Tilt-up
No survey breaks tilt-up out on its own, so there's no margin figure to publish and this page doesn't invent one. What it has is 4 mechanisms that cost tilt-up contractors money, and the step that fixes each.
CFMA reports at NAICS level, and tilt-up rolls into 238110 Poured Concrete 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 tilt-up would mean making it up. The nearest published context is the concrete and masonry group, which runs 21% to 23% gross margin and 7% to 8% net profit at $1M–$5M.
4 problems specific to tilt-up
You pour the building's floor slab and then beat it up for weeks as a casting bed. The crane is booked for the 14th and the cylinder breaks decide whether you can use it. The building is three years old and water is coming through a joint. You know your price per square foot of panel cold.
Each one below points at the item, the unit, the clock, or the party that makes it a tilt-up problem, and it says which step fixes it.
| Mechanism | Why it's specific to this trade | Step |
|---|---|---|
| You bid the floor slab once and build on it twice | Most trades damage somebody else's substrate and get back-charged for it. Tilt-up is the one trade whose deliverable is also its work platform, so the contractor signs for both conditions and only gets paid for one. The estimator prices a slab while the field builds a factory on it, and the difference between those two things is a job nobody wrote a scope for. | Job cost structure |
| The longest lead item is a date on a crane calendar | For most subs the long lead item is a product, and a product can be expedited, substituted, or air-freighted. Here the long lead item is somebody else's iron on somebody else's schedule. What has to be ready on that date is concrete strength, which answers to weather and to a break result, so you're matching a fixed calendar slot to a curve you don't fully control. | Equipment cost basis |
| Panel joints leak years after you booked the profit | Callbacks usually go to whoever installed the failing part. Here the failing part is the seam between two pieces you cast and set, so the panel contractor gets the first call no matter which sub bought the caulk. The gross profit on that job was recognized three fiscal years ago, and nothing was held back against a joint that was always going to age out. | Standards and accountability |
| Nothing you buy for a panel comes in square feet | A trade that buys and sells in the same unit closes its own loop by accident, because the hours that go in are the hours that come back out. Tilt-up sells in one unit and buys in seven, so the loop only closes if the job setup carries panel count and panel square feet as quantities every code can divide by. Skip that and your history is a pile of invoices in mismatched units. | Software and bookkeeping alignment |
Other concrete and masonry trades
What owners ask
What gross margin should a tilt-up contractor run?
Tilt-up 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 238110 Poured Concrete, which mixes it with several others. The concrete and masonry trades that are published run 21% to 23% 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 tilt-up is in neither. The mechanisms below are what this trade loses money on, and those don't depend on a survey.
What costs a tilt-up contractor the most money?
You bid the floor slab once and build on it twice. You pour the building's floor slab and then beat it up for weeks as a casting bed. The repair pass was never in the number, so you fix it on your own dime. That's one of 4 on this page, and 1 of the 4 resolve to step 01, job cost structure.
Which steps does tilt-up keep landing on?
step 01 job cost structure on 1 of them, step 02 equipment cost basis on 1 of them, step 08 standards and accountability on 1 of them, step 05 software and bookkeeping alignment 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 tilt-up 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 concrete and masonry 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 tilt-up 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.