How to Price Carpentry Jobs: A Practical Guide

Why this matters

Carpentry pricing has a quiet killer: time optimism. Every carpenter has quoted a staircase, a fitted wardrobe run, or a deck “in three days” and finished in six. Woodwork rewards care, care takes time, and time is what you’re selling. Price the real hours, including the finishing nobody sees in a photo, or you’ll build beautiful work at a loss.

Price from your real costs, not your gut

Add up a year of true costs: your wages, van, fuel, insurance, tool purchase and maintenance, workshop costs if you have one, phone, holidays, and the unpaid days spent quoting, measuring, and driving. Divide by realistic billable hours, 25 to 30 a week once site visits, quotes, and material runs are stripped out. Carpenters who do this usually find their rate needs to be higher than the “going rate” they assumed. The going rate is often set by people who haven’t done the maths.

Quote finished work, not just construction

Customers picture the finished piece; carpenters sometimes price the carcass. Sanding, filling, priming, painting or oiling, hardware fitting, and snagging are real hours, on fine work they can be a third of the job. Price the complete finished item, and say so: “including sanding, priming, and two topcoats.” The carpenter who prices finishing separately watches customers strip it out and then complain the work looks unfinished. Build it in.

Hourly vs fixed price

Repairs, snagging, and “can you just…” work go hourly, you can’t fixed-price someone else’s botched previous work. Defined builds, a wardrobe wall, a deck of known dimensions, a roof structure from drawings, get fixed prices after a proper measure-up. Never fixed-price from the customer’s measurements alone; measure it yourself. A 10mm error across a fitted kitchen run is a remake, and remakes come out of your pocket if the price was fixed.

Quotes vs estimates, and the materials trap

A quote commits you to a price for a defined scope; an estimate can move. Timber prices move, sometimes sharply, so long-lead quotes need a validity period: “price valid for 30 days.” For jobs months out, either re-price materials at order point (stated on the quote) or build in a buffer. Nothing erodes margin like quoting oak in spring and buying it in autumn at 20% more.

Mark up materials properly

20–30% on timber and sheet materials, more on specialist hardware and finishes. The markup covers sourcing, selection (good carpenters reject warped boards at the yard, that’s skilled time), delivery, and waste. Timber waste is real: cutting lists, defects, and offcuts mean you buy more than the finished piece contains. Price the materials you’ll actually buy, not the theoretical minimum, and don’t apologise for the margin, it’s the cost of getting the right wood to site in usable condition.

Charge for design and measuring time

Site measures, drawings, cutting lists, and the back-and-forth on design choices are professional work. For larger bespoke jobs, charge a design fee, credited against the job if they proceed. It filters out the tyre-kickers collecting free designs to hand to a cheaper carpenter, and it values the part of the job that happens before a single board is cut.

Common mistakes

• Pricing the build and forgetting the finish. Sanding, painting, and snagging are where the hours hide. Price the finished piece.
• Trusting customer measurements. “It’s a standard 2.4m wall” is never a standard 2.4m wall. Measure it yourself, every time.
• No quote validity period on timber jobs. Timber moves in price; an open-ended quote is a bet against the market with your margin as the stake.
• Giving away design work free. Detailed drawings and cutting lists handed over before commitment become someone else’s shopping list.

When to walk away from a quote

Walk away when the customer supplies the materials and expects you to guarantee the result, warped customer-supplied timber becomes your problem the moment you cut it. Walk away when they want bespoke quality at flat-pack prices; that gap never closes, it just becomes a dispute. Walk away when the timeline is impossible without cutting the finishing stages, rushed finishing ruins good carpentry and your name goes on it. And walk away from the customer who’s already had three carpenters “who didn’t understand the vision.” You won’t be the exception.

Templates that help

• Carpenter Quote Template, fixed quotes with validity periods, finishing included, exclusions stated
• Carpenter Job Sheet Template, record measures, materials used, and extras agreed on site
• Carpenter Materials List Template, cutting lists and timber orders tracked per job with consistent markup
• Carpenter Invoice Template, invoice labour, materials, and design fees as separate lines
• Carpenter Timesheet Template, log real build hours to calibrate the next quote against reality

Bottom line

Price the finished piece including finishing, measure everything yourself, put a validity date on every timber quote, and charge for design time. Carpentry is slow, skilled work, the price should say so.

Download the free templates for carpenters.