How to Bid Sealcoating Jobs
Five steps from an address to a bid that holds its margin: measure, inspect, take off the material, price it, present it. Worked all the way through on a real-size lot.
Measure the pavement before you drive out
Every number in a sealcoating bid hangs off the square footage: the gallons, the crew hours, the price. So the area is the one input that has to be right, and the one most bids guess. The customer's figure comes from a listing or a memory. Pacing a lot undercounts the aisles. A wheel takes an hour and still misses the curved end.
Trace it on satellite imagery instead. In SurfaceMeasure you search the address, click around the asphalt edge, and draw the islands and planters as cutouts so they come out of the sealed area. The result lands within 1–3% of a wheel measurement and takes under ten minutes for a mid-size lot. You have the area before the site visit, which turns the visit into a condition check instead of a measuring trip.
Measure sections separately when they will be priced or scheduled separately: the main field, the drive aisles to the street, a rear service lane, a loading pad. A bid that shows the customer which part of the lot costs what wins more often than one number.
Inspect the condition, with a wheel and a count
The satellite gives you the area. The site visit gives you everything the area cannot: how thirsty the pavement is and what has to happen before the first coat goes down. Six things to bring home.
Cracks, in linear feet
Walk every crack wider than a quarter inch with a wheel and log the footage. It is the second-largest line on most lots and the one customers question, so the number has to be yours.
Surface condition
Grey, oxidized pavement with exposed aggregate drinks a quarter more sealer than a lot sealed two years ago. Note it now; it changes the coverage you take off in step 3.
Oil spots and failures
Count oil spots for primer. Flag alligatored areas and potholes as repairs or exclusions. Sealer over a failed base is a callback, not a job.
Access and schedule
Can the lot close for a day, or does it seal in two phases to stay open? Where does the crew stage? Is there a water source? Each answer is a line or a rate.
Existing striping
Count stalls, ADA stalls, arrows, stop bars and fire lane. If the layout stays, it is a restripe. If it changes, it is a new layout at a higher rate.
Drainage and edges
Standing water means sealer that will not cure. Grass grown over the edge means edging time. Both are ten minutes to notice and an hour to discover on the day.
Take off the material
Material is the floor under the bid, and on sealcoating it is a high floor: sealer alone is $0.10-$0.14 per square foot at drum prices. Take it off properly and you know the lowest number you can write before you think about labor.
Mixed sealer
area × coats ÷ coverage
80-120 sq ft per gal per coat
Concentrate
mixed ÷ 1.35
30-40 gallons of water per 100 gal
Sand
3-5 lb per gal of concentrate
300-500 lb of sand per 100 gal
Crack sealant
linear feet × width and depth
about 1 lb per 3-4 ft of a half-inch crack
Paint
stalls × line feet ÷ 320
about 20 lin ft of 4-inch line per stall
Use the coverage for the condition you saw in step 2, not the one on the pail. Then price the concentrate at what you will pay for this job: $8.50-$9.75 per gallon by the drum, less in a bulk tote. The sealcoating cost calculator runs the sealer takeoff from square feet, coats and condition in one pass.
Price it twice: by the rate, then by the costs
The first pass is the market pass. Sealcoat is area × your rate: residential driveways at $0.30-$0.60 per square foot with a $200-$350 minimum, lots at $0.20-$0.35 under 10,000 sq ft, $0.17-$0.30 to 50,000, and $0.12-$0.22 beyond. Then the add-ons on their own lines: crack sealing at $1.00-$2.00 per linear foot, oil-spot primer at $3-$5 per spot, restriping at $5-$10 per stall plus $40-$100 per ADA symbol.
The second pass is the one that keeps you in business. Add up what the job costs you: sealer, sand, crack sealant and paint from step 3; loaded labor hours for prep, crack work, two coats and striping; a day rate for the rig, fuel and disposal. Add your overhead and the profit you need. If the market-pass total does not clear that number, something in the first pass is wrong for this job. Usually it is the sealer price or the hours, and usually the fix is a bulk tote or a higher rate, not a thinner margin.
Two rules that survive every lot. Never sealcoat a driveway below your minimum, because the hour of setup is the same on 500 square feet as on 5,000. And never bid a large lot on drum-priced sealer; the whole large-lot rate assumes bulk material.
Present a bid the customer can read
The lowest bid does not win most commercial sealcoating work. The clearest one does, because the property manager has to defend it to someone else. Six things on the page.
- 1Scope by line: sealcoat with area and coats, crack sealing with footage, primer, striping with the stall and symbol count.
- 2Product named: coal tar or asphalt emulsion, sand loaded, two coats, with the manufacturer if the customer cares.
- 3Prep spelled out: blow and edge, crack clean and fill, oil spots primed, and what you are not fixing.
- 4Schedule with the weather clause: above 50°F and rising, a dry surface, 24 hours before traffic, dates move with the forecast.
- 5Exclusions: base failures, potholes, drainage, and anything under a parked car on the day.
- 6Terms: deposit, payment on completion, and a 30-day validity.
A satellite image of the lot with the traced sections on it, attached to the bid, does more for trust than any paragraph. It shows the customer you measured their property, not a typical one.
Worked Example: A 65-Stall Church Lot
Sealed six years ago, moderate cracking, eight oil spots, layout unchanged, lot can close on a Saturday. Measured from satellite at 24,000 sq ft of pavement after the island came out.
The bid
$0.31 per square foot all-in. Mobilization is inside the sealcoat rate because the crew is already there for the striping.
The cost check
After 15% overhead that is about $930 net. The same sealer from a bulk tote at $6.50 saves $890 and nearly doubles it. On a mid-size lot the sealer price is the margin.
Hours: a three-person crew, one Saturday for prep, crack work and two coats, then two people for a half day of striping once the sealer has cured. The striping math is on the parking lot striping cost page.
Six Ways a Sealcoating Bid Loses Money
None of these are rate problems. They are all things that happened before the rate was applied.
Bidding the customer's square footage
Their number is the lot size, the last contractor's guess, or a memory. Measure it yourself before a gallon is ordered. A 10% area miss on a 24,000 sq ft lot is 36 gallons of concentrate.
Folding crack fill into the rate
The one line that varies most between lots disappears into the number that varies least. Keep it separate, in linear feet, at your price.
Coverage from the pail
Manufacturer coverage assumes typical pavement. An oxidized lot takes a quarter more sealer. Take it off at the coverage you saw, not the one printed on the drum.
Sealer at drum prices on a big lot
Large-lot rates assume bulk material. Bid 50,000 sq ft on drum-priced sealer and the material alone eats the rate.
No weather clause
One cold snap and you are either sealing below 50°F or explaining a two-week delay. The clause costs a sentence.
A one-number bid
Property managers have to justify the spend to an owner or a board. A bid with lines, footage and a traced image gets forwarded. A single number gets shopped.
Sealcoating Bid Questions
Rates, crack fill, margins and what to write on the bid.
Measure the paved area, inspect the condition, take off the material, price it, and present it. Sealer is area × coats ÷ coverage, with mixed sealer covering about 80-120 sq ft per gallon per coat. Crack filler is by the linear foot. The sealcoat line is area × your rate, and crack sealing, oil-spot primer and striping go on their own lines. Then check the total against your real costs before it goes out.
Present it by the square foot, because that is how customers compare bids, and check it by the hour before it goes out. Area × rate is the market pass; sealer, crack sealant, paint, crew hours, rig and overhead are the cost pass. When the two disagree, the hourly view is the honest one: it is telling you the rate is wrong for this lot, or the sealer needs to come in bulk. The 2026 rate ranges by job type are on the sealcoating cost per square foot page.
Put it on its own line at $1.00-$2.00 per linear foot. Cracking varies more between lots than anything else about them, a folded-in rate makes a well-kept lot pay for a neglected one, and a separate line lets the customer see exactly what they are buying. It also protects you when the walk-through finds twice the cracking the photos showed.
Trace the pavement on satellite imagery. SurfaceMeasure gives you the paved area within 1–3% of a wheel measurement, lets you draw islands and planters as cutouts, and puts the area under your rate immediately. Do it before you drive out, and the site visit becomes a fifteen-minute condition check with the number already in hand.
Work it from costs, not from a rule of thumb. Add sealer, sand, crack sealant, paint, loaded labor hours and a day rate for the rig and fuel, then add overhead and the profit you need. If rate × area does not clear that number, the rate is wrong for that job or the job is wrong for you. Most contractors find drum-priced sealer is what squeezes the margin, and a bulk tote is the fix.
Thirty days is typical, with the weather caveat written in: sealer needs 50°F and rising, a dry surface, and 24 hours before traffic. Say on the bid that the schedule moves with the forecast. That sentence avoids most of the calls you would otherwise get in October.
Sealcoating Guides and Tools
The calculator, the rate, and the striping line.
Measure the Next Lot Before You Drive to It
Trace the pavement on satellite, set your rate once, and send a branded quote with the traced image on it. 3 free measurements, no card required.