Why excavation and paving jobs are hard to price
- Volume math. Area and depth turn into cubic yards and tons, and small errors multiply.
- Compaction. Base material compacts, so you need more than the finished volume.
- Equipment and trucking. Machine days and truck loads are a big share of the cost.
- Site surprises. Rock, soft soil and buried utilities change the job.
How Trades HQ helps excavation and paving contractors
- Ready-made sitework items in your Price Book, like bulk excavation, trenching, rough and fine grading, fill dirt, #57 stone, crusher run, geotextile fabric, compactor, skid steer and mini excavator rentals, and dump truck loads. Add your prices once and reuse them.
- Measure from site plans. Measure areas right off a PDF plan.
- Material price requests. Send one price request to all your suppliers and turn the best quote into a purchase order.
- Change orders for rock or soft soil found during the dig.
- Deposits and progress billing on bigger jobs.
- Live job profit as equipment, trucking and materials come in.
A gravel base estimate, step by step
- Measure the area.
- Multiply by the depth in feet to get cubic feet.
- Divide by 27 to get cubic yards.
- Add extra for compaction.
- Convert to tons using your supplier's weight per cubic yard.
- Add equipment, trucking, labor, and your overhead and profit.
Example (illustrative): a 12 × 50 ft driveway with a 6 inch crusher run base.
| Step | Math | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Area | 12 × 50 | 600 sq ft |
| Volume | 600 × 0.5 ft | 300 cu ft |
| Cubic yards | 300 ÷ 27 | 11.1 cu yd |
| Plus 15% for compaction | 11.1 × 1.15 | 12.8 cu yd |
| Tons at 1.4 tons per cu yd | 12.8 × 1.4 | about 17.9 tons |
The weight per cubic yard depends on the material, so ask your supplier. Always call 811 to have utilities marked before you dig.
Pricing tip: Price machine days and truck loads as separate lines, so a slow dig or an extra load shows up in the price. And remember that markup and margin aren't the same number: a 20% margin needs a 25% markup. The Estimating Basics guide walks through the math, and the free markup and margin calculator does it for you.
