Carpentry is two trades sharing a name, and pricing them the same way is the mistake. Framing is production work priced on quantity, sequence and lumber cost, where the money is made on output and lost on lumber price movement. Finish carpentry is craft work priced on detail, substrate and the standard the customer expects, where the money is lost on prep nobody quoted and on a client who wanted a different level of perfect. Here is what drives each one.
Start with the stack
Labor, the payroll burden on that labor, materials, a share of overhead, then profit as its own line. That is How to price your work so you actually make money, and What Should I Actually Charge? runs it. Below is the carpentry-specific part.
Framing and finish are priced differently
Framing is measurable. Square feet of floor, linear feet of wall, a count of openings, a roof structure of known pitch and complexity. That makes it the one part of carpentry that suits unit pricing, and it makes an accurate takeoff the difference between a good year and a bad one. It is also structural work: you are building to IRC span tables, header and holdown requirements, and an inspector will look at it before anything is covered. That inspection is a scheduled visit on somebody else's calendar, and it belongs in the price as time.
Finish carpentry is not measurable in the same way. Trim, doors, stairs, built-ins and cabinets are priced on how fussy the detail is, how out of square the building is, and what standard the customer is expecting. A room with square corners and a room without are the same linear feet of base and a completely different day.
The most reliable way to lose money in finish work is to quote off linear footage and discover the walls are wavy, the floor is out of level, and the customer expects miters that close on a house that moved thirty years ago. Say in the quote what the price assumes about the existing structure.
What drives the price
Lumber is a commodity, and it is your risk. Framing packages move with the market, and a fixed price quoted in one month for work in another can lose its margin without anything going wrong on site. This is the single biggest price risk in the trade. Two lines fix it: an expiration date on every quote, and a stated period for which named material prices hold. Materials: who supplies, who pays, and getting it in writing has both, plus why marking materials up 15 to 25 percent is not a fee for ordering.
The takeoff is the price. More than in most trades, a carpentry number is a quantity exercise, and an error in the count is an error in the price with nobody to blame. Work through the plans in a fixed order so nothing is double counted, sort every item as a count, a length, an area or a volume, and add a waste allowance, commonly around 10 percent, before you price anything. How to do a material takeoff from a set of plans is the method and Takeoff From Plans: Checklist is the checklist.
The license question is a dollar threshold, not an exam. No state licenses individual carpenters. As an employee you need no personal license to frame or trim. The license question appears when you run your own jobs, and then it is your state's project-value threshold: below it you can often work without a contractor license, above it taking full contracts generally requires a general or framing contractor license. Framing a whole house is above the threshold nearly everywhere. Check with Do I Need a Contractor License?, and read What happens if you work without a contractor's license? before you decide the threshold does not matter, because in some states an unlicensed contract is not enforceable and you cannot sue for the money.
Structural work carries structural liability. A deck ledger, a header, a beam, a stair. These are the details that fail and the ones that get looked at hardest, and a repair years later is far more expensive than the original job. How is a deck ledger supposed to be attached? and What is the code for stair rise, run, and railings? are the two most commonly got wrong. Price the job so there is margin to do them properly.
Weather, on framing. Exterior framing is weather-dependent and a wet week is unbillable. That is one of the reasons the billable-day count matters: you are not paid for 261 days a year, and roughly 187 is a realistic number once vacation, sickness, training, weather and paperwork are taken out. Price off 250 and you are about a quarter light on every rate you quote.
Labor burden and the comp class
Employer FICA at 7.65 percent, unemployment tax, general liability and workers comp put labor burden in the usual construction range of 30 to 50 percent on top of the wage, before allowing for paid hours you cannot bill. What does a worker actually cost me per hour once they are on the books? has the worked example.
Comp is a rate per $100 of payroll set by class code and multiplied by your experience mod, and carpentry splits here the way the trade does. Framing carries height and fall exposure and prices accordingly; finish carpentry is one of the lower-hazard classes in construction and a finish carpenter's comp can be a fraction of a roofer's for the same wage. If you do both, make sure your payroll is classified correctly, because a misclassification surfaces at the year-end audit and it is expensive. Workers' comp for contractors and Workers' Comp Estimator have it.
The federal rule that catches finish carpenters
Removing old trim, casing, doors and molding in a house built before 1978 disturbs painted surfaces, and above 6 square feet inside or 20 square feet outside the EPA Lead-Safe (RRP) Rule applies. That means firm certification and a trained renovator, plus containment and cleanup that take real time on site.
This catches remodelers constantly, because the work does not feel like a lead job. It is a cost and a barrier, and the right response is to price it in and be certified rather than to hope. Do I need lead-safe (RRP) certification to work on pre-1978 homes? has the thresholds and Lead and asbestos in older buildings has the wider picture.
What belongs in a carpentry quote
- What the price assumes about the existing structure: square, level, plumb, and sound. On remodel work this single line saves more arguments than any other.
- Rot, insect damage and concealed conditions, excluded and priced by change order when found.
- The standard of finish. Paint-grade or stain-grade, and what happens where the building is out of true.
- Who does the finishing. Sanding, filling, caulking, priming and painting are frequently assumed to be included and frequently are not.
- Lumber price validity, with the expiration date on the quote.
- Material grade and species, specified rather than left to be argued about.
- Demolition and haul-off, and where the dumpster goes.
- Permits and inspections, and whose time and cost those are.
- Lead-safe work on pre-1978 homes, either priced in or excluded until tested.
The general build is in How to write an estimate that wins the job and protects you and What Is NOT Included: Exclusions List is the template.
Where to go next in this section
- How to price your work so you actually make money, the stack underneath.
- Materials: who supplies, who pays, and getting it in writing, which on this trade is mostly lumber price risk.
- Day rate, fixed price, or time and materials: which should you quote?, because framing suits unit pricing and remodel finish work often does not suit a fixed price at all.
- How to price drywall work, the trade that follows you.
- How to become a carpenter, for the licensing threshold and the framer versus finish split.
- How to do a material takeoff from a set of plans, because in this trade the takeoff is the price.
Common questions
What should a carpenter charge per hour?
There is no national hourly rate for carpentry, and the honest answer is that framing and finish work should not carry the same rate anyway. Build the number from your own costs: the wage you need, the payroll burden on it, the days you can genuinely bill rather than the days in the year, your overhead, then profit as its own line. Then reflect the difference between the two halves of the trade. Framing carries height and fall exposure and therefore a higher workers comp class, while finish carpentry is lower risk but slower, fussier and far more exposed to a building that is not square.
How do I price finish carpentry in an old house?
Price it on the condition of the building rather than on linear footage, and say in the quote what you assumed. Trim in a house with square corners, level floors and plumb walls is a different job from the same linear footage in a house that moved thirty years ago, and quoting off the measurement alone is the most reliable way to lose money in finish work. Write in that the price assumes the existing structure is square, level and sound, exclude rot and concealed damage, and be explicit about who does the sanding, filling, caulking and painting, because customers routinely assume those are included.
How do I protect a quote against lumber price changes?
With two lines in the estimate. Put an expiration date on every quote, which you should be doing regardless, and name the materials whose price holds only for a stated number of days. Lumber is a commodity and a framing package quoted in one month for work in another can lose its margin without anything going wrong on site. Quietly absorbing a rise is the least visible way a good job stops being profitable, and unlike most cost risks in construction this one has nothing to do with how well you work.
Do I need a license to take framing jobs on my own?
Only up to your state's dollar threshold, and framing a whole house is above it almost everywhere. No state licenses individual carpenters, so as an employee you need no personal license. The moment you take contracts for your own jobs, most states set a project value below which you can work without a contractor license and above which you need a general or framing contractor license. Getting that wrong is worse than a fine in several states, because an unlicensed contract can be unenforceable, meaning you cannot sue for the money and can be made to give some of it back.
Does lead-safe certification apply to trim work?
Yes, and it catches remodelers constantly because the work does not feel like a lead job. Removing old trim, casing, doors and molding in a home built before 1978 disturbs painted surfaces, and above 6 square feet inside or 20 square feet outside the federal EPA RRP Rule applies. Your firm has to be EPA certified and a trained renovator has to do the work, with containment and cleanup that take real time on site. Price it in rather than hoping, because both the certification and the extra hours are real costs and the enforcement is real too.
The honest bit
- There are no dollar rates in this guide, per hour or per linear foot. There is no national rate for carpentry in the US, and framing and finish work do not share one anyway.
- The state project-value threshold that decides whether you need a contractor license varies enormously, and a few states have no threshold at all. Check yours rather than assuming a number.
- The RRP thresholds and the 1978 date are federal and are as described in this site's own guides. Verify at epa.gov before relying on them.
- The roughly 10 percent waste allowance and the 15 to 25 percent materials markup are common trade practice and this site's published working figures, not rules.
- Workers comp class codes and rates are set per state and per carrier. The point here is that framing and finish sit in different classes, not a figure.
- This is general guidance, not legal, tax or financial advice.
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