Draw Schedule for a $175,000 Job
Each progress draw
$35,000.00
10% deposit at signing, four equal progress draws, 10% final payment at completion, no retainage held.
When the figures look right, the payment schedule downloads as a real PDF with your business details on it, built inside your own browser. Nothing you type is uploaded anywhere.
How that number is worked out
These are the figures this page was built with and every line the calculator produces from them. Change anything above and all of it moves.
- Contract amount175000 $
- Deposit at signing10 %
- Number of progress draws after the deposit4
- Final payment at completion10 %
- Retainage held from each draw0 %
Each progress draw$35,000.00
| Deposit at signing | $17,500.0010% |
|---|---|
| Draw 1 | $35,000.00cumulative $52,500.00, 30% of contract |
| Draw 2 | $35,000.00cumulative $87,500.00, 50% of contract |
| Draw 3 | $35,000.00cumulative $122,500.00, 70% of contract |
| Draw 4 | $35,000.00cumulative $157,500.00, 90% of contract |
| Final payment at completion | $17,500.0010% |
The draw schedule this produces
| Deposit at signing | 1 |
|---|---|
| Progress draw 1 | 1 |
| Progress draw 2 | 1 |
| Progress draw 3 | 1 |
| Progress draw 4 | 1 |
| Final payment at completion | 1 |
Number of progress draws compared
More draws means smaller amounts more often, which is usually easier to collect and always easier to survive.
| Number of progress draws | Each progress draw |
|---|---|
| 2 draws | $70,000.00 |
| 3 draws | $46,666.67 |
| 4 draws | $35,000.00 |
| 5 draws | $28,000.00 |
| 6 draws | $23,333.33 |
What else matters here
Seventeen thousand five hundred at signing, four draws of $35,000 and $17,500 at completion. Six draws brings each one to $23,333.33.
This is the size where a list of milestones starts to strain and a schedule of values takes over. Instead of four events, the contract value is broken into line items, each with a dollar amount, and every application bills a percentage against each line. The advantage is that a job which is 40 percent framed and 10 percent finished can be billed accurately, which a four milestone schedule cannot do.
Build the list so it works for you rather than against you. Keep it short enough to report on honestly, ten to twenty lines on a job this size rather than eighty, and make sure every line is something whose percent complete both sides would guess the same way. General conditions, supervision and mobilization should be their own lines so they can be billed as they are incurred, and no line should be so large that a disagreement about it holds up the whole application.
What this calculator assumes
- Several states cap the deposit a residential contractor may take, some at 10 percent and some at a flat dollar figure. Check your own state before you write a bigger number here.
- Draws should follow milestones you can point at, not dates. "On completion of rough in inspection" is collectable. "On 15 October" is an argument.
- A final payment under 10 percent gives the customer no reason to sign off, and one over 20 leaves you funding their job.
Questions people ask
What is a normal draw schedule for a $175,000 job?
A 10 percent deposit of $17,500, four progress draws of $35,000 each, and a $17,500 final payment. Above about $150,000 many contracts move from fixed milestones to a schedule of values billed by percent complete.
What is a schedule of values?
A breakdown of the contract into line items with a dollar value each, billed by percent complete on every application. It replaces fixed milestones once a job is big enough that no single milestone describes where the work actually is.
Should draws be on dates or on milestones?
Milestones you can point at. On completion of rough in inspection is collectable because either the inspection happened or it did not. On 15 October is an argument, because the customer will say the work is not where it should be and they will sometimes be right.
The payment schedule calculator takes any dimensions you like and hands back the same list.