Concrete Contractor Pricing: Build a Rate That Holds

Concrete contractor pricing starts at the wage floor

Sound concrete contractor pricing begins with what the work pays. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes cement masons and concrete finishers as their own occupation. Median pay there hit $57,020 a year, or $27.41 an hour, in May 2025. The bottom 10 percent earned under $39,190. The top 10 percent cleared $85,480.

Still, read one line across. Brickmasons and blockmasons ran $62,120, above the concrete finishers.

The industry split matters too. Masonry contractors paid cement masons a median of $60,620. Poured concrete foundation and structure contractors paid $55,790. So the work most concrete crews do sits near the bottom of both tables.

But your billing rate is never the wage. Payroll taxes, comp, liability, the truck, and the forms ride on the same hour. In short, that spread is labor burden, and it belongs in the number before margin does.

Price the crew day, because the pour will not wait

Most trades bill an hour. Concrete bills a day, because the schedule is not yours. The load starts curing the moment it leaves the plant. So the crew, the forms, and the finishing tools all stand by.

Weather stacks on top. BLS notes masons work mostly outdoors, so inclement weather may affect their schedules. Some also work overtime to meet construction deadlines. A canceled pour is not a free day, because the crew still showed up.

So build the day as one unit: forming, placing, finishing, and stripping. Quote it that way. A half day of rain then stops being an argument.

SimplyWise Cost Estimator turns a photo into an itemized, branded estimate in about 6 seconds, with material, labor, and fee lines already broken out.

The material index moves under your bid

Concrete is one of the few trades where the material reprices between the bid and the pour. The producer price index tracks that movement. Here is where two published series landed over 12 months:

Read those as index points, not dollars. They will never tell you what a yard costs. They do tell you direction and pace. Both series climbed while bids sat in a folder.

BLS marks the July 2026 values preliminary and can revise them for four months. Even so, requote ready mix before each season. Do not carry last year’s number forward.

Silica control is a cost line, not a safety poster

Cutting, grinding, and drilling cured concrete puts your crew inside OSHA’s silica standard for construction. The rule is 29 CFR 1926.1153. It caps exposure at 50 micrograms per cubic meter as an 8-hour average.

Table 1 of that standard pairs each task with a required control and a required respirator. The respirator columns split at four hours a shift. Handheld grinders for mortar removal need a shroud and dust collection. They also need a respirator in both columns. That means APF 10 at or under four hours, and APF 25 above it.

Grinders for other uses cost less to run. Outdoors, water or a shroud with dust collection clears the respirator. Indoors, that same setup still needs APF 10 past four hours. Walk-behind floor grinders need none either way once the water runs.

The program is cost too. You owe a written exposure control plan and review it annually. You also owe a competent person who inspects the site. Once a worker wears a respirator 30 or more days a year, you owe medical surveillance at no cost.

Build your concrete contractor pricing in this order

1. Start at the loaded hour

   Take the wage you pay, add taxes, comp, liability, and the truck. Then divide by hours you can truly bill.

2. Convert the hour into a crew day

   Also count forming, placing, finishing, and stripping as one unit.

3. Requote material against the index

   Both concrete series climbed this year. Pull fresh ready mix and reinforcement numbers before each season.

4. Add silica control, then margin last

   Put the shroud, the vacuum, and respirator hours on the page as cost. Margin goes on last.