How the Price Check is measured

230 lettings and 1,953 distinct bids in all, bid years 2003–2026. The bid column adds up to 1,989: where one pay item is read by two evidence pools, its bids count in both. Individual tabulations are not linked (section 11).

Printed description

Each published rate is matched to public pay items on the item’s printed description, so it is compared with pay items for the same work.

One unit

Prices and quantities are expressed in the book’s unit for each item (SF, CY, LF, EA and LB), so every bid is read per the same measure as the rate.

Enough lettings

A rate is compared only when its pay items appear on at least 3 lettings. Rates with less public evidence are left out rather than estimated; 40 rates across 18 book items clear the bar.

Marine structures

Pay items on marine structures are excluded from every pool.

Complete tabulations

Tabulations that don’t list every bidder’s prices are excluded, so a field is never just the winning bids.

New England first

Pools draw on New England agencies. National agencies are added only when New England has fewer than 3 lettings for the work; 3 of 21 pools needed them (section 12).

1. 01 · Dollars

   To 2026 dollars

   Each bid is moved to 2026 dollars with a construction price index measured from public bid results, so an older bid is read at current prices.

2. 02 · Quantity

   To a typical ESC job

   Unit prices shift with the quantity bid, so each bid moves along a quantity-scale curve from its pay line’s printed quantity to the pool’s reference quantity: a typical ESC job size, listed per pool in section 12. 20 of 21 pools are restated this way; Pile / anchor load test program is compared as bid.

3. 03 · Diameter

   Along a fitted curve

   Items priced by diameter form size families, fitted across 12–54 in.: price at s = price at d × (s ÷ d)^b. Each bid keeps its printed diameter and is read at a rate’s size.

   • Drilled shaft / caisson excavation in soil, by diameterb = 0.9018 in. price × 2.14 at 42 in.
   • Rock socket, by diameterb = 0.8318 in. price × 2.02 at 42 in.
   • Complete drilled shaft in soil (excavation, cage & concrete), by diameterb = 1.1318 in. price × 2.60 at 42 in.
   • Obstruction drilling, per LF by diameterb = 0.9818 in. price × 2.30 at 42 in.

Letting

One public contract opening: the bids an agency received for one contract.

Pay line

One pay item on one letting, as the agency printed it, with each bidder’s unit price for it.

Public bid

One bidder’s unit price on one pay line.

Evidence pool

Every public bid on the pay items matched to a published rate or a family of sizes, restated to one basis. A pool can serve several rates: 40 rates read 21 pools.

Weighted quantiles

p10, p25, median, p75 and p90. Sort a pool’s bids by price and place each bid at the midpoint of its slice of the total weight; the q-quantile interpolates linearly between the bids either side of q, and never goes below the lowest bid or above the highest.

Median public bid

The weighted p50 of the pool.

Middle half · middle 80%

p25 to p75 · p10 to p90.

Typical low bid

The weighted median, over the pool’s pay lines, of each line’s lowest bid.

ESC as carried

ESC published typical × 1.1, as a general contractor carries it (section 09).

Position

ESC as carried ÷ median public bid − 1. Negative is under the median.

Share of bids above ESC

The weighted share of the pool’s bids priced above ESC as carried.

Lines where even the low bid was above ESC

The count of pay lines whose lowest bid is above ESC as carried, out of all the pool’s pay lines.

Rates under the median

Rates with a position below zero: 33 of 40, and 27 of the 32 with strong evidence. 7 rates sit over the median.

Median position

The median, across all 40 rates, of each rate’s position: −22.8%. The median share of bids above ESC, taken the same way, is 61%.

• 8+ lettings

  Strong

  32

  rates; 27 of them sit under the median bid.

• 3–7 lettings

  Moderate

  8

  rates; 6 of them sit under the median bid. Read these as a direction, not a verdict.

• Under 3 lettings

  Not published

  —

  No comparison is shown. The rate stays in the price book, unbenchmarked.

An item whose rates carry different grades is marked mixed: 1 of 18 items.

Not a quote or a guarantee

ESC’s published rates are budget figures, and this places them in a public field. A firm price comes from your drawings, within 3 business days.

Not one job’s price

Public unit prices move with site, access and quantity, and some bidders unbalance line items, loading one pay item and lightening another. A single public price can sit far from the middle of the field, which is why the comparison reads the field.

Not private work

The field is public work, priced under agency specifications, prevailing wages, bonds and testing requirements. Private jobs can price differently.

Not the whole job

Mobilization, bonds and ground-condition adders are separate items in ESC’s price book and sit outside the per-unit comparison. Public bidders sometimes fold such items into their unit prices, one more reason to read the field rather than a single bid.

Not a verdict on any firm

The field is aggregated and anonymous. Nothing here rates, ranks or names another bidder.

Not exact

The price index, quantity-scale curve and diameter curves are estimates fitted to public data, and moderate-evidence rates rest on few lettings.

The table scrolls sideways.

• bid-benchmarks.csv

  40 rows · 25 columns

  Every compared rate: ESC’s published low, typical, high and carried rate, the weighted field of public bids, ESC’s position in it and the evidence behind it.

  25 columns

  key

  Row key: the price book item ID, then the size or variant after “|”

  item_id

  Price book item ID

  item

  Item name as the price book prints it

  label

  Size or variant; blank for an item’s own row

  unit

  Unit of every price in the row

  esc_low

  ESC’s published low

  esc_typical

  ESC’s published typical

  esc_high

  ESC’s published high

  esc_carried

  ESC’s typical × 1.1, as a general contractor carries it: the rate every comparison uses

  p10

  Weighted 10th-percentile public bid

  p25

  Weighted 25th-percentile public bid

  median

  Weighted median public bid

  p75

  Weighted 75th-percentile public bid

  p90

  Weighted 90th-percentile public bid

  low_bid

  Typical low bid: the weighted median of each pay line’s lowest bid

  vs_median

  esc_carried ÷ median − 1; negative is under the median

  share_above

  Weighted share of public bids above esc_carried, from 0 to 1

  lines_below_low

  Pay lines whose lowest bid is above esc_carried

  lines

  Pay lines in the pool

  bids

  Public bids in the pool

  lettings

  Lettings in the pool

  evidence

  “strong” (8+ lettings) or “moderate” (3–7)

  year_min

  Earliest bid year in the pool

  year_max

  Latest bid year in the pool

  agencies

  Agency code:lettings pairs, most lettings first, separated by semicolons

  Download bid-benchmarks.csv

• public-bids.csv

  1,989 rows · 10 columns

  Every public bid behind the comparison, pool by pool, restated to 2026 dollars at its own printed diameter, with its agency, year and place on its pay line.

  10 columns

  pool

  Evidence pool ID, as listed in the pool table

  item_id

  Price book item ID the pool is matched to

  unit

  Unit of the price

  price_2026

  The bid’s unit price in 2026 dollars, restated to the pool’s reference quantity where it has one, at the pay line’s own diameter

  bid_year

  Year of the letting

  agency

  Agency code, as listed in the sources table

  rank_on_line

  1 is the lowest price on its pay line; ties share the lower rank

  bidders_on_line

  Bidders priced on the pay line

  diameter_in

  Diameter printed on the pay line, in inches; blank when none is printed

  line_quantity

  The pay line’s printed quantity in the book’s unit, before restatement; blank when none

  Download public-bids.csv

• bid-benchmarks.json

  JSON · CC BY 4.0

  Basis, summary, agencies, items, rates and pool metadata, in the same envelope as the site’s other public JSON. The bids themselves are in the CSV.

  Open bid-benchmarks.json

Benchmarks built

September 14, 2026

Price book

Rev 1, issued Sep 14, 2026

Valid through

December 13, 2026

Found a number that looks wrong? Tell us the rate and what you believe it should be, and we will check it against the data. Report a correction.