Contractor walkthrough

ProfitLens helps contractors learn from completed jobs so future pricing gets sharper.

This walkthrough shows how exported job history turns into service ranking, Public Market Benchmark context, missed-margin detection, and estimate-vs-actual learning.

What to understand first

ProfitLens reads completed job history to reveal real margin by job type, customer, and service.
You do not need new field workflows. It starts with exports contractors already have.
The output is not a generic estimate template. It is pricing guidance based on what actually happened.
Public Market Benchmark uses public local baselines, not private customer-submitted ProfitLens data.

Step 1

Set up your company economics

Enter your target margin, monthly overhead, ZIP code, and employee cost so ProfitLens starts with numbers that reflect reality.

Step 2

Upload exported data

Bring in revenue first, then layer in labor, materials, and subcontractor costs. The more complete the input, the sharper the margin guidance.

Step 3

Act on the strongest signals

See pricing pressure, public market benchmark context, low-margin customers, and service lines that deserve more attention.

Sample dashboard preview

A clean preview of the decisions an owner would get back

Show enough to build confidence

Revenue

$84,240

Last 90 days

Net profit

$23,980

28.5% margin

Overhead / labor hr

$20

Normalized for realistic margins

Service margin snapshot

Drain cleaning

44 jobs
Avg revenue$340
Avg margin42%

Sprinkler repair

28 jobs
Avg revenue$680
Avg margin39%

Fence installs

18 jobs
Avg revenue$2,100
Avg margin12%

Cost mix

Labor
34%
Materials
29%
Subcontractors
21%
Overhead
16%

Sample insights

Drain cleaning is averaging 42% margin and is your strongest service line.
Fence installs are trending $45 below the Public Market Benchmark in your ZIP range.
Smith Property Mgmt generates volume but drags average margin down to 11%.
Rapid Concrete Crew is linked to a healthy 29.8% job margin after normalized overhead allocation.

Inputs and outputs

Simple inputs go in. Decision-ready views come out.

What you upload

Job revenue, labor hours, materials, and subcontractor spend tied back to the same job IDs.

What you see

Job margin, service ranking, pricing floors, estimate drift, public benchmark context, and customers worth reviewing.

Why it helps

Instead of relying on memory or scattered spreadsheets, you can see exactly where pricing assumptions held up and where they missed.

Public Market Benchmark

How ProfitLens builds local market context without using private contractor data

Public Market Benchmark starts with U.S. Census ZIP geography, applies BEA Regional Price Parities to model local cost pressure, and uses BLS trade wage baselines to estimate labor-sensitive price floors by service. It does not use customer-submitted ProfitLens data.

Public Market Benchmark uses public data from the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.

ZIP geographyU.S. Census
Cost pressureBEA RPP 2024
Trade wagesBLS 2024

Why this matters

The real value is learning what to charge next from what already happened.

Contractors already know how to build a bid. The hard part is seeing where estimates drift, where categories are underpriced, and where actual job results should change the next proposal.