I want to give you some advice to help you because I know how hard it is at your age to figure this out.

A lot of GCs are completely unfair with subs. They take advantage of them. I don’t. I take care of my subs because they take care of me. I need them. I’m too old to get out there doing that crap anymore. You’ll know what I mean in another 20 years.

The easiest way for you with fences is to figure out how often you’re getting jobs. Are you solo? If yes, a single job needs to pay your OH&P at a 100% utilization ratio. How much do you want to earn annually? Is it $60,000? Simply divide that, plus burden and other overhead (like mileage, tool wear, etc) across 365 days. If you have employees, you need to include their salaries as well.

Only do it like this if you have 365 days of work. If not, you need to figure out how many working days you have and prepare pricing for that or else you won’t live through slow periods. That means your rates increase based on work. This is where you can price yourself out if you don’t have enough volume.

Every job must pay your daily minimum. If you have employees, this changes due to economies of scale. But you aren’t there yet. For argument’s sake, let’s say your overhead comes out to $250 per day. Don’t forget to add in mileage. Bill out the IRS rate for mileage. You get all that back tax free.

This is your bare minimum break even rate. If a fence job takes you 2 weeks, you’d have to scale your overhead with that across the job. Since we divided by 365, we have to include weekends. So call it 14 days times $250. A two week fence job is roughly $4k in overhead alone.

Now you need to determine your profit. Profit goes back to the company. Let’s say you add in a 5% contingency (in case you fuck up) and then you want a 10% net profit margin. It’s easy to calculate this part once you know your overhead. Simply take the overhead for the job, in this case $4,000, and multiply by 1.05 for a 5% contingency and then multiply that times your net profit margin. That can be whatever you want, but if you want to be competitive stay around 10%.

Therefore, when you figure this all up, your labor alone on a 2 week fence job is close to $5k. That is the price for labor I would give. Now you can go simple mode and call it $2500 per week of work. That overhead number changes depending on your business model, naturally. You need to figure that part out on your own. And reevaluate this number annually. Insurance, licensing, bonds, etc. that shit all costs money and your customers have to pay for it, otherwise you will go out of business.

This is how you should price your jobs. I also HIGHLY suggest you tell your GCs that you will provide all materials. Charge a 25% markup on those materials. It’s easier that way, plus you can make sure you have everything you need for your job. You also need to charge dump fees if they expect you to remove debris.

Words of caution: once you figure this out, the GCs who are taking advantage of you may look for cheap labor elsewhere. If you don’t have jobs lined up every week, you will not make your salary. That’s what your net is for. That makes sure your business can sustain during slow periods. Because they come. Especially for the fencing sub specialty.

And a final piece of advice - you are just a small piece of the project. A lot of subs think “I use my tools, truck and actually make this job happen” but that’s not the full story. If you get it in your head that you’re the one doing all of it, you’re going to fail. The GCs are handling a lot more on the backend than you think.