PREFAB VS STICK BUILT JOB COSTING: PIECE RATE VS HOURLY
Framing labor runs $3 to $8 per square foot of wall area by region (union metros push $8 to $12), and crews price by piece or by hour with very different risk profiles. Piece rates transfer production risk to the crew but invite quality shortcuts; hourly transfers it to the company.
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 labor runs $3 to $8 per square foot of wall area by region (union metros push $8 to $12), and crews price by piece or by hour with very different risk profiles. Piece rates transfer production risk to the crew but invite quality shortcuts; hourly transfers it to the company. Either way, unmeasured production per square foot is unmanaged margin.
THE COST, SOURCED.
labor $3-5/SF Southeast and Midwest, $5-8/SF West Coast and Northeast, $8-12/SF union metros; specialty framing (tray ceilings, arches, bulkheads) adds $500 to $1,500 per feature. (CostFlowAI framing guides, 2026)
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.
