Templates for Contractors & the Trades.

Estimating, pricing and paperwork tools for contractors, remodelers and tradespeople — the number, then the paper that holds it. Run takeoff, loaded labor, markup and overhead from one connected file, then hand the customer a scope, a payment schedule and a change order that says what the job now costs.

Quote a margin you can defend

Underpricing and change orders priced as favors are two common ways the trades lose money on a job. Both come down to numbers scattered across scratch sheets — a takeoff here, a markup guessed there, a "while we're here" favor that never made it onto the invoice. The tools here keep the estimate, the markup, the overhead and what a change order costs you in one place, so the price you quote actually covers the work.

New to the markup-vs-margin math? Start free with the bid-markup & job-cost calculator — no signup — then read what bid markup is and how it differs from margin.

Working a real bid? Follow a step-by-step tutorial for a remodeling bid or a landscaping estimate, or weigh a spreadsheet vs job-costing software for the stage you're at.

The paper that holds the price

A defensible number is only half of it. The other half is the paperwork between you and the customer — the scope with real exclusions on it, the payment schedule tied to milestones, the change order that shows what the job now costs, and the punch list that actually closes. That is what the Trades Client Paperwork & Change-Order Template Pack is: sixteen white-label documents sequenced to a job's timeline, as fillable PDFs and editable Word files.

Try the pack's change order form first — it's free, ungated, and unlike most free downloads it carries the running contract amount.

And the crew half. The weekly safety talk is the obligation nobody argues with and almost nobody keeps up, because somebody has to write it every week. The Weekly Toolbox-Talk & Safety-Meeting Script Library is a year of them already written — 52 one-page talks with the sign-in slip on the same sheet, and six computed 52-week rotations so the order is decided before Monday. The Safety-Training & Toolbox-Talk Compliance Tracker is the workbook that keeps the record they create. Four of the talks are free and ungated — run one on Monday and see whether the crew talks.

For the background, read what a change order is or what a materials allowance covers — two of the details that quietly decide whether a remodel makes money. Then follow writing a change order end to end, or compare paperwork templates vs a contractor app.