# Work out the price from your costs

Source: https://help.mucka.ai/quotes/work-out-the-price-from-your-costs
Category: Quotes
Last updated: 2026-11-12

> The Margin Calculator on a quote takes what the job costs you and the margin you want, and gives you the price and the profit to put on the quote. Margin, not markup.

Most quotes are priced by feel, then checked against what the last one came to. The **Margin Calculator** prices it the other way round: start from what the job will cost you, decide what you want to keep, and the price falls out.

## Where it is

Open a quote and edit it. On **The price** step, under the totals, there's a dark bar called **Margin Calculator**. Tap it to open it, and again to fold it away. It works the same on a computer and on the phone.

Folded away, the bar tells you where the quote stands, like **37% · under your 40%**, once you've put your costs in.

You only see it if you're allowed to see job costs. An engineer quoting a job never sees your costs or your margin.

## 1. Your costs

Seven lines, all before VAT:

- Materials
- Labour
- Scaffolding / skips
- Fuel
- Admin
- Sales commission
- Other

Leave any you don't need blank.

If the quote's lines came from your price list and those items have a cost price, the calculator fills in from them, cost × quantity:

- items marked **Labour** on your price list fill **Labour**, so 8 hours of a labour item costing you £30 an hour is £240;
- items marked **Material** or **Service** fill **Materials**.

Lines you typed yourself rather than picking from the price list have no cost to go on, so the calculator says how many of your price-list items it could cost. If you've already got your own figure in a box, Mucka leaves yours alone and offers its figure underneath.

## 2. Your margin

Pick 30, 35, 40, 45 or 50%, or type your own. It starts on your minimum margin, which is 40% unless you've set your own in **Settings → Money → Your margin**.

Underneath you get **your price** and **your profit** at that margin, and what the quote makes as it stands now. The bar at the top of the calculator says whether the quote is on or above your minimum, or under it.

## Margin, not markup

The price is your cost divided by (1 minus the margin). A margin is the share of the **price** you keep; a markup is what you add on top of the **cost**. They are different numbers for the same job:

| Cost | 40% margin | 40% markup |
|---|---|---|
| £6,000 | £10,000 (you keep £4,000) | £8,400 (you keep £2,400, a 28.6% margin) |

The calculator shows the markup figure in your own numbers, so you can see the gap.

The price is rounded **up** to the whole pound, so the margin you charge is never under the one you picked.

## Use this price

**Use this price** puts it on the quote:

- If the lines already have prices, they're all scaled together so they add up to the new price, keeping the mix you typed.
- If nothing's priced yet, the price goes on the first line.

Check the lines, then save the quote as normal.

## Your costs stay private

Mucka keeps your costs with the quote, so they're there next time you open it. On a quote you've saved, they're kept as soon as you move out of a box. They never appear on anything your customer sees: not the PDF, not the printed copy, not the online quote.