The AI pricing interview — Essentials

Setting your pricing is the single most important thing you'll do in BidCraft. Instead of a back-and-forth chat, Biddy now walks you through it right on your Pricing templates page (Settings → Pricing templates): it explains the plan once, then opens each setting and points a little bubble at it while you type your real numbers into the page. It takes about 5 minutes, and when you finish you're at about 60% tuned — enough to start sending real proposals.

[!steps] How to get started: Tap Set my pricing in Biddy's welcome tour, or tap the purple Pricing tuned ring at the top right of Pricing templates. Biddy takes you to the page and starts the walkthrough. You can also open Biddy and ask it to help with pricing.

What it captures

Biddy opens each setting in order. You fill in the actual fields, then tap Next on the bubble to move on.

• Day rate — Biddy opens the Day rate panel. Pick One rate, or a Rate per crew role (Lead, Journeyman, Helper) if you price by who's on the job. Either way it's an all-in number, with overhead and profit already inside it — not your raw crew cost.
• Margin goal — next Biddy opens the Margin goal panel. Overhead and profit add up to one goal Biddy checks your bids against. They're not surcharges stacked on top of your prices. Biddy also points you at the Tile tile (who buys the tile: you, or the client) and the Materials tile (your waste %, which applies to tile, thinset and grout only).
• Pricing rules — last, Biddy explains pricing rules: plain-English notes it follows on every bid ("client supplies the tile on most jobs", "20% waste on 24x48 and larger"). Add the big ones on the Pricing rules tile, and Biddy will suggest more when it spots a pattern in your proposals.

The Tile difficulty tables aren't part of the walkthrough. They come pre-filled; tune them whenever you like.

That's it. Your day rate already carries your market — there's no separate "region" question to answer. Each item moves the tuning meter forward.

The tuning meter

At the top right of Pricing templates you'll see a purple ring labeled "Pricing tuned." It starts empty. As you fill in pieces of your pricing it fills in. Essentials = ~60%. Finishing Advanced gets you to 100%.

[!tip] When you finish the walkthrough (and whenever the meter ticks up), a small toast pops up. Watch for it. If you make an edit and don't see the ring move, the change didn't land — tap Save in that panel, or ask Biddy what happened.

The ring stays pinned on Pricing templates even at 100% so you can revisit your numbers whenever the market shifts — tap it to walk through pricing again.

How the multiplier tables work

The three difficulty tables — tile size, tile material, pattern — live on the Tile difficulty tile on Pricing templates, pre-filled with industry-baseline defaults. They raise labor on tile-setting lines only, and a job only uses them when it records the tile size, material or pattern.

[!steps]

1. Tap the Tile difficulty tile to open its panel
2. Switch between Size, Material and Pattern. Each row is a category like "4x4 / Mosaic" or "Natural Stone", with a small drawn tile beside it
3. Edit the multiplier cells that don't match how you price, then tap Save in the panel

[!note] A multiplier of 1.0 means baseline labor. 1.4 means 40% more labor than baseline. 0.85 means 15% less. The defaults are reasonable starting points — the goal is to bend them to match your actual experience.

When you're done with Essentials

Biddy will tell you you've finished the Essentials phase. Two buttons appear:

• Keep going (Advanced) — rolls straight into Phase 2, which is structured as three Stops: Stop 1 (your favorite products by role), Stop 2 (structured pricing rules — niches, demo tiering, supply policy, floor prep), and Stop 3 (a full template walkthrough). About 20-30 minutes total, but each Stop stands on its own — finish whichever you have time for.
• Save and head back — drops you on the dashboard at 60% tuned, ready to start projects

[!warning] 60% is enough to send real proposals, but you'll get warnings on edge cases until you finish Advanced. If you skip Advanced and notice the AI keeps guessing low on material costs or demo time, those are the missing pieces.

Next steps

If you're feeling momentum, keep going with The AI pricing interview — Advanced. If not, head back to the dashboard, create a real project, and come back to Advanced when you hit your first weird proposal. Biddy will be waiting.