Termite Pretreatment Pricing Calculator: what to bid per square foot

Bid a new-construction termite pretreat from your own numbers: slab square feet, footing run, mobilisations, termiticide cost, a builder discount, a job minimum and a margin check.

The slab

Slab footprint

The horizontal area you are treating before the pour.

sq ft m²

Your bid rate per square foot

Your own account rate. Switch the unit above and this box switches with it, so the rate and the quantity can never end up in different units.

Footings and foundation walls

Footing and foundation run

Linear run treated along footings, foundation walls, interior grade beams and plumbing penetrations.

ft m

Your bid rate per linear foot

Leave empty if your square-foot rate already absorbs the vertical work, but know that it is absorbing it.

Mobilisation

Trips to this slab

A pretreat is usually two: the barrier before the pour, then the perimeter after backfill and final grade. Your scope of work decides the real number.

Charge per mobilisation

The show-up line: truck, setup, tear-down. Multiplied by the trips above.

Termiticide and materials (at cost)

Termiticide for this slab (cost)

What the finished dilution for this job cost you. This tool prices, it does not dose: work the gallons out in the coverage and yield calculators first.

Other materials (cost)

Film, stakes, treated-soil notices, anything else the job consumes.

Markup on materials

Applied to the two cost lines above only. Leave at 0 to pass them on at cost.

Builder terms

Builder-account discount

What you give up for the volume. Applied to the whole build-up, before any minimum.

Job minimum

A floor the bid never falls below, however small the slab. Leave empty for no minimum.

Slabs this builder runs a year

Fill it in and the result puts an annual price tag on the discount you just gave. Leave empty to skip.

Crew time, tax and margin check

The time below never reaches the charge side: the bid is priced per square foot and per trip. It is here so the tool can tell you what the bid actually returns per crew-hour, and whether it clears cost.

On-site hours per trip

Per ONE technician. Crew size multiplies it.

Round-trip drive per trip

Per technician, door to door. Counted once for every trip.

Technicians on site

Your cost per crew-hour

Loaded crew cost: wage plus burden. Fill it in and the result shows job cost, gross profit and realised margin. Leave it empty and the margin block stays hidden.

Tax rate

VAT, GST or sales tax, if you add one. Use your own registered rate: the tool does not assume a country.

Bid before tax

—

Enter a slab area and your rate per square foot to build the bid.

Slab pretreatment: —
Termiticide and materials: —
Bid before tax: —

Export

How this is calculated

The bid is a straight build-up from what you measured and the rates you set. Two things behave deliberately: mobilisation is multiplied by the trip count, because a pre-construction treatment is normally not one visit, and the headline per-square-foot figure is derived from the finished bid rather than from the rate box, because that is the number a builder compares bids on.

slab       = slabSqft × pricePerSqft
footing    = footingFt × pricePerFt
mobilise   = trips × perTripCharge
materials  = (termiticide + otherMaterials) × (1 + markup)
subtotal   = slab + footing + mobilise + materials
discount   = subtotal × builderDiscount
bid        = max(subtotal − discount, jobMinimum)
perSqFt    = bid ÷ slabSqft
tax        = bid × taxRate
paidHours  = (onSitePerTrip + drivePerTrip) × crewSize × trips
cost       = paidHours × costRate + materialsAtCost
margin     = (bid − cost) ÷ bid
annual     = bid × slabsPerYear

Worked example. A 2,000 sq ft slab bid at 0.50 a square foot is 1,000. Add 180 linear feet of footing and foundation wall at 1.25 a foot, that is 225. Two mobilisations at 75 each add 150. Termiticide at 120 and other materials at 30 come to 150 at cost, or 180 with 20 percent on them. The bid is 1,555 before tax, which divides out to 0.78 a square foot, not the 0.50 in the rate box. At two hours on site and half an hour of drive per trip with a crew of two, the job eats 10 crew-hours, so it returns 155.50 a crew-hour.

No price presets anywhere. Every currency field starts empty. The only pre-filled number is the trip count, and it sits in an editable box: two is the pre-pour and final-grade pair, offered as a scoping starting point rather than as a statement about any label or code requirement. Your scope of work and the product label decide the real number.

The unit toggle moves the rate with the quantity. Switch the slab to square metres and the rate box becomes a rate per square metre; switch the footing run to metres and its rate becomes a rate per metre. Both cross back to square feet and linear feet in one place, at the form edge, so a metric measurement can never be multiplied by an imperial rate. Square feet and linear feet are canonical here because the contract language, the keyword and every sibling termite calculator on this site are imperial-native.

This page prices, it does not dose. Nothing here computes, recommends or implies an application rate. Gallons of finished dilution for the horizontal barrier come from the slab pre-treatment coverage calculator, and how far a bottle of concentrate goes comes from the termiticide concentrate yield calculator. Take the cost those produce and bring it back here as one line. The product label is the authority on rate, dilution and method, every time.

Everything runs in your browser. No account, no email gate, nothing stored or sent.

What this prices, and what it deliberately does not

This is the pricing rung of the termite pretreat entity, and it does one job: turn a builder’s slab into a bid you can hand over and still make money on. It does not size the treatment. Finished gallons for the horizontal barrier come from the slab pre-treatment coverage calculator, including the coarse-fill bump that most calculators miss, and how many bottles a job draws down comes from the termiticide concentrate yield calculator. Work the chemistry there, against the label in front of you, then bring the cost back here as one line.

The wider map of termite sizing tools, and which yardstick each treatment method is measured in, is the termite and WDO treatment hub. Start there if you are not sure whether the job in front of you is a linear-foot job or a square-foot one.

Every money field starts empty on purpose

A pretreat rate is an account rate. It is negotiated between you and a builder, it moves with volume and schedule reliability, and nobody publishes it. Search for an average anyway and the results resolve to lead-generation directories quoting each other: no regulator, no trade body, no published survey. Under this site’s cite-or-omit rule that means no average appears here, and none was invented to fill the space. Every currency field starts blank.

The only pre-filled number anywhere is the trip count, and it sits in an editable box. If you have not yet set a defensible cost per crew-hour to type into the margin check, the labor burden rate calculator is where that number comes from.

The rate box is not the rate the builder compares

This is the useful part of the arithmetic. You bid a rate per square foot, but the builder divides your total by the slab, and that total has mobilisation, footings and materials inside it. A 2,000 square foot slab bid at fifty cents a foot is a thousand dollars of slab line, but add 180 feet of footing, two mobilisations and the termiticide and the bid divides out closer to seventy-eight cents. The tool shows both, so you are never surprised by your own number in a bid comparison.

Mobilisation is multiplied, because the job is

A pre-construction treatment is normally two visits: the barrier before the pour, then the perimeter work after backfill and final grade. Price one and the second trip is free, which is where builder work quietly loses its margin. The trips box is an input rather than a rule, so a scope that genuinely ends at the pre-pour visit prices honestly too, but the tool will tell you which one you just bid.

The same logic runs through the crew-time panel. Those hours never reach the charge side, because you are bidding per square foot rather than per hour. They are there so the tool can tell you what the bid returns per paid crew-hour once the drive to a site three towns over is counted twice.

Judge the discount by the year

Builder work is volume work, and volume work is where a discount gets agreed in a conversation and paid for over a season. Enter the number of slabs the builder expects to run and the tool puts an annual figure on both the revenue and, once you have given it a cost per crew-hour, the gross profit. That is the number to decide on.

If the account follows the slab into an ongoing warranty, the termite bond pricing calculator prices what comes next, and the termite trench gallons calculator is the sizing tool for post-construction work on a house that is already standing.

Everything runs in your browser: no account, no email gate, nothing stored or sent. Estimate only, not a binding bid, and the product label is the authority on rate, dilution and method.

Frequently asked questions

How much should I charge for a termite pretreatment per square foot?

Whatever your slab rate, your footing rate, your mobilisations and your chemical cost add up to, divided by the slab. This tool suggests no rate, because the per-square-foot number a builder pays is a negotiated account rate rather than a published one, and the circulating averages resolve to lead-generation directories quoting each other. What the calculator does give you is the figure that actually matters in a bid comparison: what your whole bid divides out to per square foot once mobilisation, footings and materials are inside it.

Why does the calculator default to two trips?

Because a pre-construction treatment usually is not one visit. The horizontal barrier goes down before the pour, and the vertical and perimeter work happens after backfill and final grade, which is a second mobilisation with its own drive, setup and tear-down. Two is a scoping starting point in an editable box, not a claim about any label or code requirement: your scope of work and the product label decide the real number. Bid one trip and the tool says plainly that the return visit is currently free.

Does this calculate how much termiticide the slab needs?

No. This page prices the bid; it does not size the job. Finished gallons for the horizontal barrier come from the slab pre-treatment coverage calculator, and how far a bottle of concentrate stretches comes from the termiticide concentrate yield calculator. Take the cost those produce and bring it back here as one line. The product label is the authority on rate, dilution and method.

Should the square-foot rate cover the footings too?

It can, but be deliberate about it. The tool keeps the footing and foundation run as its own linear-foot line, so you can see what the vertical work is worth instead of burying it. Leave that line empty and the result says, in plain words, that your square-foot rate is absorbing it. That is a legitimate way to bid, as long as the rate was set knowing it.

How do I judge a builder discount?

By the year, not by the slab. Enter the number of slabs the builder expects to put you on and the tool multiplies the discounted bid out to an annual figure, and to annual gross profit once you have given it a cost per crew-hour. A five percent concession on one slab looks like nothing; the same concession across a season of slabs is a real number, and that is the one to make the decision on.

How we choose and check our formulas