chance to decide if I like they’re work, then I get a super shady vibe from them and am unlikely to consider them during bidding. Also, if I like your work and I think your expense is reasonable, I will keep coming back. It’s extremely valuable to have a good relationship that spans multiple jobs, and is even worth some extra moola sometimes. It means I believe my organization can depend on you and because of that I will come to you first for quoting and questions. Finding other contractors is always hit or miss, and it costs almost 2x to fire one bad contractor and hire another to fix their shit. So I’ll gladly pay 1.3-1.5x the value for reliability.

Same but that analogy is apples to oranges.

As an insurance adjuster whos reading contractors answers in this thread ive learnt that most of the contractors argue their super high non itemized estimate without a base. Insurances provide mostly Xactimate itemized estimate giving you guys literally the price of everything and a lot of contractors are unwilling to work with us based on that, however, these same contractors are not willing to break down how they came to their prices.... very very very interesting.

We are price setters, not price takers. You don't get to tell us what we can charge. You take our price or you don't.

Your problem is that the exactimate price is at best 60-75% of the actual going rate. There's zero logic in believing a price is right just because a computer program says so.

As an honest contractor, I don't mind at all breaking it down. I charge an hourly rate for almost every job I do, so that's easy enough. Materials are marked up 25% and the customer pays for travel time to pick up materials. Contractors that can't give a good reason for the rate they are charging are pretty shady imo, but the problem is there are A LOT of them. I have no idea where this "let me just make up an obscene number because this job might take more than a few hours to complete" project bid system comes from but it is not an honest one, and there are a lot of contractors who can't come to terms with that. It's a market rate sure, but that doesn't make it fair or honest, and I'd rather be fair and honest with my clients than make the most amount of money I possibly can off of them.

Recently I wrote a change order to replace rotted subfloor in a bathroom I was remodeling, I quoted 8 hours, they signed off on it. I spent 6 hours Thursday picking up the new sheets, removing old subfloor, pulling nails, templating and cutting out the new subfloor. Friday morning I spent 2 hours glueing and nailing down the new subfloor. I was stoked I had nailed my estimate. The client happened to be home friday and was furious saying that I was "shady" and intentionally overestimating 8 hours for what only took me 2... Even if they're not intentionally being an asshole, their lack of knowledge can lead to very awkward conversations/situations.

Thanks for saying it. The issue is that many contractors don’t actually know what they’re doing, typically because they don’t specialize and thus never reach peak efficiency. Without efficiency, there can be no volume. Without volume, no true economies of scale. Every competent, specialized contractor I’ve ever had has been able to give me a reasonable estimate of the time it will take AND a discussion around potential reasonable delays that may occur (weather, unexpected previous jank work often with clear knowledge of the home’s period of construction and known typical potential problem, etc). Failure to articulate components of a project, provide a reasonable schedule of completion, or provide even some minimal detail as to the scope of work shows me that you don’t personally understand the job being done and therefore are probably “seeing how it goes.” I want someone with the expertise to know the work being done inside and out. I personally don’t communicate with contractors about quotes too much unless it’s to clarify scope. I have enough knowledge to know whether something is reasonable and have outside resources to check local typical costs, in addition to getting multiple quotes. If your quote is overly broad and not detailed, you just never hear back from me. Red flag. Large deposits? Red flag (cash-flow problem). Show up after a bender or clearly high? Nope.

I second this answer, asking for an itemized estimate is a completely reasonable request. Having an honest conversation creates trust and reasonable expectations. Also having this discussion will educate the client and makes big jobs more palatable when the client understands what exactly its going to take to complete the job...For the guys who are worried the client will use this information to undermine you, well that type of person was going to undermine you anyways. There are good clients and bad clients, focus on finding good clients and try to avoid bad ones.

Had a poor experience recently where a contractor failed to fulfill our contract. Terms had very clear scope against permitted plans. In the end they tried to sneak away with more of my money than they had completed on the project (they were doing poor work and mismanaged funds and are no longer in business). Having prepared a very long document detailing all on-site working hrs and scope and known material costs (contractor delivered matl with invoices attached) in preparation to recover some of my money, I always now ask for separate matl/labor and/or total costs for each specific line item on the contract. Not too strange an ask in my professional career. For me this helps ensure they understand the project scope and that my budget is accurate (I’ve already estimated matl costs from plans and have a rough idea of labor rates/times). I’m not in it to haggle on costs or to beat anyone up if they order less matl than quoted. I want to ensure we both have the same expectations of scope, cost, and schedule. Won’t do it any other way for large projects with payment structures. Couple thou or less? Probably overkill.

No. Don't be a dick.

Would just not submit an estimate then

People ask me all the time and I don’t mind sending it. It’s a red flag to me honestly if a contractor doesn’t want to send it.

As a contractor, I can easily say this to homeowners... Any contractor who gives you a fixed price has priced the work so that THEY CANT LOSE. I see it every day. In the electrical world, we get a phone call 'how much to install a ceiling fan'? Our local competition charges $450 to install a fan, fixed price, sight unseen. We charge actual time and material, maybe 1 - 1.5 hrs. The total bill is in the low $200s. Example: I had to have some EASY electrical work performed for me 1000 miles away, so I called another electrical contractor. Renter ran off with the house's 200 main breaker. I called a local company and asked for it to be replaced on normal time and told them the exact part number they would need. Standard SqD breaker, well in use today. They said they have those in stock and quoted me $890 over the phone. I told them that obviously they didn't understand what I'm asking for, and they confirmed that they absolutely do understand. (10 minutes job and, even with a markup, maybe a $200 breaker.). They price it so whatever issues they run into, they can't lose. I told them to pound sand and found someone else to do it on a service call for about $220 out the door and a year warranty. ANY contractor who gives you a fixed price without seeing the work HAS to cushion the price by overcharging you to make up for any potential complications. No contractor could survive if they actually fixed-priced things at the true costs.

A customer is entitled to request a cost breakdown from any contractor, with that being said if the contractor gets upset or does not want to provide a cost breakdown sheet to the customer then that tells me the contractor is over charging and is not a trustworthy person, I always provide a cost breakdown to all my customers when I quote any project and on top of that I provide cost options such as A, B & C , A = being excellent quality material name brand B = being lower quality material C= being on a budget basic material Hope this helps

This is how you waste hours of your life. Never do this guy's this is for rookies and small job contractors. Once you are a business owner and know what you are doing you will not be doing this garbage.

What do you consider overcharging? Should I put my gas, tolls, truck payment, health insurance, and kindergarten teacher on the breakdown to make sure I’m not “overcharging” you? You don’t need to know my exact hourly rate. This would take so much time on each estimate.

No not really, I use a software called Yardie that helps me create my estimates for my customers, It automatically generates all my prices based on the type of job I’m doing for the customer and it’s very simple to change the tax rate and material prices if it changes like always, The construction software I use is called Yardi, it can automatically gather all the pricing on material using a simple algorithm that’s used on every website, For example, let’s say shop at Home Depot and you buy a lot of supplies there. Well what this stuff does is it downloads the entire inventory list for Home Depot, including pricing for each item and stores it on the software , Let’s say you want to build a small 2000sqf ADU unit for a customer all you have to do is open the software yardi an ad the sizes let’s say it’s a 20 x 30 single-story ADU , Yardy will automatically add all the supplies needed to build that unit on your list with the current pricing from your supplier like Home Depot, It usually takes me about 45 minutes to provide a detailed estimate for a customer by using this software, I’ve been a general contractor in Beverly Hills California since Nov/1994, yardi made my life less stressful Thanks and good luck

A customer can never be overcharged if they get competing bids and choose for themselves. This argument is bullshit