Door and hardware
No survey breaks door and hardware out on its own, so there's no margin figure to publish and this page doesn't invent one. What it has is 5 mechanisms that cost door and hardware contractors money, and the step that fixes each.
CFMA reports at NAICS level, and door and hardware rolls into 238350 Finish Carpentry along with several other trades. It isn't in the 48-trade master reference either. Every figure on this site traces to one of those two sources, so publishing a margin for door and hardware would mean making it up. The nearest published context is the interiors and finishes group, which runs 18% to 22% gross margin and 5% to 8% net profit at $1M–$5M.
5 problems specific to door and hardware
Welded hollow metal gets set during wall framing and takes the longest to buy of anything on your list. Nothing releases to the factory until the hardware schedule submittal comes back and the keying conference happens. Your material has no spot price. Frames go in at framing, doors hang after paint, and hardware goes on at punch.
Each one below points at the item, the unit, the clock, or the party that makes it a door and hardware problem, and it says which step fixes it.
| Mechanism | Why it's specific to this trade | Step |
|---|---|---|
| Your first frame is also your longest lead item | Frames are the first thing the building needs from you and the longest thing you can buy, at the same time. No other finish trade mobilises during wall framing, and no other finish trade has a first-trip item that must be released to a factory a quarter ahead. Miss the window and the GC frames the wall without you, which turns a welded frame into a knock-down retrofit and a return trip nobody priced. | Job cost structure |
| Two approval clocks stand between you and the factory | Both clocks belong to the design team and the owner, and neither starts the day you get the contract. A finish trade that buys stock material never needs an architect's stamp plus an owner's keying decision before anything can ship. Five weeks with the architect and an unscheduled keying conference compress your buyout window to whatever is left, while the price you signed keeps aging. | Project management |
| Manufacturer list letters reprice your bid three times | Copper has a public number a wire puller can watch and hedge against. Your cost moves when a manufacturer mails a letter, on their schedule, with a short window before the new list takes effect. Escalation language on a hard-bid finish package is almost never granted, so every dollar of movement between quote date and purchase order date sits on you. | Estimating system |
| One install line in the bid becomes three trips | The building's own sequence splits your scope, and no amount of scheduling collapses it back together. Holes drilled through frames for somebody else's anchors, paint on strikes, bent hinge preps, and clearances thrown off by a new floor build-up all surface on your last trip. A trade that installs and leaves never inherits three months of other people's traffic on its own material. | Project management |
| Your job cost hides which opening groups lost money | The unit you sell and the unit you buy are two different objects, and the spread between them is wider here than in any other finish scope. A board sub buys sheets and sells square footage, and those two reconcile on their own. A per-opening estimate against SKU-level POs on mixed multipliers only reconciles if the cost codes are built to hold opening groups. | Job cost structure |
Other interiors and finishes trades
What owners ask
What gross margin should a door and hardware contractor run?
Door and hardware isn't broken out in any published benchmark, so there's no honest figure to give you. CFMA reports at NAICS level and this trade rolls into 238350 Finish Carpentry, which mixes it with several others. The interiors and finishes trades that are published run 18% to 22% gross margin at $1M–$5M, and that band is the closest context available.
Why does this page have no benchmark table?
Because publishing a number nobody surveyed would be inventing it. Every figure on this site traces to CFMA or to the 48-trade master reference, and door and hardware is in neither. The mechanisms below are what this trade loses money on, and those don't depend on a survey.
What costs a door and hardware contractor the most money?
Your first frame is also your longest lead item. Welded hollow metal gets set during wall framing and takes the longest to buy of anything on your list. The money leaves months before there's a pay application to put it on. That's one of 5 on this page, and 2 of the 5 resolve to step 01, job cost structure.
Which steps does door and hardware keep landing on?
step 01 job cost structure on 2 of them, step 06 project management on 2 of them, step 04 estimating system on 1 of them. That distribution is the install order for this trade, because the step carrying the most mechanisms is the one holding the most money.
What should a door and hardware contractor use instead?
Work the mechanisms on this page first, since they're specific and actionable. For a rough sense of the economics, read the interiors and finishes group, which is the nearest published context. Your own job costing beats any industry average once step 01 is installed.
Everything on this page is something you can install yourself, andCONTROL is the order to do it in. If you would rather buy the finished result, SPM The Construction CFO does this work for door and hardware contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, run by the same author.
Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system these figures sit inside. More about the author.