Free template · Excel and Google Sheets · no email needed
Free construction estimate template for remodelers: a bid sheet that learns from your own jobs
A bid sheet built the way working remodelers price: your own unit costs, an unknowns line, a conditions line, overhead and profit divided in, and three options instead of a breakdown. A free construction estimate template in Excel or Google Sheets, no email asked.
By Ali Kashif, who runs Booked Remodelers · Built from one remodeler's real bid · 3 November 2026 · About 7 minutes
What's in the free construction estimate template
Four tabs, with every formula locked and no macros. It opens in Excel, Google Sheets and Numbers, and the file is 25 KB.
- Bid. The homeowner's reason in their words at the top, up to 25 lines pulled from your book, what's in each line and what the homeowner buys, the unknowns and conditions lines, the price, three options, and the day 2, 5, 10 and 21 follow‑up dates worked out from the date you send it.
- Unit costs. Your book: code, item, unit, your labor and rough‑materials cost per unit, your finish materials per unit if you supply them, and where each number came from. Beside each row, your average from your own jobs and the gap.
- Job actuals. One row per line per finished job: the quantity, the hours if you track them, and what it cost you. The sheet works out your cost per unit and feeds the book.
- Read me. How to use it, which cells are yours, and where the two percentages come from.
| Code | Item, from your book | Qty | Per unit | Direct cost | Not included | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SHWR | Shower, full gut and rebuild | 1 each | $3,000.00 | $3,000 | Tile, grout, valve trim, the glass | x | x | 1, 2 | |
| FLR | Tile floor, demo to laid | 60 sq ft | $30.00 | $1,800 | The tile | x | x | 1, 3 | |
| LGT | Light fixture, install | 4 each | $150.00 | $600 | The fixtures | x | x | x | 1, 2, 3 |
- Direct cost
- $5,400
- Unknowns line, 10%
- $540
- Conditions: daily floor protection and cleanup in a lived‑in home
- $1,000
- Price: cost ÷ (1 minus 20% overhead minus 10% profit)
- $9,914
Why a spreadsheet beats estimating software for most remodelers
Estimating software is a spreadsheet with a cost database and a monthly fee. For a one‑crew remodeler the database is the problem: it's somebody else's numbers. Your last ten jobs are better data than any cost book, and a spreadsheet is where they're easiest to keep.
In November 2026 a general contractor asked other owners on a contractors' forum which estimating software they use for bids. The first answer was spreadsheets, and the thread agreed.
One owner's reply is the whole method in three sentences: the tool matters less than keeping your own unit costs. After every job, write down the actual hours and material cost per unit and update the sheet. After 10 or 15 jobs your bids get way tighter than anything a package gives you out of the box.
Two warnings from the same thread are built into this sheet. One broken formula can eat your whole margin on a framing bid, so the formula cells are locked.
And if you buy software later, pick one that exports your takeoff cleanly, so you're never locked in. Your book here is a plain table, and it pastes into anything.
Software earns its fee when you have more than one estimator, you take quantities off plans, or you run several crews and need the schedule, the purchase orders and the invoices in one place. That's job software, and it's a different buy.
Our Jobber alternatives guide covers when to switch, and when the real leak is the follow‑up after the bid. For the estimating apps themselves, read our post on remodeling estimating software.
The unit‑cost loop: how the sheet gets tighter with every job
You bid from the book, build the job and log what each line really cost. The book then shows your average beside your number, you move your number, and the next bid starts from it.
- 1Start the book with the items you bid most. Code, item, unit, your cost per unit. The example rows come from the bathroom bid on our bidding guide, one remodeler's prices from about six years ago, so you can see the format. Replace them.
- 2Bid from it. Pick a code, type the quantity, and the sheet pulls your cost per unit. A new item goes into the book first, so it's there next time.
- 3When the job is done, open Job actuals. One row per line: the quantity and what it cost you. Hours too, if you track them.
- 4Look at the gap. The book now shows jobs logged, your average cost per unit from your own jobs, and the gap against your number. Red means your jobs cost more than you bid. Green means you bid more than they cost.
- 5After 10 or 15 jobs, move your number toward your average. From then on you bid from your own history, and each bid is tighter than the last.
The loop takes about five minutes a job, and nothing else on this page does as much for your margin.
The math inside the bid
You set three numbers. Then the sheet divides by your overhead and profit instead of adding them on top.
- The unknowns line. About 10% on a bathroom where the walls and floor come out, more on an old house. Name on the bid what it covers. How much contingency to carry.
- The conditions line. Daily floor protection, dust control and cleanup in a lived‑in home, as a named line with a number. Price the conditions, never the person.
- Overhead and profit. The sheet starts at 20% overhead and 10% profit, a 30% gross margin, close to the 29.9% that NAHB found for the average remodeler (2024 data, published April 2026), where the average net profit was 6.3%. Set yours.
Then the sheet divides. In the example above, the cost before overhead and profit is $6,940. Divided by (1 minus 0.20 minus 0.10), the price is $9,914, and the full 30% is inside it. Add 30% on top instead and the price is $9,022: a 23% margin, not 30%, and $892 left on the table on a small bathroom. The bid shows that gap in one cell, every time. The full table of markups and margins is in our contractor markup guide.
Locked formulas, because one broken cell can eat a margin
Every formula cell is locked, every input is blue on a pale yellow ground, and there is no password.
The owner who warned about a broken formula was right, and the fix is the oldest one in Excel: protect the sheet. You can type in the blue cells and nowhere else, so a stray keystroke in a total can't happen.
To change a formula on purpose, go to Review, then Unprotect Sheet, and it opens. There is no password and no macro, and nothing in the file phones home.
Excel recalculates every total the moment an input changes.
Three options and the follow‑up dates
Send the homeowner two or three complete prices and a plain list of what's not included. Keep the line prices for yourself. Then check in on day 2, 5, 10 and 21.
Mark each line with an x under the options it belongs in, and the sheet prices each option on its own, with the unknowns and the conditions inside. Each option starts with the full conditions line, so lower it for an option that's a smaller job. A breakdown gets haggled line by line. Options let the homeowner change the scope instead of asking you for a discount.
Type the date you sent the bid and the sheet writes the four check‑in dates beside it, with a box to tick. Keep each one short, from you, about their project, bringing back the reason they gave you at the walkthrough. Stop the moment they answer.
Day 2, from your phone
Hi [name], it's [your name] at [company]. Just making sure the [project] estimate came through. Any questions I can answer?
The other three check‑ins are in our bidding guide. If you'd rather not run them by hand, it's the part Booked does: estimate follow‑up on day 2, 5, 10 and 21, written with you and sent from your number.
What did your last estimates get back from you? In the free 30‑minute follow‑up audit we work out what your quiet estimates are worth from your own numbers, and show you the follow‑up we'd run, message by message.
Book my free follow‑up auditBooked · the follow‑up system
One signed bathroom job pays for about two years of Booked
A good bid still goes quiet if nobody follows it up. Booked follows up each estimate for you on day 2, 5, 10 and 21, in your words, and texts back every missed call in under a minute.
Booked
$297 a month
Start today: $774, then $297 a month month to month
$774 is your first month plus the one‑time $477 setup. Stop any month with 30 days' notice.
- Estimate follow‑up until you hear yes or no
- Old leads and past customers brought back
- A review request after every job, with follow‑ups
- Instant reply to every new inquiry, and a booking link
- Missed‑call text‑back and call connect
- Estimate visit confirmations and reminders
- One inbox and the mobile app
- Bonus 2 months of social posts, written and scheduled
The math: a midrange bathroom remodel costs $26,138 nationally (Cost vs Value 2025), and remodelers keep 29.9% of the price as gross profit on average (NAHB, 2026). That's about $7,800 from one job.
Does the template work in Google Sheets?
Yes. Import the Excel file with File, then Import, and every formula carries over.
Do I have to give you my email to download it?
No. The download is a plain link. If you want help with the follow‑up side of your bids, that's a separate free call, and it's up to you.
Where do the unit costs come from?
From you. The example rows come from one remodeler's bathroom bid on our bidding guide, about six years old, in his market, so you can see the format. They aren't prices for your market. Replace them with your last ten jobs.
Can I use it for commercial bids?
You can, but it's built for residential remodeling: one owner, lump‑sum lines from experience, and options for a homeowner. Commercial bids from plans need takeoff software and a unit‑cost database.
What if a bid needs more than 25 lines?
Unprotect the sheet (Review, then Unprotect Sheet, no password), insert rows inside the lines block, and the totals follow. Or split the job into two bids, one per room.
Is markup the same as margin?
No. A 30% markup on cost is a 23% margin. The sheet divides by (1 minus overhead minus profit), so the margin you set is the margin you get. The full table is in our contractor markup guide.
Free follow‑up audit
Find out what your quiet estimates are worth.
Thirty minutes on a call. We work it out from your own numbers, then show you the follow‑up we'd run for your business, message by message.
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You walk away with
- What your quiet estimates are worth, from your own numbers
- The follow‑up we'd run for you, message by message
- The messages by email after the call, yours to keep
- A straight answer on whether Booked fits
Free. 30 minutes. If Booked isn't a fit, we'll say so.