How to price a shower remodel using your own numbers

That's the whole method. The rest of this post is the math, with sample numbers you should throw away and replace with your own.

About the numbers in this post: every dollar figure below is a made-up sample to show the math. None of them are market prices or recommendations. Your costs, your market and your crew decide your numbers.

Why shouldn't you price a shower off someone else's numbers?

Because their numbers were built on their costs.

The rate a guy posts in a Facebook group was built on his crew, his truck payment, his insurance, his market and how fast his crew works. If any of those are different for you, his number is wrong for you, even if it's right for him.

In three years of working only with tile and bath contractors, one pricing problem keeps showing up, and it isn't greed or fear. It's borrowed numbers. A contractor picks up a square-foot rate early on, never checks it against what a day of their crew actually costs, and works hard for years at a margin they never chose.

What's an all-in crew-day rate, and how do you work out yours?

Your crew-day rate is what you charge for one day of your crew's time, with everything baked in: their cost, your overhead and your profit. It's the number every labor price should trace back to.

Here's the build, with sample numbers:

Two things people get wrong here:

• They use their crew's cost as their rate. $560 is what a day costs you. If you charge $560, you've priced the job at cost with nothing left for the business.
• They divide overhead by 260 working days. Nobody bills 260 days. Rain, callbacks, estimates, holidays and slow weeks eat into it. Divide by the days you actually bill, or your overhead is underpriced on every job.

How does crew-day pricing work on a shower?

You estimate how many crew days each part of the job takes, multiply by your day rate, then add materials and anything that's passed through at cost.

Sample shower: tub out, three walls tiled to the ceiling, one niche, new shower floor. Sample day rate from above: $1,000.

6 crew days × $1,000 = $6,000 in labor. Add sample setting materials of $480 billed at cost, and the homeowner is buying their own tile. Sample total: $6,480.

The strength of this method is that it follows reality. A slow pattern, a small tile or an awkward layout shows up as more days, and more days means more money. Nothing gets lost.

The weakness is that homeowners don't think in crew days, and some of them get uneasy seeing "6 days" on a bid. That's a presentation problem, not a pricing problem. You can price by the day and still show the homeowner a clean line for each part of the job.

How does square-foot pricing work, and where does it go wrong?

You set a rate per square foot (or per piece) for each kind of work and multiply by the measurements.

Same sample shower, priced with sample square-foot rates:

Looks reasonable. Now check it against time.

If this shower really takes your crew 6 days, then $4,220 ÷ 6 = about $703 per crew day. Your sample target was $1,000. On this one job, you'd be about $1,780 short, and you wouldn't notice, because the bid looked normal.

That's the trap with square-foot rates. Every rate quietly assumes a pace. A big, open floor might hit that pace. A small shower with corners, a niche and a valve to cut around usually doesn't. The smaller and busier the job, the further behind the square-foot rate falls.

How do you find a square-foot rate that pays your day rate?

Work it backwards from time:

Break-even rate = (crew days × day rate) ÷ square feet

Sample: the wall tile and niche took 2.5 days on 90 sq ft. Take out the $300 you charge for the niche: ($2,500 − $300) ÷ 90 = about $24.44 per sq ft to pay your sample day rate on those walls. If your rate sheet says $22, you just found the gap.

Do this on your last five or ten showers and you'll know which of your rates are healthy and which are costing you.

Which is better: square-foot or crew-day pricing?

Use both. Quote whichever way you and your homeowners are comfortable with, and check it the other way before you send.

A lot of contractors land on a mix: square-foot rates for the tile itself, set prices for add-ons like niches and benches, and a day rate for anything that doesn't fit, all checked against what the job pays per crew day.

What else goes into a shower price besides labor?

Labor is the big piece, but not the only one. Decide each of these once, and price every job the same way:

• Setting materials. Included in your rates, billed at cost, or billed with a markup. Any of them works if you're consistent and the proposal says which.
• Who buys the tile. You, the homeowner, or an allowance. If it's an allowance, say what happens when their pick costs more or less. See exclusions vs allowances.
• Add-ons with a set price. A niche, a bench, a curb change. Many contractors keep these as flat prices so they're easy to add or drop.
• Pass-through costs. Permits, dumpsters, a sub's glass quote. Decide if you pass them through at cost or mark them up.
• A minimum. The smallest job you'll take. Small jobs still eat a setup day, a drive and a cleanup.

How do you keep your numbers honest over time?

Compare what you bid with what happened.

After each job, look at two numbers: the crew days you priced and the crew days it actually took. If you're consistently over, your day estimates or your square-foot rates are too optimistic. Fix the number, not the next job.

This is also where a written rate card earns its keep. When your numbers live in one place, you change them once and every bid after that follows.

How BidCraft uses your numbers

BidCraft is built on the idea that your numbers win. You set your day rate, your service rates, how you charge for materials and your minimum, and every proposal is priced from them, then checked against your margin goal. When the AI estimates something and you've already set a price, yours is the one that goes on the bid.

Each line shows how it got its number. Crew time tracking lets you see each job's hours against the days you bid it, which is exactly the check this post is about.

Set up your rate card once, then try it on a real shower with the 14-day free trial (card required) on the pricing page.