Bid an excavation job by first pricing the dirt volume in cubic yards, then stacking your real costs on top: equipment hours, operator labor, hauling, dump fees, mobilization, permits, and margin. A reliable excavation bid is a list of line items you can defend — not a gut-feel lump sum you hope covers the machine and the diesel.
The math is not hard. What sinks bids is the stuff under the surface — rock, water, bad access, unmarked utilities — and soil that swells once you dig it. Here is the method that keeps you profitable, plus the contingency line that saves you when the site lies to you.
Measure or pull from plans the cut and fill in cubic yards. Then add a swell factor — loosened soil takes more truck space than it did in the ground, often 10–30% more depending on the material. Your hauling cost is based on swelled volume, not bank volume.
Know your hourly cost to run each machine — ownership or rental, fuel, wear, and the operator's loaded wage. Estimate production rate in yards per hour for the soil and machine, then convert volume to machine hours. This is your biggest, most controllable cost.
Truck cycles depend on haul distance and dump location. Price trucking by the hour or load, then add tipping or dump fees by the ton or yard. Clean fill is cheap or free to dump; contaminated or mixed material can cost a lot more. Confirm where it is going before you bid.
Float and lowboy time to get machines on site is real money — bill it. Add permit and inspection fees, traffic control if needed, and always call 811 for utility locates before you price a digging depth. Hitting an unmarked line erases a job's profit fast.
Add a contingency line for unknowns — 5–15% depending on how much you trust the site. Then apply your markup on top of total cost, not buried inside it, so you can see your real margin. Excavation lives and dies on what is underground, so protect yourself with a named contingency.
Not every job is worth winning. Pass — or price it high enough to be worth the risk — when:
A clean no is cheaper than a job you lose money on. The best excavators are picky about which bids they chase.
The bids you win are the ones you get invited to. GCs and homeowners hand work to the excavator they found, trusted on sight, and reached fast. A site that shows your equipment list, past dig photos, and a quote button does the first round of selling before you ever pull a takeoff. We build that, and we run the same setup on our own home-service companies.
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Start with dirt volume in cubic yards, add a swell factor, then price equipment hours, operator labor, hauling, dump fees, mobilization, permits, and margin. Total the line items instead of guessing a lump sum.
Residential excavation often runs $50 to $200 per cubic yard all-in, but soil type, access, depth, haul distance, and rock or water move that hard. Price your real costs first, then check the per-yard number as a sanity test.
Use unit pricing when quantities are uncertain so you get paid for what you move. Use lump sum when the scope is well defined. Many excavators quote unit price for dirt and lump sum for fixed tasks.
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