DRYWALL: BOARD PRICE AND SUBSTITUTION ECONOMICS
Gypsum board held at roughly $14.50 per sheet in 2026, about a 42 percent premium over pre-2020 baselines. Spec substitutions (abuse board, mold-resistant, Type X shifts) change material cost mid-job, and without a substitution change-order habit the sub absorbs the delta.
This page covers one problem. The full picture for this trade, including the other places margin leaks, is on the drywall operating system page.
WHERE THE MONEY GOES.
Covered in full in the quick answer above. The sourced numbers and what controls it are below.
THE COST, SOURCED.
"Drywall holds at $14.50/sheet in 2026, a 42% premium." (Buildermuse materials coverage, 2026)
THE NUMBER TO MEASURE IT AGAINST.
Drywall contractors run about % net profit at $1M to $5M, rising to roughly 9% at $5M to $10M. The CFOS target at $1M to $5M is10%, set at 10 percent before taxes or 3.5 points better than your trade's average at your revenue, whichever is higher. A problem like this one lives in the distance between those two figures rather than in a loss on any single job.
Gross margin over the same bands runs % to 21%, against a CFOS target of 10%.
THE SYSTEM THAT FIXES THIS.
Cost codes built against the estimate, so a job can be read while it runs.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
