What should this cost?

We build the number from parts: the listed price of the equipment, the median wage for that trade in your metro, the hours the work takes and the margin a business runs on. Then we show you all of it.

The job

How many

units

Your ZIP code

sets the local wage

We can cost toilet replacement. We have not built the compliance checks for this trade yet, so this is a price estimate only — not a statement that the work is correct or lawful.

Why estimates differ so much

The same job, quoted by two honest businesses, can differ by thousands. Here is where it comes from.

Input	How we get it	How much it moves the number
Equipment	Listed price from a supplier catalog, with the date we checked it	Fixed for a given size. The least contested part of a bid.
Local wage	BLS median for that trade in your metro	A San Francisco plumber’s median is far above a rural one.
Hours	Trade practice. We have not measured this.	Large, and the first thing real quotes will replace.
Overhead and margin	An assumed band	The widest single reason two honest bids differ.