Why we replaced the single rate with cost × markup × sell

For the first version of Quotiqa, every item carried a single number: the sell rate. The same model PlanSwift, Bluebeam, and most spreadsheet workflows use. It worked. It was simple.

It was also wrong.

What contractors actually do

Talk to any interior fit-out estimator. They do not think:

"100mm partition, $98 per square metre."

They think:

"Cost is around $80, I usually mark up 25%, so I am charging $100."

The mental model is cost → markup → sell, with margin as the sanity check at the end. The single-rate model strips out the cost and the markup — it stores only the answer. So when the supplier raises the price of metal stud framing, the estimator has to remember which sell rates were derived from which costs and re-do the math project by project.

That is the part that drives people back to Excel.

What we changed

Each item now stores three things:

• Cost rate — what the work costs you.
• Markup — the multiplier you apply.
• Sell rate — what the client sees. Auto-derived from cost × markup, unless you override it.

Margin is computed: (sell − cost) / sell. It is never stored. There is no way for sell, cost, and margin to drift out of sync, because two of them are inputs and the third falls out.

The margin chip

Next to every priced group, there is a small dot:

• Amber — margin below 15%. You are underpricing.
• Neutral — between 15% and 20%.
• Green — at or above 20%.

The thresholds are not magic numbers. They are the bands at which fit-out work starts to lose money on overheads (under 15%) and starts to clear comfortably (above 20%). Adjust them later if you want.

The chip exists so you do not have to do mental arithmetic on every quote. The colour tells you whether you are in safe territory. That is the whole feature.

What "manual override" means

Sometimes you do want to set sell directly — a competitive bid, a relationship project, a one-off discount. Click in the sell field, type the number. The card flips to "Manual override," and cost / markup are no longer feeding sell.

A tiny "reset" link reverts to the auto formula. There is no warning, no modal. The override is not a problem to solve, it is just a state.

What we did not do

We did not add per-line price overrides. That is the takeoff-tool feature where you can set a different sell rate on individual lines within the same item type. We will not be adding it. Our reasoning is in the previous post — the contractors we work with have one rate for "100mm 40kg drywall, m²" and apply it everywhere. The flexibility is a trap.

The quote is what the client sees. The cost is what your supplier charges. The markup is your call. Three numbers, one chip. That is the whole pricing model.