Typical contractor markup on material

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Fred B

Fred B

Senior Member
Location
Upstate, NY
Occupation
Electrician
Mark up is tough, everyone Google's everything and with big box advertising same for everyone, I'll get questioned alot "Why so much, I can get it at HD for $X?", but don't want to hear about all the other little peices that aren't on the invoice that the MU helps cover. And I'm no where near the MU you are mentioning.Then if you itemize for every nut and screw they complain your nickel and diming. Sometimes you can't win for trying.
 
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blueheels2

Senior Member
Location
Raleigh, NC
Occupation
Electrical contractor
Fred B said:
Mark up is tough, everyone Google's everything and with big box advertising same for everyone, I'll get questioned alot "Why so much, I can get it at HD for $X?", but don't want to hear about all the other little peices that aren't on the invoice that the MU helps cover. And I'm no where near the MU you are mentioning.Then if you itemize for every nut and screw they complain your nickel and diming. Sometimes you can't win for trying.
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This is why I don’t do itemized billing. It’s the price for the job and that’s it. Occasionally I will break it down into individual tasks but that really only happens if they need to cut work out to meet a budget.
 
kwired

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
Fred B said:
Mark up is tough, everyone Google's everything and with big box advertising same for everyone, I'll get questioned alot "Why so much, I can get it at HD for $X?", but don't want to hear about all the other little peices that aren't on the invoice that the MU helps cover. And I'm no where near the MU you are mentioning.Then if you itemize for every nut and screw they complain your nickel and diming. Sometimes you can't win for trying.
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I haven't had too much complaints on materials prices, was always labor prices. Then I stopped itemizing hours and rate and just putting "Labor" and a total only and don't get hardly any complaints about labor anymore. Never changed the rate just stopped posting the rate on the invoices.

Labor $200 is fine for these people but for same job write it as labor 2 hours @ $100= $200 and they think you charge too much. Wouldn't matter if you replaced 100 an hour with 50 an hour or 25 an hour some would still complain.
 
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