Know Your True Job Cost Before You Name a Price
The Costing Engine is the foundation of every PricedQuote. It captures every labour input, material, subcontractor cost, expense, and contingency — across every phase of a job — so you always know exactly what a job will cost before you commit to delivering it.
Every Cost Type, Properly Captured
Most quoting tools have one or two cost types. PricedQuote's Costing Engine has five — each designed around how real jobs actually work, not how software teams think they work.
Labour
Capture every hour worked on a job — by role, by operative, by rate. Add as many team members as the job requires, each at their own rate. The engine uses true employment cost, not face-value wage.
- ✓ Hourly, day rate, or fixed labour inputs
- ✓ Multiple operatives per phase
- ✓ Different rates per role type
- ✓ Supervisor and management time
- ✓ Apprentice and trainee rates
Materials
Log every material by quantity and unit price — not as a round estimate. Add supplier references, waste factors, and material markup. See your true material cost before you quote a single line item.
- ✓ Quantity × unit price calculation
- ✓ Waste factor percentage
- ✓ Supplier reference fields
- ✓ Material markup layer
- ✓ Saved materials library
Subcontractors
Include every subcontracted trade or specialist with their own cost line. Add a margin layer on top of subcontractor costs to cover your management responsibility and commercial risk on their work.
- ✓ Per-subcontractor cost lines
- ✓ Margin layer on subcontracted work
- ✓ Day rate or fixed cost input
- ✓ Multiple subs per phase
- ✓ Internal-only — hidden from client
Plant, Equipment & Hire
Scaffold hire, plant hire, specialist tool hire, vehicle allocation, and site access equipment — all as individual cost lines. Never absorb these as overhead on jobs where they're directly attributable.
- ✓ Day or week hire rate inputs
- ✓ Vehicle operating cost allocation
- ✓ Equipment depreciation lines
- ✓ Delivery and collection charges
- ✓ Reusable plant cost templates
Expenses & Extras
Everything else that costs money on a specific job — travel, parking, accommodation, skip hire, certification fees, permit costs, consumables. Log them individually so they're never accidentally absorbed as overhead.
- ✓ Individual expense line items
- ✓ Certification and compliance fees
- ✓ Travel, mileage, accommodation
- ✓ Permit and access costs
- ✓ Waste disposal and skip hire
Contingency & Risk
Set a contingency percentage per job or per phase to cover unknown conditions, access complications, or scope uncertainty. Contingency is separate from margin — it protects margin if things go wrong.
- ✓ Percentage or fixed contingency
- ✓ Per-phase or job-level setting
- ✓ Separate from profit margin
- ✓ Visible in cost model, optional in output
- ✓ Adjustable before every quote
Cost by Phase, Not Just by Job
Most jobs don't have a single, uniform cost profile. A building project has different costs at groundworks, structure, first fix, and finish. A web project burns different resources at discovery, design, development, and launch. PricedQuote lets you assign costs to the phase they actually belong in.
- Assign any cost type to any phase
- See cost, margin, and profit per phase
- Identify which phases carry the most risk
- Phase payment milestones tied to phase costs
- Add or remove phases as the scope develops
- Phase cost totals fed automatically into your quote structure
Real-Time Margin Calculation
The Costing Engine calculates your gross margin in real time as you add costs. Set a minimum margin floor and PricedQuote will flag if your quote goes below it — before the proposal leaves your business.
- Real-time margin % and profit £ as you build
- Set a minimum margin floor — warned before sending below it
- Margin and markup clearly distinguished
- Contingency and margin tracked separately
- Profit visible per phase, not just for the full job
Quote in Any Currency
PricedQuote supports multi-currency quoting out of the box — essential for businesses working across borders, quoting international clients, or operating in regions where multiple currencies are in play.
- ✓ Currency set per quote — not just per account
- ✓ Currency symbol applied throughout cost model and outputs
- ✓ Custom symbol for any unlisted currency
- ✓ Default currency set at account level, overridable per quote
- ✓ PDF exports display the correct currency symbol throughout
Build Once, Use on Every Job
Re-entering the same rates and materials on every quote is the biggest source of wasted time in the quoting process. PricedQuote's cost libraries let you save your standard rates, materials, and cost structures and call them into any quote instantly.
Labour Rate Library
Save all your operative rates by role — lead tradesperson, apprentice, specialist, supervisor. One click adds the right rate to any cost input.
Materials Library
Build a library of your standard materials with your trade prices, typical quantities, and waste factors. Never re-enter cable prices, concrete mix rates, or timber costs again.
Reusable Cost Structures
Save full cost structures from completed jobs as starting templates for future similar work. Clone an extension cost model, update site-specific inputs, and you're done in minutes.
Everything the Costing Engine Includes
Costs Go In — Quotes Come Out
Once your job costs are captured in the Costing Engine, the Quote Builder turns them into a structured, client-ready proposal.