How to tell if you're underpricing (without a spreadsheet)

You don't need a full costing model — you need three questions and the answers you already have.

Question 1: what's your actual gross margin?

Take last quarter's revenue. Subtract materials, subcontractors, and the direct hours you or your crew put in at real wages. That's your gross. If it's under 40% and you're not sub-scale, you're likely underpricing.

Question 2: do you win too much?

Genuinely. If you win over 70% of quotes, you're the cheapest bid. That's not a compliment. Push prices until you're winning 50-60%.

Question 3: which jobs make you money?

Most owners can't answer this. If you can't split last quarter's profit by job type, you're not underpricing on average — you're underpricing on some and overpricing on others. A floor-price card fixes it in a week.

Frequently asked

Won't raising prices lose me clients?

The right clients respond to fair pricing, not the cheapest. In every pricing audit we've done, revenue went up and headache clients dropped away.

Where does AI fit into pricing?

Not the pricing decision — that's a business call. But AI can watch your job data and flag quotes that would land below your floor price BEFORE they go out.