Ductwork pricing: how to estimate duct costs and quote the job
People searching for a ductwork price list usually want one of two things: a number to check their quote against, or a method for estimating ductwork costs without guessing. A published list can’t give you either one, because duct jobs are priced on access and install hours as much as on material. What works is a short formula and a worked example for each task you actually sell. That’s what this page covers.
Why a ductwork price list won’t save you
Anyone who has run a few duct jobs knows the problem. Two 15-foot branch runs use the same flex, the same boot and the same register, and one takes ninety minutes while the other takes half a day because it goes through a finished attic. A price list built on footage prices both the same. You end up losing money on the hard one and losing the bid on the easy one.
So treat any air duct price list or HVAC duct price list you find online as a rough sanity check at best. It reflects another shop’s labor cost, another market’s supplier pricing and an access situation you can’t see. Your own numbers are the only ones that protect your margin.
The formula for estimating ductwork costs
It’s the same arithmetic as the rest of your service book, with materials and install time as the two inputs that move:
Materials — duct, fittings, boots, collars, insulation, mastic, tape and straps, with a waste allowance of 5 to 10 percent on cut material.
Install hours— measured for this job’s access, not an average. Include the walk, the cuts, the hangers and the cleanup.
Loaded labor rate — what a billable hour actually costs you. The examples below use $50, which is a $28-an-hour tech after payroll burden, truck and unbilled time.
Overhead and margin — a 1.25 overhead factor and a 55 to 65 percent gross margin target.
Price = (install hours × loaded rate + materials) × 1.25 ÷ (1 − margin). If you haven’t worked out your own loaded rate yet, start with the HVAC technician hourly rate guide, because every line below is only as good as that number.
Worked examples: four common duct tasks
Materials and times are illustrative, reviewed October 2026, and are here to show the method. Replace them with your supplier invoices and your own install times before you copy a single price.
Duct task
Install time
Materials
Book price (55–65% margin)
Replace 10 ft of damaged insulated flex duct
1.0 hr
$35
$236 – $303
Mastic-seal accessible duct joints and plenum seams
4.0 hr
$40
$670 – $860
New 15 ft branch run with boot and register
2.5 hr
$90
$600 – $770
Replace a return drop or plenum transition
3.0 hr
$150
$830 – $1,070
Change the labor rate or the material cost and run any line again in the flat rate price calculator. It runs in the browser and doesn’t ask for an email.
Measure the access, not just the run
The branch run line above assumes decent access. Put the same run through a cramped attic and 2.5 hours becomes 5. Materials stay at $90, so the price climbs from roughly $600–$770 to roughly $945–$1,215. Nothing about the run changed. The tech just spent twice as long doing it.
The fix is to add an access tier to the task rather than quoting from memory. Many shops use three: open access, restricted (crawlspace or tight attic) and finished space where you cut and patch. Each tier carries its own install hours, and the tech picks the tier on site. The customer sees a clear reason for the difference, and you stop absorbing it.
Use price per foot as a check
Once the job price is built, divide it by the footage. The 15-foot branch run above works out to about $40 to $51 a foot at open access. That number is useful for one thing: catching a quote that looks wrong before it goes out. If your last ten open-access runs averaged around $45 a foot and this one lands at $28, you probably left out the fittings or the hangers.
Don’t quote duct work from a per-foot number alone. It hides the access difference between jobs, and access is where the margin goes. Build the price from hours and materials, then use the per-foot figure to sanity-check it.
The supplies that quietly eat your margin
Mastic, foil tape, straps, collars, screws and insulation sleeves are cheap individually and expensive in aggregate. A shop that estimates only the main duct and boot leaves the small stuff to come out of profit on every ticket. Either itemize the supplies or add a flat percentage of materials to every duct task, and record the part cost next to the price so you can check the margin later. The HVAC parts markup guide covers how to mark up small items so they carry their share.
Where duct work fits in the rest of your book
Duct tasks are service-book items, so they should be priced the same way as the capacitor and the contactor: from cost, with margin visible. The HVAC service pricing guide has the full worked list for the repairs that make up most tickets. Duct work usually gets added late, priced by feel, and never checked against cost, which is how it ends up as the weakest margin in an otherwise decent book.
Where PriceTuneup fits
Everything above works in a spreadsheet, and the calculators here are free and account-free. The slow part is the second half: adding duct tasks with access tiers to your Housecall Pro book, repricing the existing items to your target margins, and importing the result without breaking anything.
That’s what the done-for-you rebuild is: $249 one time to reprice your whole book and hand back import-verified files you own outright, with optional software continuity afterward at $299/yr. It’s backed by the 60-Day Ticket-Lift Guarantee: If your average ticket doesn't go up within 60 days of importing your new price book, we refund the full price — and you keep every file. More on the method is in the pricing guides.
Frequently asked questions
How do you estimate ductwork costs for a job?
Add up the materials, multiply the realistic install hours by your loaded labor rate, then apply overhead and a target margin to the total. The formula is price = (hours × loaded rate + materials) × overhead factor ÷ (1 − margin). Measure the run, count the fittings and add a waste allowance before you price anything.
Is there a standard HVAC duct price list I can use?
No. Any duct price list is an average of other shops' costs, and duct work swings more on access and layout than on materials. Build your own from your supplier invoices and your own install times, then use the output as the book price for your most common duct tasks.
Should I price ductwork per linear foot?
Use per-foot pricing as a check, not as the estimate. Work out the full price from materials and hours, divide by the footage, and compare the result to your usual per-foot number. If a job in a tight attic lands far above that number, the extra hours are real and the customer should see them in the quote.
What makes duct jobs harder to price than other HVAC repairs?
Access. The same 15-foot run can take 90 minutes in an open basement and five hours through a finished attic, and the materials cost is nearly identical. Shops that price duct work by footage alone lose money on the hard jobs and overcharge on the easy ones.
Do I need to include fittings and supplies in a duct estimate?
Yes, every time. Boots, collars, straps, mastic, tape, screws and insulation sleeves are small on their own and add up to a real share of the material cost. Put them in the estimate as a line, either itemized or as a percentage of the main material, so they do not come out of your margin.
How often should duct prices be updated?
Review them once a year and again any time sheet metal or flex duct moves more than about 10 percent on your supplier invoices. Duct materials are priced by commodity and freight, so they shift faster than most service parts.
Price your next duct job from cost
Put your own materials and install hours into the free calculator and see what margin your current duct prices actually leave. If the gap is uncomfortable, PriceTuneup reprices the entire book for $249, one time.