How to price carpet fitting: rates, costs and the margin that survives

For UK flooring retailers and fitters · 9 minute read · Updated July 2026

Most flooring quotes that lose money don't lose it on the carpet. They lose it in the gaps: the uplift nobody charged for, the winders priced like straight steps, the offcut the customer paid for on a competitor's tighter quote, the "while you're here" doors that got eased for free. Pricing carpet fitting well is less about knowing a magic rate per square metre and more about building the price up from what the job actually contains.

This guide sets out that build-up, line by line, with a worked example at the end. It deliberately doesn't hand you a national rate card — rates vary too much by region and job type for that to be honest — but it shows you how to derive yours.

Quote fixed prices, built from rates

Customers should see one fixed price for the job (itemised, but fixed). You should build that price internally from per-m² and per-item rates. The distinction matters: a fixed quote lets you price this job's awkwardness — the 1930s staircase, the piano, the concrete that needs screeding — instead of averaging it into a rate that's wrong for every job. It also stops the doorstep renegotiation, because the price was never "per metre" in the customer's head.

The five lines of every carpet fitting price

1. Materials — from the cutting plan, not the room list

The material line is the linear metres of roll you must order, at your cost, times your markup. The critical word is must. Carpet comes on 4m and 5m rolls; the difference between ordering room by room and ordering from a nested whole-job cutting plan is routinely 10–20% of the material figure — our carpet wastage guide has the typical percentages. Underlay, gripper and adhesives belong on this line too, quantified from the same plan (gripper from the perimeter, underlay from the fitted area).

2. Labour — derived from your day rate

Skip the forums asking what fitters charge per metre. Work it out from first principles:

• What must a day earn? Add up what the fitting operation costs per working day — wages or drawings, van, fuel, tools, insurance, pension — plus the profit a day of skilled work should generate. That's your day rate.
• How much of a day is this job? An experienced fitter can call this from the measure: a straightforward lounge is a fraction of a day; a whole house with a winder staircase is a day-plus. Be honest about travel, uplift time and drying times.
• Divide. Day rate × days = labour line. If you want a per-m² sanity check afterwards, fine — but derive the number, don't import it.

Price difficulty explicitly: stairs cost more per metre than rooms, winders more than straight flights, patterned carpet more than plain (seams and stairs must pattern-match). If you fit through subcontractors, their rate card sets your floor — your quote needs their invoice plus your handling margin, or the "fitting included" line quietly becomes a loss.

3. Preparation and uplift

Everything that happens before the first cut: uplifting and disposing of the old flooring (disposal costs real money at the tip — charge it), moving furniture, latex or ply over rough subfloors, damp checks on concrete. Survey for these at the measure and put each on the quote as its own line. "We found the subfloor needed work" is a much harder conversation after the price was agreed.

4. Sundries and finishing

Door bars and trims, easing doors that catch on the new pile, stair rods if specified. Small numbers individually; a consistent leak if they're never charged. A quote template with these as standard tick-lines (see our flooring quote template guide) means they stop getting forgotten.

5. Margin — decided, not left over

Margin is what's left after every line above is honest. The discipline is to price from cost up — materials at real cost, labour at your real day rate, overheads recovered — and then add the profit the business needs to exist next year. Pricing down from "what the shop across town charges" means their overheads are setting your wages. If your built-up price is consistently above the market, the fix is usually in line 1 (tighter cutting plans) or line 2 (honest job-time estimates), not in the margin.

VAT, deposits and getting paid

If you're VAT-registered, quote inclusive to consumers and state the VAT — a surprise 20% at invoice is how five-star jobs become one-star reviews. Take a deposit on ordered goods: carpet cut from a roll for a specific house is not restockable, and a deposit (commonly around a third to a half on domestic work) protects you from cancelled orders and filters out the non-serious. Put your payment terms on the quote itself.

Worked example: 3-bed semi, carpet throughout

Illustrative numbers — substitute your own costs and rates:

The number to stare at is the first line. Quoted room by room, that same house needs roughly 38–40 linear metres instead of 34 — call it £280 more carpet — and the shop that plans tighter quotes £280 under you with identical margin. That's the whole argument for doing the cutting plan properly on every quote, which is exactly the tedious part software should do for you.

Frequently asked questions

How much should a carpet fitter charge per square metre?

Derive it: divide what a day of your operation must earn by how many metres of that job type you honestly fit in a day. Regional averages hide the difference between a plain lounge and a winder staircase — your derived rate doesn't.

Should I price per square metre or per job?

Show the customer a fixed, itemised job price; build it internally from rates. You capture the specific job's difficulty and avoid rate-card haggling.

What extras belong on the quote?

Uplift and disposal, furniture moving, subfloor prep, door bars and trims, easing doors, and a pattern-matching allowance where relevant — each as its own line.

What margin should I aim for?

Enough that the business is deliberately profitable after honest costs — decided from your overheads and goals, not inherited from competitors' prices. Win on a tighter material line instead of a thinner margin line.