Free tool
Downsizing lead time planner
Find out how many weeks a downsize needs by starting from the decision hours the client can sustain rather than from the date the community wants.
Free tool, no sign up
Senior move job margin calculator
Enter the room count, your crew hours per room, your loaded crew cost, and the disposition spend, and see what a downsizing package actually leaves you.
The fastest way to lose money on a downsize is to quote the sorting and packing correctly and then absorb the disposition. Donation runs, a bulk pickup for the mattress and the exercise bike, a shredding load of forty years of tax returns, and the consignment drop offs are all real hours and real fees, and they land after the quote is signed.
This calculator keeps them in view. Crew hours per room is the number to be honest about: a bedroom with a client who decides quickly is not a garage with a workbench and a dead freezer. Set the hours you actually see, not the hours you hope for, and the margin at the bottom will be the one you take to the bank.
Your result
Total crew hours
37.5
All paid crew hours on the job, including travel and staging.
Quoted fee
$3,188
What the package prices out to at your billed crew hour rate.
Direct job cost
$1,620
Loaded crew pay for every hour plus the disposition you fund.
Gross profit on the job
$1,568
What is left before overhead, insurance, marketing, and your own time.
Gross profit here still has to cover your van, your insurance, and the unbilled hours you spend on family phone calls.
Where downsizing quotes leak money
The first leak is travel and staging. A senior move manager rarely bills the supply run, the second trip for more wardrobe boxes, or the hour spent staging the donation pile in the garage so the pickup crew can load it fast. Put those hours in the calculator as travel and staging and watch what they do to a seven room job.
The second leak is disposition. A full colonial can produce several donation runs, a bulk item pickup, and a shredding load, and none of those are optional once the family says take care of it. If your package price does not name a disposition allowance, you are funding it from margin.
Turning the number into a quote structure
Once you know the honest crew hour count, you can express the same job three ways: an hourly team rate, a flat room based package, or a hybrid with a capped estimate. The arithmetic underneath does not change, only who carries the risk of a slow decision maker.
Flat packages sell better to adult children because they can budget them. They also punish you when a client cannot decide, so most managers who quote flat build a decision hour allowance into the package and name what happens if the client needs more sessions. Run the numbers both ways before you pick a structure for a new client.
Questions about this calculator
What is a realistic crew hours per room number?
It varies hugely by room and client. Bedrooms and bathrooms move fast, kitchens and garages do not, and any room a client insists on reviewing item by item can double. Track your own hours across three jobs and use your real average rather than a published benchmark.
Should travel hours be billed to the client?
Many managers bill a flat trip charge or fold travel into a room based package rather than showing it as a line item. Either way it belongs in this calculator, because the hours are paid whether or not they appear on the invoice.
Why does the calculator not include an overhead percentage?
Because overhead varies too much between a solo manager working from home and a company with a van, a warehouse, and an office. The gross profit here is the number your overhead has to come out of, which is easier to reason about than a blended margin.
More free tools and working documents
Working document
The new unit fit sheet
A one page working template you fill in on the community tour so the keeper list is decided by measurements instead of by argument.
The calculator gives you the number. DownsizeRoute keeps it current.
Fit a fifty year household into a two bedroom floor plan before the moving truck is booked. Ask for a walkthrough and we will run it against a real week of your own.