How to Price Polished Concrete by Grit Pass
Every pass crosses the whole floor at its own speed, so the hours are a product of the sequence you run. Here is how to build that number, and what has to go on top of it.
Work out hours one pass at a time: area × directions ÷ that pass’s production rate. Add the passes together for the job’s operator-hours, multiply by your labour rate, add the densifier, guard and tooling the job consumes, and you have a direct cost. Machines change the schedule, not the labour bill. Overhead and margin go on top afterwards.
Why a coverage rate cannot price this job
Every coating calculator on this site works the same way underneath: material divided by a coverage rate, plus labour. Polished concrete breaks that model, because there is no material being spread. The floor is the concrete you already have, and what the client is buying is the refinement of it. Strip the job back and almost all of the cost is one thing: the hours a machine and an operator spend crossing the floor.
Those hours are not a single number, either. A polished floor is a sequence of passes, each at a different diamond grit, and each grit moves at its own speed. A 40 grit metal cut is the slowest thing you will do all week. An 800 grit resin polish covers nearly twice the ground per hour. Averaging them into one rate throws away the only structure the job has.
The arithmetic, one pass at a time
For each pass: hours = area × directions ÷ production rate. Directions is 1 for a single-direction pass and 2 where you cross-hatch, running the machine again at 90° to the first cut. Add every pass together and that total is the job’s operator-hours. Nothing else in the estimate matters as much as those rates, which is why the calculator makes every one of them editable rather than fixing them.
Worked example: a Polished finish on 1,000 ft²
Medium aggregate exposure, one machine, one operator, at the rates the calculator seeds. Each metal grinding pass runs at 250 ft²/hr, each resin polishing pass at 450, the densifier at 1,500 and the guard at 1,200:
- 40 grit metal, 1,000 ÷ 250 = 4.0 hr
- 80 grit metal, 1,000 ÷ 250 = 4.0 hr
- 150 grit metal, 1,000 ÷ 250 = 4.0 hr
- Densifier, 1,000 ÷ 1,500 = 0.7 hr
- 100, 200, 400 and 800 grit resin, 1,000 ÷ 450 each = 8.9 hr across the four
- Guard, 1,000 ÷ 1,200 = 0.8 hr
That totals 22.4 operator-hours, which at 8 working hours a day is a 3 day job for one machine. At a fully-loaded labour rate of $55/hr the labour is about $1,231, or roughly $1.23/ft² before any materials, overhead or margin. Notice where the time actually sits: the three metal passes are 12 of the 22.4 hours. More than half the job happens before the floor starts to look like anything.
Price your own sequence
Pick a finish to load its pass sequence, then edit the production rate on every grit to match your machines and the slab.
Full tool sets the finish, every grit rate, cross-hatch, machines, crew and materials.
Open the live calculator →Machines change the schedule, crew changes the cost
These two inputs behave in opposite ways and it is worth being deliberate about both. Adding a second grinder halves the elapsed time on the floor, so the 3 day job becomes 2 days, but both operators are being paid across it: the operator-hours are essentially unchanged and so is the labour cost. Adding a person without adding a machine does the reverse. The floor still takes 22.4 hours to grind, and you are now paying two wages across those hours, so the cost climbs while the schedule does not move.
Neither is wrong. A second machine is how you hit a deadline or cut mobilisation days on a big floor; a helper is how you keep the machine cutting instead of stopping to empty a dust collector. Just price them for what they actually do.
What this number is not
The figure the calculator produces is a direct cost: hours at your rate, plus consumables. It deliberately stops there. It does not include mobilisation, your overheads, or any profit, because those are properties of your business rather than of the floor. Two contractors with identical production rates should reach the same direct cost and quite different prices.
The rest of the path is the same as any other job on this site: spread your fixed costs across the year’s quotes to get an honest overhead figure, then apply your target margin to reach the number you send the client.
Common mistakes
- Pricing polished concrete per square foot from a past job, when the past job was a different exposure or a different slab: the metal passes are where jobs diverge
- Leaving the densifier and guard passes out of the sequence because they feel like materials rather than labour
- Forgetting to switch the coarse passes to cross-hatch when you know you will run them both ways, which understates those passes by half
- Assuming a second grinder makes the job cheaper rather than shorter
- Quoting a sheen without agreeing an exposure, then absorbing the extra metal passes when the client expected more stone
Before you can price a sequence you have to choose one, and the choice has two independent axes: how the grit sequence works, from Grind & Seal to High-Gloss.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does putting a second person on the job make it cheaper?
No, and it is worth being clear about why, because machines and crew do different things to the number. A second grinder halves the time on site, so it halves the days, but both operators are still paid for the hours they work: the operator-hours barely move. A second person without a second machine is worse again. The floor still takes the same elapsed time to grind, and you are now paying two wages across it, so the labour cost roughly doubles while the schedule does not shorten at all. That can still be the right call when a helper keeps the machine cutting (managing hoses, emptying the dust collector, moving furniture), but price it as what it is: a decision that buys continuity, not speed.
Should the densifier and guard passes carry a production rate at all?
Yes. They are fast, not free. Spraying and spreading a densifier across a floor moves far quicker than grinding it (the calculator seeds around 1,500 ft²/hr for densifier and 1,200 ft²/hr for guard, against 250 ft²/hr for a metal grinding pass) but on a big floor that is still real hours that someone has to be paid for. Leaving them out is one of the more common ways a polished quote quietly loses money, because they look like materials rather than labour. Give them a rate, and let the sequence carry them.
How do I get from this direct cost to the price I actually quote?
The pass sequence gives you a direct cost: operator-hours at your labour rate, plus the densifier, guard and tooling wear the job consumes. That is the floor, not the price. On top of it goes a fair share of your overhead (insurance, vehicle, software, the time spent quoting) and then your target margin. Two contractors with identical production rates can correctly quote very different prices, because their overhead and their margin are different businesses. Work the direct cost out here, spread your overheads with the Fixed Cost Spreader, then set the sell price with the Profit Margin Calculator.
What happens to the hours if the slab is worse than it looked?
The risk sits almost entirely in the first metal pass. A 40 grit cut is the slowest pass in the sequence, it is the one doing the most work, and it is the one that gets repeated when the slab will not come flat or the exposure is not even. Adding one more metal pass to a 1,000 ft² floor at 250 ft²/hr adds four hours: about a fifth of a Polished job, from one decision made on site. This is the argument for looking at the slab before quoting a sequence, and for saying in writing which exposure the price assumes.
Can I skip the pass table and just enter the hours I know it takes?
Yes. There is an hours override, and if you have run the same finish on the same kind of slab twenty times, your own figure is better than any seeded rate. The pass table earns its place in two other situations: when you are pricing a finish or an exposure you do not run often, and when you have to defend the number to a client or a main contractor who wants to know what they are paying for. A sequence with hours against each grit is a much easier conversation than one total.