The contractor’s side of the same arithmetic. This tool takes off tonnage with the identical engine every other calculator here uses, then stacks the four direct layers a paving bid is made of — hot mix at your ticket price, burdened crew time, machine time, and everything else direct — under overhead, contingency and profit. It returns the bid total plus the unit prices a bid form actually asks for: per square foot, per square yard, per thousand and per ton. No price, wage, equipment rate, overhead or margin is published on this page, because those are the numbers your books know and a website does not; a layer you leave blank stays out of the bid instead of being quietly filled with an average. If you are buying rather than bidding, use the cost calculator and check what you were quoted with the quote checker.
Order tons = (Area sq ft × Thickness in ÷ 12) × Density ÷ 2,000 × (1 + Allowance %) • Burdened rate = Wage × (1 + Payroll burden %) • Direct = (Order tons × your $/ton) + (Crew hours × burdened rate) + (Machine hours × your $/hr) + other direct • Job cost = Direct × (1 + Overhead %) × (1 + Contingency %) • Bid = Job cost × (1 + Profit %)
| Symbol | Variable | Unit | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | Paved area | sq ft | Bid areas are measured on the plan; see the multi-area calculator for irregular lots and islands. |
| T | Compacted thickness | in | The pay thickness, after rolling. Milling and over-lift decisions change it, and that takeoff belongs on the mill-and-fill page, not here. |
| D | Density | lb/ft³ | Planning default 145 lb/ft³; use the project mix design value when the job has one. |
| Pm | Mix price | $/ton | Your ticket price. Pickup and delivered are different prices; do not compare a plant ticket to a delivered bid. |
| Hc | Crew hours | hr | Head-count × hours for the job. Production rate is the estimating skill here, and no published average replaces your own records. |
| W | Wage | $/hr | Straight wage only. |
| b | Payroll burden | % | The multiplier that turns a wage into a cost. Left blank, the labor line is understated. |
| Oh / Ct / Pf | Overhead, contingency, profit | % | Overhead is on direct cost, contingency on direct plus overhead, profit on job cost. The order allowance and waste factor guide explains why the order allowance is a different lever from these. |
Every number below is produced by the same engine at build time — not typed by hand.
Asphalt to order: 19.03 US tons
Total bid: $6,956.6
Total bid: $33,511.81
In the same order every time: takeoff (tons by pay item from area, compacted thickness and unit weight), then direct costs — material at the ticket price, crew time at a burdened rate, machine time at an ownership-plus-operating or rental rate, and everything else direct. Overhead goes on the direct total, contingency on top of that, and profit on the job cost. Unit prices are the last step, not the first — a per-square-foot number that was never built from quantities is a guess.
Yours, from your own books — this calculator deliberately supplies none. Overhead is your indirect load divided by the direct work it has to be recovered across, and it moves with the size of the jobs you win; profit depends on risk, cash terms and how much unknown scope is still in the bid. Any single number published for either would be an average of firms that are not yours. Enter what your accounting says and use the ladder table to see what it does to the unit prices.
Because that is how a markup works: cost plus a percentage of cost. Bid = job cost × (1 + profit %), so the percentage you type is larger than the profit share of the finished price. Both readings are in the table so the number you write on a bid form matches the number you meant.
Only if you enter it. Wage × hours gives straight pay; the burdened rate line adds the payroll burden percentage you enter for taxes, workers’ compensation, insurance, benefits and supervision. Leaving burden blank understates the largest variable layer on a paving job, and the tool says so in the assumptions instead of assuming a rate for you.
Same quantities, opposite seats. The cost calculator layers material, delivered and installed prices for someone deciding what a job should cost them. This page stacks a contractor’s cost structure — burden, machine hours, overhead, contingency, markup — into a price you would submit. If you have a number in hand rather than one to write, the quote checker tests it, and the how to check an asphalt quote guide shows what to look for.