How to Write an Electrical Estimate (2026 Cost Guide)

The wall was open and I could see the problem before the homeowner finished talking. Cloth-wrapped wiring, no ground, a panel that should have been retired in the Reagan administration. They wanted a quote to add a few outlets. What they actually needed was half the circuit brought up to code. That gap, between what people ask for and what the job really takes, is where most electrical estimates go wrong.

A good electrical estimate is not a guess with a dollar sign in front of it. It is a count, a labor rate, and a margin you can defend.

Quick Answer

An electrical estimate adds up three things: labor (a licensed electrician runs $50 to $150 per hour, $85 typical), materials (devices, wire, panels, fixtures), and markup to cover overhead and profit. Most residential electrical jobs land between $150 and $500 per circuit and $1,500 to $4,000 for a 200-amp panel upgrade. Count every device and run first, then price labor by the hour, never by feel.

Want to skip the spreadsheet? Run your hours through the Labor Cost Calculator, or Try EstimationPro free and let it build the line-item estimate from your job notes.

What Electrical Work Actually Costs in 2026

Before you can estimate a job, you need real numbers in your head. Here is where common residential line items sit nationally going into 2026. These are installed prices, labor and materials together, the kind of number you put in front of a client.

Line Item	Typical Range	Midpoint
Standard outlet	$100 - $300	$175
GFCI outlet	$100 - $300	$175
New dedicated circuit	$150 - $500	$300
Light fixture (existing wiring)	$75 - $300	$150
Recessed light (per can)	$100 - $350	$175
Ceiling fan (existing wiring)	$150 - $600	$300
240V outlet (range/dryer)	$300 - $800	$500
Subpanel (60-100A)	$800 - $2,500	$1,500
200A panel upgrade	$1,500 - $4,000	$2,500
EV charger (Level 2)	$800 - $3,500	$1,800
Whole-house rewire	$3 - $8 / sq ft	$5
Licensed electrician labor	$50 - $150 / hr	$85

Pricing is anchored to Angi and HomeGuide 2026 electrical cost guides and BLS wage data (occupational code 47-2111, electrician median $62,350 per year, May 2024 release). These are starting points. Prices vary by region and by the condition of the house, so get local quotes and pull a couple of real bids in your market before you commit to a rate sheet.

The Seven-Step Electrical Estimating Process

This is the order I work in. Skip a step and you leave money on the table or eat a surprise.

1. Walk the site and count everything. Every outlet, switch, fixture, and home run. Note the panel size and how many open spaces it has. Photograph the panel and any junction boxes.
2. Separate labor from materials. They scale differently and they carry different markups. Lumping them together is how you lose track of your real cost.
3. Price labor by the hour. Estimate the hours, multiply by your burdened rate. A $30-an-hour helper does not cost you $30. Burden adds 30 to 40 percent before you touch overhead.
4. Add materials with a waste factor. Wire, devices, plates, breakers, conduit. Add 10 to 15 percent for waste and the trips to the supply house you forgot to count.
5. Add permits and inspection time. Electrical permits run $50 to $300 in most jurisdictions, and waiting on an inspector burns a half-day you need to bill for.
6. Apply overhead and profit. Standard O&P lands at 15 to 35 percent, 25 percent being the common benchmark per NAHB and RSMeans data.
7. Pad for the unknowns. Old wiring, ungrounded circuits, code upgrades triggered when you open a wall. In a pre-1980 house, build in contingency. You will use it.

Run your labor hours through the Labor Cost Calculator so the burden math is done for you, and double-check your markup against the Contractor Markup Calculator so you do not confuse a 20 percent markup with a 20 percent margin. They are not the same number.

Worked Example 1: Kitchen Remodel Electrical

A typical kitchen remodel. The cabinets are coming out, so the walls are open and the wiring is easy to reach. Here is the estimate built from unit prices.

Line Item	Qty	Unit Price	Total
Recessed lights	6	$175	$1,050
Under-cabinet LED	12 lf	$25	$300
GFCI outlets	4	$175	$700
240V range outlet	1	$500	$500
New dedicated circuit (microwave)	1	$300	$300
Estimate total			$2,850

That is a clean, defensible number. Every line is countable and every price ties back to a published range. The homeowner can see exactly what they are paying for, which is half the battle when you are trying to win the bid honestly instead of lowballing it.

Worked Example 2: 200-Amp Panel Upgrade, Built From the Ground Up

Unit prices are fast, but sometimes you need to build a number from labor and materials to make sure the unit price holds up. Here is a panel upgrade priced from scratch.

Cost Component	Calculation	Amount
Electrician labor	12 hrs @ $85/hr	$1,020
Panel, breakers, wire, hardware	Materials	$700
Electrical permit	Flat	$250
Subtotal (your cost)		$1,970
Overhead and profit	25%	$493
Estimate total		~$2,463

That lands right on the $2,500 midpoint for a 200-amp upgrade. When your ground-up build matches the published range, you know your hours and your markup are honest. When it does not, one of them is off, and it is usually the hours.

Where Electrical Estimates Go Wrong

The mistakes I see most, including a couple I have made.

• Pricing the wire at cost. Materials carry markup too. If you bill them at what you paid, you are financing the supply house for free.
• Forgetting permit and inspection time. The permit fee is small. The half-day waiting on the inspector is not. Bill for both.
• Missing the code upgrades. Touch one circuit in an old house and the inspector may want the whole thing grounded. I have eaten that bill before I learned to ask about the panel age on the first call.
• No minimum service charge. A single outlet is not a $40 job. Rolling a truck has a floor. Set one and hold it.
• Estimating by feel instead of by count. Walk it, count it, write it down. Every device. Memory lies.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you calculate an electrical estimate? Count every device, fixture, and circuit on a site walk. Estimate labor hours and multiply by your burdened electrician rate ($50 to $150 per hour). Add materials with a 10 to 15 percent waste factor, add permits, then apply 15 to 35 percent for overhead and profit. The Labor Cost Calculator handles the burden math.

What is the average cost to wire a house in 2026? Whole-house rewiring runs $3 to $8 per square foot, so a 1,500-square-foot home typically lands between $8,000 and $15,000. New construction wiring is cheaper per foot than a rewire because the walls are already open and nobody is working around finished surfaces.

How much should I charge per outlet or circuit? A standard outlet runs $100 to $300 installed, and a new dedicated circuit runs $150 to $500 depending on the run length and panel access. Set a minimum service charge so a one-device job still covers the truck roll.

How do I make an electrical estimate faster? Most electricians lose evenings building bids by hand. With EstimationPro you describe the job from photos, notes, or a voice walkthrough, and it returns a line-item estimate with labor already burdened. A panel-and-circuits bid that took me an hour on a spreadsheet now takes a few minutes.

Should the estimate include a permit? Yes. Electrical permits run $50 to $300 in most areas, and the estimate should show the permit as a line item plus the inspection time. Hiding it makes your number look low until the invoice, and surprise charges kill trust with a client.

Price It Right, Then Win It

Set the count. Price the hours. Hold your margin. The electricians who quote off feel are the ones chasing change orders and wondering where the profit went. An honest electrical estimate, built on a real count and a defensible rate, is how you stay booked and keep your reputation clean.

Contractors who move from spreadsheets to EstimationPro report cutting estimate time from a full evening down to minutes per bid. EstimationPro does not stop at the estimate. It sends the proposal automatically, follows up with the homeowner so you win more of the bids you already send, and turns the approved estimate into an invoice you can collect on. Try EstimationPro free and price your next electrical job in minutes instead of hours.