Pricer is where GovDash teams build the price for a bid: labor categories, basis of estimate, line items, and year-by-year totals, all in one workbook.
Pricer now models your full indirect rate structure. Set up your rates, group them into cost pools, and Pricer calculates a fully burdened wrap rate for every labor category from the same math that builds your price.
Most contractors don't run on one wrap. Prime labor carries one set of rates, field staff another, subcontractors a third. Cost pools let you model each of those structures in a single workbook, so every labor category gets burdened the way your accounting system burdens it.
Here's what's available in Pricer today:
- Indirect rates you define: Fringe, Overhead, G&A, FCCM, B&P/IR&D, material and subcontract handling, site and field overhead, or any custom rate
- Multiple rate pools per workbook, such as prime, subcontractor, site, and field, with a blended wrap across all of them
- Seven built-in allocation bases, plus custom bases your admin creates
- Three G&A elections: Total Cost Input, Value Added, and Labor Only
- Fee overrides by cost element
- Team rate templates and Excel exports that show the full cascade
What is a wrap rate?
A wrap rate is the multiplier that turns a direct labor rate into a fully burdened rate. It stacks each indirect cost on top of direct labor, then adds fee.
In Pricer, every wrap follows one cost waterfall:
Direct labor → Fringe → Overhead → Non-labor handling → G&A → Fee/profit
That same waterfall produces your dollar totals, so the wrap rate and the price always reconcile. Pricer stacks rates multiplicatively by default, with each rate applied to the running total. You can switch to additive stacking if that's how your rates are built.
Pricer shows the full anatomy of every wrap: the allocation base, the rate percentage, cumulative dollars and multiplier at each step, and the exact formula behind each number.
Rate pools and allocation bases
Rate pools are named sets of indirect rates, such as prime, subcontractor, site, or field. Each pool has its own wrap. Assign each labor category to a pool, and any category you don't assign falls back to the default pool. Pricer then calculates a blended wrap across all pools, weighted by labor dollars.
Allocation bases define what each rate applies to. Pricer includes seven: Direct Labor, Direct Labor + Fringe, Total Cost Input, Materials, Subcontracts, Travel, and ODCs. Team admins can build custom bases, like Direct Labor + Subcontracts, to match how your accounting system allocates costs. Bases can be labor-only, non-labor-only, or a mix of both.
Why we built this
Indirect rates usually live in a spreadsheet that finance maintains. Pricers copy them into every bid workbook, rebuild the formulas, and hope nothing broke along the way. One wrong cell carries through every labor category and every option year. When a reviewer asks how you got a rate, the answer means tracing formulas across tabs.
A single wrap also doesn't fit how most contractors are set up. On-site and off-site staff carry different overhead. Subcontract dollars need their own handling. Materials and travel may or may not carry G&A, depending on your election.
As more federal work moves to fixed-price, a rate error comes straight out of your margin. We built Wrap Rates & Cost Pools so your rate structure lives in Pricer, matches your accounting, and every number traces back to its inputs.
What you can do with it
Pricing and cost analysts: Build your rate structure once and apply it to every workbook. Convert between salary and hourly rate with your own hours per FTE. Enter a burdened rate from a sub quote or a benchmark, and Pricer back-solves the direct rate and salary. For labor that shouldn't run through the waterfall, enter a manual fully burdened rate and it stays fee-inclusive as entered.
Capture and price-to-win: Change a rate or the fee and see the effect before you save. Pricer shows the price impact of each +1 rate point and updates your year-by-year totals live. Model a teaming partner's labor in its own rate pool so their structure stays separate from yours.
Contracts and finance: Set fee at the workbook level, or override it separately for labor, materials, subcontracts, travel, and ODCs. Pricer flags when subcontract dollars pass 70% of total cost, the threshold for FAR 52.215-23 pass-through requirements. Export to Excel with rate inputs, allocation bases, per-pool wraps, the full cascade, labor buildup, period rollups, and reconciliation checks, so the price you hand over shows its work.
Templates keep every bid consistent
Save your approved rates as a team template, set it as the default, and apply it to any rate pool in any workbook. Your team starts every bid from the same numbers finance signed off on.
If someone edits rates in a workbook, Pricer flags that it has drifted from the template and shows which rates differ.
The same pricing math runs through Labor, BOE, line items, overview totals, and period and year rollups. Change a rate in one place and every view updates.
You stay in control
Your rates are some of the most sensitive numbers your company has. Team pricing settings let you hide proprietary rate and wrap values from users, and Pricer keeps calculating with them. Only users with Pricer settings permission can manage cost pools.
Pricer also guards against the mistakes that break a price:
- Built-in allocation bases can't be edited, and custom bases can't be deleted while a rate uses them.
- When an admin changes a custom base, every affected workbook and labor item updates to match.
- Pool names can't repeat, and you can't delete a pool that still holds labor or a workbook's last remaining pool.
- When the same G&A or mixed rate appears in more than one pool, Pricer burdens non-labor costs only once.
With Wrap Rates & Cost Pools, Pricer builds your price the way your accounting system does, with every rate, pool, and formula in view.
Book a demo to see how GovDash prices fixed-price and cost-type bids on one platform.
FAQs
Should I use multiplicative or additive stacking?
Use whichever matches how your rates are built in your accounting system. Multiplicative is the more common approach, so it's the default. In a multiplicative waterfall, each rate applies to the running total. In additive stacking, each rate applies to the base on its own and the results are added together.
What's the difference between the three G&A elections?
Total Cost Input (TCI) applies G&A to all non-labor costs. Value Added applies it to travel and ODCs but not to materials or subcontracts. Labor Only applies it to labor alone. Pick the one that matches your disclosed accounting practice, and Pricer burdens each cost element to match.
Can I model subcontractor and teaming partner rates?
Yes. Give each partner its own rate pool and assign their labor categories to it. Their labor carries its own wrap, and subcontract costs pick up your handling rate. Dedicated subcontractor and teaming partner management is not part of this release.
Can I keep our rates private from some users?
Yes. Team pricing settings hide proprietary rate and wrap values from users while Pricer keeps calculating with them. Prices and totals stay accurate for everyone.