FRAMING: THE COMMODITY IN THE CONTRACT
Framing sells a commodity with a fixed-price wrapper. The Random Lengths composite sat at $487 per thousand board feet in April 2026, expected to trade $440 to $540 through the year, with Canadian softwood carrying tariff burdens above 35 percent. Historically, 20 to 30 percent swings inside a single year are normal.
This page covers one problem. The full picture for this trade, including the other places margin leaks, is on the framing operating system page.
WHERE THE MONEY GOES.
Framing sells a commodity with a fixed-price wrapper. The Random Lengths composite sat at $487 per thousand board feet in April 2026, expected to trade $440 to $540 through the year, with Canadian softwood carrying tariff burdens above 35 percent. Historically, 20 to 30 percent swings inside a single year are normal. Lumber is 15 to 20 percent of a wood-frame house's cost and 8 to 12 percent of wood-frame commercial, so a mid-job move without an escalation clause comes straight out of the frame crew's margin.
THE NUMBER TO MEASURE IT AGAINST.
Framing contractors run about % net profit at $1M to $5M, rising to roughly 7% 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 19%, 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.
