Estimating · Getting Paid · Running the Job
Editorial team
The Draw is a magazine for contractors — written by and for people who build things. Our editors have worked in the trades, run their own shops, or spent years covering the construction business. Every piece we publish is grounded in what actually works in the field, not what sounds good in a boardroom.
25 articles
Charge for estimates when the job demands a custom design, a site visit, or more than an hour of your time. Keep estimates free when you can price the work from the truck or from photos, and the job is small enough that the risk of a wasted trip is low. The decision is not about philosophy.
The first contractor to hand a homeowner a firm number wins the job two times out of three. MIT researchers put a hard number on the speed part: calling a new lead within five minutes makes you 100 times more likely to connect than waiting 30 minutes. For a one-truck electrical, plumbing, or remo...
A net-30 subcontractor who treats those 30 days as free credit to the general contractor is doing business on a tightrope with no net. The real cost of net-30 on a $25,000 electrical rough-in is $750 to $1,500 in hidden financing, lost opportunity, and stress. You survive it by planning for the g...
You can get paid in 7 days, not 83. The difference is not luck. It is a set of small, repeatable habits that a solo contractor can put into action on the next job, no software or accountant required.
Some jobs will cost you more to run than you make on them. The smartest bid decision you can make is sometimes no bid at all. Experienced contractors know this.
Contractors lose an average of 9 to 13 percent of project revenue to unbilled change orders, according to data consistently cited across construction industry surveys. On a $150,000 remodel, that is $13,500 to $19,500 walking out the door. The work gets done.
Presenting three options instead of one number raises your average ticket without a single pushy sales line. Contractors who use tiered proposals, also called good-better-best pricing, routinely see 20 to 40 percent more customers choose a mid or upper tier than they expected. The reason is simpl...
Structure your contractor payment schedule around three to five milestones, collect 25 to 33 percent upfront as a construction deposit, and tie every draw to work that is already complete. Do that consistently and your cash flow stays positive from day one. Most contractors bill at the end of a j...
Most quotes go quiet because the contractor never followed up, not because the customer said no. A simple 3-touch follow-up system, run over 7 to 10 days after you send a quote, will recover a meaningful share of bids you've already written and walked away from. If you're closing 30% of your esti...
You are not bad at business. You are just running a cash flow problem disguised as a success story. Most contractors who call themselves "profitable but broke" are exactly right on both counts, and that combination is more common than anyone admits out loud.
Most contractors are undercharging, and they don't know it. The fix is a single math correction: stop using markup and margin as if they mean the same thing, because they don't, and confusing them is costing you real money on every job. A 33% markup feels like a healthy number until you do the ma...
Every job you underprice costs you real money. A solid construction estimating process takes three inputs: your actual labor hours, your real material costs, and a number that covers your overhead. Get those three right, and you can price any job with confidence.
The contractor who responds first gets the job roughly 50% of the time, even when their price is higher. That is not a sales theory. It is a pattern that shows up across every trade, every market, every price point.
A good reusable estimate template cuts your quoting time in half and nearly eliminates the pricing mistakes that kill your margin. Build it once, with the right line-item structure, and you can produce a professional contractor quote in 20 minutes instead of two hours. Most contractors who lose b...
Net-30 payment terms mean you wait 30 days after invoicing to get paid. In practice, many subs wait 45, 60, or 90 days, and some never see the full amount. The fix is not patience.
Contractors lose an average of 5 to 10 percent of project revenue to unbilled change orders, work that gets done but never gets invoiced. The money is already sitting on the jobsite. You did the work, bought the material, and paid your guys.
The best cordless framing nailer for a production crew in 2026 is the Milwaukee M18 FUEL Framing Nailer (2745-20). It drives full-stick 3.5-inch framing nails without a compressor, holds power through a full 8-hour day on two batteries, and handles the volume a framing crew actually runs. Three o...
You should never be the bank for your client's project. If your cash goes negative before the job is done, you have a billing problem, not a cash flow problem. Here is how to fix it before the next contract gets signed.
The average construction payment takes 83 days. That's not a cash flow problem. That's a structural failure, and most of it is self-inflicted.
You've got work lined up for the next three months. Your phone won't stop ringing. The crew is busy five days a week.
Most contractors who've been underpaid for years aren't bad at their trade. They're bad at one number. If you've ever finished a job, looked at your bank account, and wondered where the profit went, the answer is probably markup.
If you're undercharging on panel upgrades, you're probably losing money on your best-performing service. Here is the full pricing breakdown for a 200-amp panel upgrade in 2026, including labor, materials, permit costs, and the margin math you need to stop leaving money on the table. Panel upgrade...
California contractors are leaving money on the table. Not because they do bad work, but because they quote heat pump jobs without accounting for Title 24 compliance costs, rebate paperwork time, or the actual labor hours these installs demand. This guide gives you real numbers so you can price h...
If you run a roofing company, you already know the work. What kills most roofing businesses is not a lack of skill on the roof. It is estimating wrong, closing weak, and growing without a system.
Running a plumbing business is not the same as being good at plumbing. Plenty of skilled plumbers are broke. The ones who build something real figure out the business side early, before the cash flow problems, the bad hires, and the unpaid invoices catch up with them.