Step 7 of 10

Your tier formulas

This page is the recipe, not the price. Tell us how many balloons of each size go into 12 feet of each tier and how long that 12 feet takes to build. We turn that into your cost floor — you'll set your margin and your pay rate at the end, on Results.

Start here — the recipe

Count one real 12 ft build per tier. Small = 5", Mid = 11"–12", Large = 17"–18"+. Do it once and every price in this app follows from it. The numbers already loaded are what we advise for a standard four-tier ladder:

$ Classic — 80 mid balloons, 25 min per 12 ft.
$$ Moderate — 40 small, 78 mid, 30 min.
$$$ Premium — 48 small, 74 mid, 4 large, 35 min.
$$$$ Luxury Organic — 200 small, 72 mid, 8 large, 40 min.

Each step up adds balloons and minutes. If your counts don't climb in both, your ladder won't either.

These are loaded as defaults — overwrite them with your own formula. Every cell is editable: balloon counts per 12 ft (Small 5", Mid 11–12", Large 17–18"+) and your real build minutes. The three cost columns update as you type. "Restore advised recipe" puts the defaults back.

Tier	Material $/ft	Labor $/ft	Cost floor $/ft
$	$1.27	$3.29	$7.31
$$	$1.50	$3.96	$8.21
$$$	$1.68	$4.62	$9.05
$$$$	$2.83	$5.27	$10.85

Build time depends on who's building

These minutes assume a competent, consistent decorator. On step 1 you marked yourself as clean, consistent, professional, which usually runs around 100% of that pace — roughly 25 min per 12 ft of Classic instead of 25. Time one real install and type the truth in — guessed build times are the single biggest source of bad prices in this tool.

No prices on this page — on purpose

The cost floor pays materials, travel, fixed time and your install crew at $95/hr. It is what the job costs, never what you charge. On Results you'll raise your own hourly rate until the margin percentage looks right, and every tier price moves with it.