The usual causes
- A labor rate set years ago that never caught up with payroll increases
- Workers' comp and liability insurance left out of the hourly cost
- Overhead — office, trucks, software, the owner's time — not spread across jobs
- Pricing to match a competitor's number instead of your own costs
- No comparison between what you bid and what the job actually cost
Rebuild the rate from current numbers
Start with current payroll and payroll burden. Add insurance and your annual overhead, divided across the hours you realistically bill. That gives you a cost per hour before profit. If it's higher than the rate you've been bidding, you've found the leak.
Track every job you win
Compare bid-assumed hours and costs with actuals at the end of each job. A few jobs in, you'll see which kinds of work make money and which don't — and you can bid accordingly.
Winning work and barely breaking even is one of the three problems we fix in The Bid Engine program, alongside more bid invites and faster screening.