The problem
You finished the Henderson job on a Thursday. Collected $4,200. Felt decent.
Two weeks later you're looking at your bank account and it doesn't add up. You spent $900 at the supply house. You drove out there three times — twenty miles each way. You ran two hours over because of the drywall that wasn't square. And you gave them a deal because they're a repeat client.
You made something on that job. You think. Probably.
That's how most contractors have been running their business for twenty years. They feel profitable. They find out they weren't when tax season hits.
Why we built it
Every contractor we talked to knew their revenue. Nobody knew their actual margin. The number that matters — what you kept after every cost — was either buried in QuickBooks or just missing entirely. We wanted it on one screen, instantly, in plain language.
How it works
After you log a job in DIRT — materials, hours, mileage, any other costs — the job detail screen shows you two numbers:
Net profit: what you actually kept. Revenue minus every cost you logged.
Effective hourly rate (EHR): net profit divided by hours worked. If you rate yourself at $75/hr and your EHR came back $48, you know the job underperformed. If it came back $110, you know that job type is worth quoting again.
Big green number means you made money. Red means you bled it. No spreadsheet. No accountant.
You see it before you send the invoice, so you can catch problems while you can still fix the price.
What changes for your business
Before
You finish the job, collect the check, and find out two months later (if ever) whether it made money. You quote the next job the same way.
After
You finish the job, open DIRT, see $62/hr in green. Or $31/hr in red and you know why — the supply runs killed you. You quote the next Henderson job at a higher rate or you don't take it.
Common questions
How do you actually track job costs properly as a contractor?
Most contractors track job costs after the fact — worksheets, QuickBooks reports, spreadsheets built the night before a client meeting. Those are history books. DIRT captures costs as the job happens: you log materials at the supply house, hours from the truck, mileage on the way back. When the job is done, the profit number is already there — no reconstruction required.
What is job costing?
Job costing means tracking every dollar that went into a specific job — labor, materials, subcontractors, mileage, overhead — and comparing it to what you charged. The result tells you whether the job made money and at what hourly rate. Without it, profitable and unprofitable jobs look the same on your bank statement.
How do you calculate job costing?
Take what you billed, subtract every cost tied to that job — materials, hours at your labor rate, mileage, any overhead slice — and what remains is net profit. Divide net profit by hours worked and you get your effective hourly rate (EHR). DIRT does this automatically the moment you log costs on a job.
What is an effective hourly rate for a contractor?
Effective hourly rate (EHR) is net profit divided by hours worked on a job. It tells you what you actually made per hour after every cost — not what you quoted, but what you kept. A $4,000 job that took 12 hours with $2,100 in costs cleared $1,900, so your EHR was about $158. A "bigger" job with more costs and more hours might come in at $40/hr.
What is the best job costing software for contractors?
QuickBooks and Buildertrend both have job costing — QuickBooks Online Plus runs around $115/month and Buildertrend starts at $369/month, on mid-2026 pricing. DIRT is different in that it captures costs in real time by voice, from the truck or the job site. The job cost report is there before the job is even invoiced, not after your accountant runs the numbers.
Can you see profit per job without an accountant?
Yes. DIRT shows net profit and effective hourly rate on every job — no accountant, no QuickBooks export. You log materials, hours, and mileage as you go, and the profit summary updates live. The green or red number is there when you tap the job, not at tax season.
What does job costing tell you in construction?
It tells you which jobs are worth repeating and which ones are quietly bleeding you. A bathroom remodel might look fine because the check was big. Job costing shows it ran $31/hr because of three extra supply runs and scope creep. You price the next one differently — or you pass on it.
Is job costing worth it for small contractors?
It is, especially for solo and small-crew operations where one bad job can hurt the whole month. Large firms have finance teams that catch margin problems early. Solo contractors find out at tax time. DIRT puts that feedback loop on every job, not once a year.
Start free
Try it free.
Every DIRT plan includes this feature — Solo included. No credit card, no trial that expires. Set up in minutes and use it on your next job from the truck.