What concrete labor actually costs you
Materials are the easy half — a supplier tells you the price. Labor is the half you have to work out for yourself, and it is where quotes go wrong, because almost nobody charges what the day actually costs them.
Start from the burdened crew day, not from an hourly rate
The number to build every estimate on is what one day of your crew costs to put on the ground. Take the hourly wage, then add payroll taxes, workers' comp, liability insurance, holiday and any benefits. That loading is commonly 25% to 45% on top of wage, and in concrete it sits at the high end of that because the comp classification is expensive — placing and finishing carries one of the steeper rates in construction.
So a three-man crew on $28, $24 and $22 an hour is $74 an hour of wage, which at a 35% burden is around $100 an hour, or roughly $800 a burdened day. That is before the truck, the fuel, the saw blades, the forms, the mixer and the man in the office answering the phone. Add your overhead recovery to it and $1,000 to $1,300 a crew day is a realistic figure for a small outfit.
This is the number that goes in the price book once and drives every quote after it. Guessing it in your head on the driveway is how a crew works a full year at a profit that turns out to be a wage. If you have not got yours, work it out this week — it is an hour with last year's numbers and it changes every quote you write afterwards.
Then work out what your crew actually places in a day
Production rate is the other half, and it is the half everyone overestimates. On open flatwork with good access, a three-man crew forming, pouring and finishing typically gets somewhere between 600 and 1,200 square feet of slab down in a day. Tight access, a pump, hand-buggying, a stamped finish or a lot of edge work can halve that.
Footings run by the lineal foot rather than the square foot: 100 to 200 lineal feet of trench formed and poured in a day is a normal range. Steps are their own world — a flight of four risers is frequently a full day for two people once you count the forming, and it is the classic job that gets quoted as if it were flatwork with a small area.
Take your burdened day rate, divide it by what you honestly place in a day, and you have a labor rate per square foot that is yours. Somewhere around $1,000 a day over 800 square feet is $1.25 a square foot of labor. If that feels low next to the $8 to $14 a square foot that flatwork sells for, that is the point: the rest is materials, base, steel, overhead and margin, and seeing them apart is the only way to know which one you got wrong.
Why per-square-foot pricing hides the jobs that lose money
A single all-in square-foot number is fine for a 40 by 24 driveway with a gate you can back a truck through. It is badly wrong for a 10 by 12 patio behind a house, and the reason is that the fixed costs of a day do not shrink with the job. Mobilising the crew, setting up, forming, cleaning the tools and getting off site take nearly as long on a small pour as a large one.
The small job also collects the fees. Under about three yards a supplier adds a short-load charge, so a patio that needs 1.5 yards is paying a penalty per yard that a driveway never sees. Price both off the same square-foot figure and the small one is subsidising the large one — which is survivable until the year your work is mostly small ones.
The fix is not complicated: price the labor as a share of a crew day with a floor under it, price materials from the actual quantities, and let the total come out where it comes out. A minimum job charge — often a half day or a full day — is normal in this trade and clients accept it when it is stated plainly up front rather than discovered as an oddly high square-foot rate.
Finish, access and season all move the number
A broom finish is the baseline. Stamped work adds forming, release, mats, a second man on the mats and a seal coat, and commonly doubles the labor line on the same area. Exposed aggregate, colored or polished each carry their own added day. Saw cutting, sealing and a return visit for control joints are labor too, and they are frequently forgotten because they happen after everyone has gone home.
Access changes it more than most people price for. If the truck cannot reach the pour, you are on a pump or on wheelbarrows, and a barrowed pour can take twice the crew-hours of a chuted one. A pump is $800 to $1,500 for a day in most markets and it is a line the client should see, not something quietly absorbed.
And cold and heat both cost labor: winter means blankets, hot water in the mix, and hours waiting for a slab to be ready to finish; a July pour means starting at five in the morning and a finishing window that closes fast. Neither is padding, both are real hours, and both belong on the estimate rather than in your margin.
Put it in the quote as its own line
The single most useful change most crews can make is separating labor from material on the document the client reads. A homeowner comparing three bids cannot tell a good number from a bad one, so they compare the only thing they understand — the total. A quote broken into concrete, base, steel, forming, placing and finishing gives them something else to judge, and it survives being put next to a cheaper one-line bid far better.
It also protects you when the job changes. If the client adds ten feet of walkway, a broken-out quote makes the extra obvious and priced; a single figure turns every change into an argument. This is exactly the line structure the estimate template sets out.
Work the quantities out with the concrete yardage calculator and the gravel base calculator, put your own burdened day rate and production rate in your price book once, and every quote after that is measurement plus a tap. That is the whole idea behind what this site does — the calculators are free, and the quote they turn into is what saves you the evening.
Work out your own numbers
Send it as a quote, not a number
BidPour turns the quantities into a priced, branded estimate your client accepts from their phone — your material costs, your markup, your logo.
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Common questions
How much is labor to pour concrete per square foot?
Work it out from your own numbers rather than a published figure: a burdened crew day divided by the square footage your crew genuinely places in a day. For many small crews that lands somewhere between $1.00 and $2.50 a square foot for plain flatwork, and considerably more for stamped, small or awkward-access pours.
How much does a concrete crew cost per day?
A three-man crew at typical wages is around $74 an hour in wage alone, which with a 25% to 45% burden for taxes, workers' comp and insurance is roughly $800 a day. Once you add the truck, tools, fuel and overhead recovery, $1,000 to $1,300 a crew day is a realistic all-in figure for a small outfit.
How much concrete can a 3 man crew pour in a day?
On open flatwork with truck access, commonly 600 to 1,200 square feet formed, poured and finished. Tight access, hand-buggying, stamped finish or heavy edge work can cut that by half, and a flight of steps is often a full day on its own regardless of area.
What is a fair markup on concrete work?
There is no fair number, only one that covers your overhead and leaves a profit. What matters more is not confusing markup with margin: a 20% markup on cost leaves you a 16.7% margin, so to actually keep 20% you divide cost by 0.80 rather than multiplying by 1.20.
Should I charge a minimum for small concrete jobs?
Yes, and say so before you quote. Mobilising, forming, cleaning up and getting off site take nearly as long on a 10 by 12 patio as on a driveway, and small pours also collect the short-load fee. A stated half-day or full-day minimum is normal in this trade and is accepted when it is up front.
Do I include the pump in the labor line?
Show it separately. A pump is commonly $800 to $1,500 a day and it is a cost the client caused by their site, not an inefficiency of yours. Burying it in labor makes your rate look high and gives you nothing to point at when they ask why.