Manufacturing Bid Calculator
Build a bid from quantity, tooling, freight, contingency and profit.
What this calculator does
Recurring and one-off costs separated, contingency applied to the cost as an explicit step, then the chosen pricing method applied once.
Inputs and what they mean
- Currency
- — Amounts are shown in the currency you pick. No exchange rate is applied..
- Units in the bid
- — number value.
- Material per unit
- — number value.
- Labour per unit
- — number value.
- Overhead per unit (optional)
- — Optional component. Leave at 0 to exclude it from the result..
- Tooling or other one-off cost (optional)
- — Optional component. Leave at 0 to exclude it from the result. Spread across the units in the bid..
- Freight and packaging (optional)
- — Optional component. Leave at 0 to exclude it from the result..
- Contingency (optional)
- — Optional component. Leave at 0 to exclude it from the result. Your own allowance for risk; none is assumed..
- Price by margin or by mark-up
- — Margin and mark-up are different calculations and are never mixed. A 25% margin is not a 25% mark-up..
- Margin or mark-up
- — Read as whichever you picked above. Your own figure; none is assumed..
How to use it
- Enter your own figures — the calculator never fills in a rate, price or benchmark for you.
- Press Calculate to see the result.
- Read the formula, variables, assumptions and source below the result before you rely on it.
Formula
Bid cost = (Quantity × (Material + Labour + Overhead per unit) + Tooling + Freight) × (1 + Contingency); Bid price = Bid cost priced on the margin or mark-up chosen
Worked example
A 2,000-unit bid with tooling spread across it
One-off costs, contingency and profit are each shown separately.
Reading the result
The headline figure is the main answer. Any breakdown underneath shows the parts that make it up, so you can check the working and see what changes when you adjust an input.
Limitations and assumptions
Results depend entirely on the figures you enter and are rounded for display. They are for general information and education, not professional advice.
Reference: Rice University — Principles of Accounting, Volume 2: Managerial Accounting
Last reviewed:
Common questions
Formula, source and verification
A quantity-based bid: recurring cost per unit, one-off costs spread across the quantity, an explicit contingency, then the chosen pricing method.
The question it answers: What should I quote for this work so the margin we want actually survives?
The formula
Bid cost = (Quantity × (Material + Labour + Overhead per unit) + Tooling + Freight) × (1 + Contingency); Bid price = Bid cost priced on the margin or mark-up chosen
- q — Quantity
- (count). Units in the bid.
- m — Material per unit
- (currency). Recurring material cost.
- l — Labour per unit
- (currency). Recurring labour cost.
- o — Overhead per unit
- (currency). Optional.
- T — Tooling or one-off cost
- (currency). Optional. Spread across the quantity.
- F — Freight and packaging
- (currency). Optional.
- k — Contingency
- (%). Optional. The user's own risk allowance; none is assumed.
- r — Margin or mark-up
- (%). The user's own figure, read as the method chosen.
Units: Currency; counts; percentages.
What kind of calculation this is
Deterministic formula. The same inputs always give the same answer. The maths is fixed and does not depend on judgement.
Method
Recurring and one-off costs separated, contingency applied to the cost as an explicit step, then the chosen pricing method applied once.
Assumptions built into the result
- Industry: Every cost, rate and standard is the figure the user entered, in the currency they chose; no exchange rate is applied.
- Mathematical: Costs and output cover the same period or the same job.
Figures this calculator will never guess for you
- No industry average, benchmark or target cost is supplied.
- No standard rate, wage or material price is assumed on the user's behalf.
- Optional components are excluded from the result when left at zero.
- No contingency percentage is assumed; the default is zero.
- Margin and mark-up are never mixed.
Limitations
- Arithmetic over the figures entered — it cannot tell whether the costs, standards or allowances behind them are right.
- A target cost, an industry benchmark and the organisation's own standard are different things; only the figures entered are used.
- Tooling is spread evenly over the bid quantity; a different amortisation has to be entered as a cost per unit.
Source and version
- Standard or reference
- Managerial accounting — cost-plus pricing — OpenStax (Rice University) (Principles of Accounting, Volume 2: Managerial Accounting (OpenStax) — a price built from cost plus a stated margin or mark-up; margin is profit as a share of price, mark-up is profit as a share of cost, and the two are not interchangeable.)
- Published source
- Rice University — OpenStax (CC BY)
- Formula version
- Version 1
- Verification
- Reviewed against the cited source on
- How much weight the source carries
- Academic
- Applies to
- Currency
- Amounts stay in the currency you choose; no exchange rate is applied.
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