Pool Equipment Replacement Pricing Calculator (pump, heater, filter swaps)
Quote one pool equipment swap from your own numbers: part cost and markup, install hours, crew size, haul-away, permits, and the electrical or gas work you exclude.
How this is calculated
The quote is a straight build-up: parts at your cost with your markup, plus time you enter at your rate, plus the flat lines the job carries. Four things behave deliberately. Task times are per technician and crew size multiplies them. Drive time is tracked twice, so every drive hour lands in your cost while only the share you choose to bill lands in the charge. The permit is a pass-through, identical on both sides. And the licensed electrical or gas line is dropped entirely unless you tick it in, because an excluded scope should leave no trace in the number.
partsCost = unitCost + freight + fittings
partsCharge = partsCost x (1 + partsMarkup)
onSite = installHours + startupHours + extraHours
crewHours = onSite x crewSize
driveCrew = driveHours x crewSize
billedDrive = driveCrew x driveBillPct
labour = (crewHours + billedDrive) x chargeRate
subCharge = subCost x (1 + subMarkup) (only when ticked in)
subtotal = partsCharge + labour + subCharge + haulAway + permit
quote = max(subtotal, jobMinimum)
reserve = quote x warrantyReserve
tax = quote x taxRate
valueAdded = quote - partsCost - subCost - tipCost - permit
cost = partsCost + subCost + tipCost + permit
+ (crewHours + driveCrew) x costRate
margin = (quote - cost) / quoteWorked example, the one the tests pin. A single-tech pump swap. The part is 900, freight 60, fittings 90, so parts cost 1,050; at a 40% markup that is charged at 1,470. Install 2 h plus start-up 0.5 h is 2.5 crew-hours at 110, so labor is 275. The haul-away is billed at 45 against a 20 tip run, and the half-hour round trip is not billed. Subtotal 1,790, which is the quote. Paid hours are 3.0 once the unbilled drive is counted, so the headline reads 596.67 per paid crew-hour; strip the pass-throughs back out (1,050 of parts at cost and the 20 tip) and the job returns 720, or 240 per paid crew-hour. Put a 55 cost per crew-hour in and the job costs 1,235 for a gross profit of 555 and a realised margin of 31.0%.
No price presets anywhere. Every currency field starts empty. The only pre-filled numbers are the per-equipment install times, and all of them sit in editable boxes: they say that a heater changeover usually runs longer than a pump changeover, nothing more. They are a scoping starting point, not a benchmark, and the numbers you replace them with are the ones that matter.
The markup percentage is deliberately not chosen for you. There is no parts markup table on this page, because publishing a second one would just give you two numbers to argue with. Settle the percentage in the parts and material markup calculator, which converts a target margin into the markup that actually gets you there, then bring the figure here and apply it to this one job.
Why value added matters more than the headline per hour. On a heater swap the quote is mostly the heater. Dividing the whole quote by crew-hours therefore produces a per-hour figure that looks spectacular and means nothing, and it cannot be compared with a service-only hourly rate. So the tool also strips every pass-through back out (parts at cost, the subcontractor at cost, the tip fee, the permit) and reports what is left per paid crew-hour. That is the number that tells you whether the labor half of the job was worth doing.
The scope prompt is a question, never an answer. A pump, salt cell or automation swap usually touches a circuit or a bond; a heater swap usually touches gas. When you have not entered a specialist line the tool asks whether that work is in or out, and stops there. It does not size a circuit, size a gas line, or tell you what your licence covers: the equipment manual and your local code official do that, and getting it wrong is a safety matter rather than a pricing one. Where the run out to the pad is long enough that the loss along the way is the question, the conductor sizing and voltage drop check gives you something to ask the electrician about rather than an answer of its own.
Everything runs in your browser. No account, no email gate, nothing stored or sent.
One swap, priced the way it is actually sold
An equipment replacement is a parts-plus-labor job, and that makes it a different animal from a route stop. There is a unit you buy at a price nobody publishes, a markup you have to defend, install hours that vary more with the plumbing than with the pool, a haul-away, sometimes a permit, and almost always a question about whether the licensed work is in or out. This calculator builds the quote from those lines and nothing else. It does one job per page: one swap, one visit, one number you can send.
Recurring work prices on a different axis entirely. If you are setting a monthly per-pool rate rather than quoting a one-off changeover, the pool service price calculator is the tool for that, and it carries no parts or install labor at all. The two numbers belong on the same account and should never be blended into one.
Every money field starts empty on purpose
Search for the cost of replacing a pool pump and you will find plenty of figures. Every one of them is a homeowner cost band written for the person paying the invoice, assembled from lead-generation directories quoting each other. None of them knows your distributor pricing, your markup policy or your loaded crew cost, which are the only three numbers that decide whether this job was worth doing. So the tool ships with none of them, and every currency box starts blank.
The only pre-filled figures anywhere are the per-equipment install times, and they sit in editable boxes. They encode one claim and one claim only: a heater changeover usually runs longer than a pump changeover. They are a scoping starting point, not a benchmark and not a market fact. Overwrite them after your first few timed swaps, and they stop being anyone’s guess but yours.
The markup rung lives one page over
There is no parts markup table here. Choosing a defensible markup, or converting the gross margin you need into the markup that actually gets you there, is a whole question of its own and it already has a page: the parts and material markup calculator. Settle the percentage there, bring it back, and apply it to this one job. The markup box on this page takes your number and does not second-guess it.
The one thing this page does insist on is that the permit is not marked up. A permit fee is a pass-through, so it lands on the charge side and the cost side at exactly the same figure and can never flatter the margin. Fold it into labor if you want to earn on the paperwork, but do it deliberately.
Sizing is not pricing, and this page will not pretend otherwise
Which pump goes back on the pad is an engineering question, and getting it wrong is expensive in a way no quote can fix. Work the flow and the head out in the pool pump size calculator before you price the part, because the unit you specify sets the part cost line here, and because a swap to a different class of pump can change what the plumbing and the circuit have to do.
That is the coupled side effect this tool flags rather than solves. A pump, salt cell or automation swap commonly touches the circuit or the bond; a heater swap commonly touches gas. Whenever no specialist line is entered, the calculator asks which side of the quote that work is on. It does not size a circuit, size a gas line, or tell you what your licence covers. The equipment manual and your local code official do that, and the tool stops at the point where pricing ends and safety begins.
Drive time and the second trip
Equipment work is the category where windshield time quietly doubles. The part is not on the truck, so there is a trip to the supply house, and the start-up sometimes needs its own visit. The calculator tracks drive hours twice: they always land in your cost, because you pay the crew for them regardless, and only the share you nominate lands in the charge. If you find yourself absorbing four paid crew-hours on a two-hour job, that is not a pricing problem, it is a scheduling one, and the tool will say so.
Judge the job on value added, not on the headline
On a heater swap the quote is mostly the heater. Dividing the whole number by crew-hours therefore produces a per-hour figure that looks wonderful and tells you nothing, and it cannot be set beside a service-only hourly rate. The tool reports both: the headline per paid crew-hour, and the same figure with every pass-through stripped back out, the part at cost, the subcontractor at cost, the tip fee and the permit. The second number is the one worth looking at. It is what the labor half of the job earned, and it is directly comparable with the per-hour figure on a cleaning job such as a pool filter cleaning, where there is no part in the quote to inflate it.
What the tool does not do
It does not tell you what to charge. It does not know your market, your competitors or your calendar, and it will not invent an average. It does not size equipment, specify a circuit, size a gas line or decide whether a permit is required where you work. And it does not store anything: everything runs in your browser, with no account, no email gate and nothing sent anywhere. Estimate only, not a binding quote.