About Framing & Figures
Framing & Figures is a free reference site about the business side of building. Not how to frame a wall, but what the wall should be priced at, what your state requires before you can bid the job, and what the bond, the payroll and the software actually cost.
What we publish
- Calculators for US contractors: bid price and markup, labor burden, license bond cost, retainage, markup-to-margin conversion, and change orders.
- State-by-state reference pages on contractor license bonds and retainage.
- Software pricing pages for the tools contractors actually buy.
- Guides that explain the arithmetic and the paperwork behind those numbers.
- Downloadable templates you can use in your own business.
Every calculator runs entirely in your browser. What you type stays on your device and is never sent to us. Some tools can encode your inputs into the page's web address so you can share a result; that link is created only when you click "share/copy link."
Who it's for
Owners, estimators, office managers and bookkeepers at small and mid-size US construction businesses: the people who have to put a number on paper and defend it. Everything here is written for United States practice.
What we are not
We publish information, not advice. Nothing on this site is legal, tax, accounting, insurance or surety advice. Rules change, they differ by state and by project, and a page can be right in general and wrong for your job. Confirm anything that matters with the official agency or a licensed professional before you act on it.
Who is responsible
Oussama Chicha, Editor. One named human is accountable for every page and for fixing it when it is wrong. Before a page is published, each figure on it is checked against its primary source, as our methodology describes. The editor is not an attorney, CPA, insurance producer or surety agent. When a page has been reviewed by a licensed professional, that reviewer is named on the page. When it has not, the page says so.
We use software tools, including AI-assisted drafting and checking, in producing content. That does not move responsibility anywhere: every number must trace to a primary source before it is published, and a person answers for it. Our editorial policy and methodology explain exactly how a figure gets onto a page.
How we're funded
Two ways, and we would rather you knew both up front.
Advertising. We show display ads served by Google AdSense. We do not place ads inside a calculator, beside a calculator's result, or styled to look like our own writing.
Affiliate links. Links to software vendors may become affiliate links, on which we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you; at launch, none are, and any page that carries one will say so. We take no referral fees or commissions from surety or insurance providers. A commercial relationship never changes a price we show, a rating, an ordering, or whether a product is included. Affiliate links carry rel="sponsored". See how we make money for the full disclosure.
Publisher
Framing & Figures is published by Harmony For Humanity LLC, 1309 Coffeen Avenue STE 1200, Sheridan, Wyoming 82801, USA. Email: [email protected]. We do not have a phone line.
Our other trust pages
Contact · Editorial policy · Methodology · Corrections · How we make money · Privacy policy · Terms of use · Accessibility
Last updated September 23, 2026.