Price ice machine installs so the extras pay. Free, no signup. All defaults are editable starting points.
Commercial ice machine installers lose money on the flat labor number. One install fee sounds fine until the water line, the drain run, filtration, the permit, old-unit removal, and the drive are priced at zero. Start with your bar (85), margin percent (20), minimum install fee ($250), and weekly goal ($2,000). Pick a preset: Undercounter, Modular + bin, or Stacked pair. Each fills set and level minutes, helper hours, water and drain footage, materials, and filter cost. The extras card prices the margin killers: water and drain feet times minutes per foot, filtration, electrical, the permit fee, and old-unit removal. The getting-there card prices the round trip at your bar plus miles at vehicle cost per mile. Results show site labor, helper, materials plus permit, drive plus vehicle, true cost, the recommended quote, profit, and your effective rate against the bar. Verdicts are PRICED RIGHT, CLOSE, BUT LEAKING, WORKING TOO CHEAP, or LOSING MONEY. Leak notes flag extras and filtration. The gut check grades your instinct quote; the week planner turns profit per install into installs to goal. No signup; runs on your phone.
Example only, not typical pricing. The Modular + bin preset at an $85 bar: site minutes are 90 set plus 45 startup plus 20 feet of water line at 3.5 minutes per foot equals 70 plus 15 feet of drain at 3 minutes per foot equals 45 plus 35 filtration minutes, for 285 minutes or 4.75 hours. Site labor is 4.75 times $85 equals $403.75; helper is 1.5 hours at $22 equals $33. Materials are $75 water plus $55 drain plus $220 filtration plus a $150 permit, which totals $500. Drive plus vehicle is 40 miles at $0.85 plus 50 drive minutes at $85, which totals $104.83. True cost is $436.75 plus $500 plus $104.83 equals $1,041.58. Recommended quote is max($250, ceil(1,041.58 times 1.20 divided by 25) times 25) equals $1,250. Effective rate is (1,250 minus 500 minus 33 minus 34) divided by 5.58 committed hours equals $122 per hour, over 1.1 times the bar, so the verdict is PRICED RIGHT. The extras leak note fires: water, drain, and filtration are 52.6 percent of site time. A $900 gut quote pays $59.64 per hour, lands $141.58 below true cost, and leaves $350 on the table. The week planner turns the $2,000 goal into 10 installs and 55.8 hours, which fires the over-50-hour warning.
Why is the effective rate computed after materials and helper come off?
Because those dollars go to suppliers and the helper, not you. The rate that matters is the quote minus pass-throughs divided by your own hours; that is the number graded against your bar.
What fires the extras leak note?
When water, drain, filter, and electrical minutes pass half the site time. On the modular preset they are 52.6 percent, which means the flat labor number is really paying for the extras, not the machine.
Why does filtration get its own warning?
When the filter system passes 30 percent of the parts budget, the note says passing it through at cost is the most common margin giveaway in this trade.
Why is the vehicle rate $0.85 a mile here?
It is the editable refrigeration-truck default for hauling a bin and tools; change it to match your real truck.
What does CLOSE, BUT LEAKING mean here?
Your effective rate lands between 85 percent and 110 percent of your bar. The drive or the unbilled extras are usually the leak.