Overhead
Updated 2026-07-17 · figures as of July 2026
Overhead is everything it costs to run the contracting business that is not attributable to a specific job: insurance, licensing, vehicles, tools, office and software, estimating time, and the owner's unbilled hours. It is real cost, and it is invisible in bare cost.
Overhead lives inside markup. When a bid applies +25% over bare cost, part of that 25% is overhead recovery and only the remainder is profit, which is another reason bidding near bare cost is quiet self-destruction.
How much overhead does a small GC actually carry?
It varies with fleet, staff, and volume, but the important discipline is knowing your own number: total annual overhead divided by expected annual revenue gives the minimum share of every bid that overhead must recover before any profit exists. A contractor who has never computed it is guessing at every bid.
Price your next Tampa Bay job from the same grounded cost data these figures come from, with your margin visible at three tiers before you bid.
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