The Electrical Profit Simulator

Where electrical businesses leak profit

• Scope buried in spec notes on commercial bids: missed surge suppression, GFCI breakers, or wire gauge upsizes that erase the profit.
• Labor hours underestimated because the bid used a generic allowance instead of the real site conditions.
• Material prices pulled from an old job instead of this week's supplier quote.
• Quoting on gut feel instead of tracked job costs, then discounting to win the work.
• Non-billable hours piling up: drive time, inspector coordination, permit runs, and quoting itself.
• Google Ads and lead platforms burning cash on unqualified leads with no cost-per-lead tracking.
• No contingency built into bids. One surprise conduit run in an old building wipes out the margin.

How it works

1. Enter your numbers.

   Plug in a few basic numbers about your business. Estimates work just fine. No spreadsheets needed.

2. See your profit leaks.

   Instantly see where money is slipping through the cracks across 13 areas of your business.

3. Get your roadmap.

   Get a detailed profit report with a prioritized action plan to start recovering that money.

FAQs

What is a good profit margin for an electrical contractor?

Service and residential work should run at a materially higher gross margin than commercial and industrial bid work, because bid work carries more competition and more fixed-price risk. The number that matters most is knowing your two margins separately instead of one blended average that hides which side of the business is actually paying the bills.

How do I estimate commercial electrical jobs without missing spec items?

Build a standing checklist from every spec item that has burned you before: surge suppression, GFCI and AFCI requirements, wire gauge upsizes, panel schedule changes. Read the full written spec before the number goes out, drawings included. A missed line item found during the walk is free. Found during the job, it comes out of margin.

How much should I spend on marketing per lead as an electrician?

It depends entirely on your average ticket and close rate, which is why a blanket number is close to useless. What matters is tracking cost per lead by source so you know which channels are actually profitable and which are burning cash on unqualified traffic. Without that tracking, you're guessing with real dollars.

How do I stop underbidding labor on electrical jobs?

Stop pricing labor off a generic hours-per-task allowance and start pricing it off your own completed jobs, tracked by task type and site condition. A panel swap in an accessible garage and the same swap in a finished basement with limited access are not the same labor hour, and treating them the same is where bids go wrong.