Concrete Estimate Template

What goes on a concrete estimate

A concrete estimate has to answer the questions a homeowner asks with three bids on the kitchen table: how thick, what mix, what steel, what finish. That is the reason for the job-specs strip under the header. Slab area, thickness, mix strength, reinforcement and finish are what customers compare, and they are where a cheap bid usually cuts. Below the specs, the line items follow the order of the work.

• Demo and site prep: saw-cutting, breaking out and hauling the old slab, excavation and grading, the compacted base, and an allowance for soft subgrade.
• Forming and reinforcement: edge forms, rebar or mesh on chairs, and isolation joints where the new slab meets the garage, a walk or the curb.
• Pour, finish and cure: ready-mix, placing and finishing, control joints, curing and sealer, and the permit.

Anything the customer might add, such as a parking pad or a public-walk section the city may require, goes in the optional-items table, priced but outside the total.

How to take off a slab

Concrete is ordered by the cubic yard, which is 27 cubic feet. For each slab, multiply length by width by thickness in feet and divide by 27: CY = L × W × (inches ÷ 12) ÷ 27. Thickness drives the number, so an inch matters:

The Slab Takeoff sheet does this one row per slab, then builds the rest of the order. Waste goes on top of the in-place yards, and the order rounds up to the quarter yard and splits into truckloads, showing the size of the last one. Base stone is area × depth, converted to tons with a density you get from your supplier. Rebar counts bars each way as ROUNDUP(clear span ÷ spacing) + 1, adds a lap at every splice, counts sticks from the cut list rather than the total footage, and adds chairs. For one slab or mat, the free rebar calculator runs the same count with bar weights and your prices. Forms run the perimeter less the edges that butt existing concrete. Control joints come from the spacing you set for each slab. Every coverage, density and spacing figure is an editable input. The sheet is for flatwork: footings, walls, structural slabs and anything load-bearing follow the engineer’s drawings and local code. For a block wall, the free concrete block calculator counts blocks, mortar, grout and bars one wall at a time, and for a driveway paved in asphalt instead, the asphalt calculator gives tons of mix, base and truckloads.

Pricing flatwork line by line

Price demo by the square foot, and know the tonnage: 4-inch concrete weighs about 48 pounds per square foot, so the trucks or roll-offs are not a guess. Price concrete by the yard you order, not the yard in place, because the supplier bills for what the truck brings. Show both numbers on the line so the customer sees why they differ. Build every unit price from cost on the Unit Price Builder: material, plus labor hours at your fully loaded rate, plus equipment and consumables, then overhead, then profit as a margin on price rather than a markup. A 15% markup on cost is only a 13% margin. Ready-mix moves with local demand: the concrete price trend breaks it out by region, and steel and rebar prices cover the reinforcing.

The completed example replaces a driveway, street approach and front walk in Fishers, Indiana: 1,152 square feet in three slabs, 5 inches thick in the driveway, 6 in the approach and 4 in the walk, with #4 rebar at 24 inches each way in the driveway and approach. The takeoff comes to 17.9 cubic yards in place and 19.5 ordered, in two trucks. Demo and site prep come to $7,132.40, forming and reinforcement to $2,970.90, and pour, finish and cure to $9,639.70. That is $19,743.00 in total, or about $17.14 per square foot. There is no tax line because the contractor pays tax on materials and includes it in the prices. The 30% deposit is $5,922.90.

The subgrade allowance, and what happens after demo

Nobody sees the subgrade until the old slab is out. Soft clay, an old utility trench or buried debris can all turn up, and a slab poured over them settles and cracks. Write that uncertainty into the estimate: include a fixed number of tons of undercut and stone, state the per-ton price beyond it, and promise photos. The example includes 4 tons at $85. The street approach is the other place a price can move, because the city’s right-of-way standard may call for a thicker slab or a new public-walk section. The example prices extra concrete at its unit price in the terms and the walk section as an option. Anything else found after demo, or added by the owner, gets written up as a change order and signed before the trucks are booked. When the job is done, bill the balance on an invoice that references the estimate number.

Estimate, quote or proposal?

For residential flatwork, this customer-facing estimate is usually the whole sale: a price, the terms and a signature. On commercial concrete bid to a GC against drawings and specs, such as footings, foundation walls and slabs on grade, build your cost on the construction estimate worksheet and send a bid proposal with inclusions, exclusions and alternates instead. Our page for concrete contractors covers how that commercial work runs in BuildWorkPro, from the bid through pay applications.

Common mistakes on concrete estimates

• Pricing the yards in place and paying for the yards ordered. Waste and quarter-yard rounding are real cost.
• Trusting the depth without checking the grade. Half an inch of extra thickness over 1,000 square feet is about 1.5 cubic yards you did not price.
• Ignoring the last truck. A small final load can carry a short-load fee, so check the supplier’s minimum before you set the order.
• No subgrade allowance. Without one, every soft spot becomes a negotiation with the trucks on the way.
• Pricing the approach like the driveway. Right-of-way work usually needs its own permit and inspection, and the city’s standard can differ from yours.