🔥 Weld Job Quote Calculator
A welder is not welding for most of the shift, and all of it is paid. This turns a joint into arc hours, and arc hours into the hours the job actually occupies — from one timed run in your own shop.
Two gaps between the pounds and the price
The tools on this site sit in a line. The amperage calculator sets the current. The filler metal calculator turns the joint into pounds of deposited metal. The welding cost calculator prices the job. Between the pounds and the price sit two numbers, and the cost calculator asks you for both of them directly.
The first is the deposition rate, which turns pounds into arc hours. The second is the operating factor, which turns arc hours into clocked hours — and it is the expensive one, because the labour line is usually the biggest number in the quote. A welder spends a large part of the day not welding: fitting, tacking, positioning, changing consumables, chipping, grinding, and waiting for the part to be moved. Every one of those minutes is paid.
The cost calculator keeps arc time and labour time as separate fields, so it can express the difference — but it never names the ratio between them, and two time fields invite the same number in both. That one habit bills the job for the welding and absorbs everything around it, which is the difference between a shop that makes money on fabrication and one that is busy.
Neither number needs to come from a chart. One timed run gives you both, and they will be yours rather than an average of shops that do different work with different people on different parts.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
What is an operating factor and why does it decide the quote?
It is arc time divided by clocked time — the share of a paid hour in which the arc is actually burning. The rest is fit-up, tacking, positioning, changing a spool, chipping slag, grinding, moving the part, and waiting. All of it is paid and none of it deposits metal. Because the labour line is usually the largest single cost in a fabrication quote, the operating factor is the multiplier that decides whether the job makes money. Quote the labour at arc time and you have billed for the welding while absorbing everything around it.
The welding cost calculator already has a labour time field. What is different here?
That field is there and it works; the problem is that nothing tells you what to put in it. The cost calculator asks for arc time and labour time as two separate inputs, and the natural thing to do with two time fields is to put the same figure in both — which bills the entire job at arc-on time. This page derives both from one measured run, so the two figures are related by your own operating factor rather than by a guess, and it shows you what the mistake would have cost on this specific job.
Why does it want a timed run instead of just using published rates?
Because published deposition rates and published operating factors describe someone else's shop. Yours depend on your machine, your wire, your fit-up, your parts, your crane, and your people, and they are measurable in about five minutes: weld for a measured stretch of clock, note how much of it the arc was on, and weigh what you went through. That single run gives both numbers. A figure you measured is worth more than a figure from a chart, and it is the difference between a quote built on your shop and one built on an average.
How does the consumable I weigh become a deposition rate?
What you weigh off the reel is what you bought; what ends up in the joint is less, because of stub loss, spatter and slag. The gap is the deposition efficiency, and this page uses the same figures the filler metal calculator on this site already uses — so the rate here cannot disagree with the filler weight on that page. Weigh the consumable, divide by the arc hours in the run, and multiply by that efficiency, and you have pounds of metal actually deposited per hour of arc.
Is a faster process always the cheaper one?
No, and that is the most useful thing this page shows. A process that lays metal quickly can be fiddlier to set up, and it is the clocked time that the labour line is built on rather than the arc time. A high deposition rate paired with a poor operating factor can lose to a slower process that runs more continuously. That trade cannot be settled by comparing deposition rates alone, which is why comparing processes here requires a measured run for each one — comparing your measured MIG against someone else's published stick figure is not a comparison at all.
Does this cover everything in a fabrication quote?
No. It covers the arc: consumable, gas, power and the welding labour the job occupies. It does not cover material, cutting and preparation, fixturing, handling, inspection, finishing, overhead, or margin — and it certainly does not cover procedure qualification or engineering. It is a floor for the welding portion, built on your own measured rates rather than a chart. Treat everything else in the quote as work this page has not done for you.