The short version
Where Angi reports what homeowners paid, and Thumbtack reports what contractors quoted, CostPerProject reports what the project should cost — derived from federal labor data, state transportation department bid tabulations, manufacturer pricing, and trade-association industry surveys, then state-adjusted using cost-of-living indices published by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis.
No single source drives a CostPerProject price range. Every published number is triangulated across at least three independent inputs and validated against externally published benchmarks before going live on the site.
Data sources
1. Labor — US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
The largest single component of any home improvement project is labor. CostPerProject anchors its labor-cost ranges to the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program, which publishes annual mean and median wages by Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code at national and state level. The May 2025 OEWS release (published May 15, 2026) is the current authoritative source for the following occupations relevant to CostPerProject's ten calculators:
- Tree trimmers and pruners (SOC 37-3013): mean hourly $26.91, mean annual $55,970
- Landscaping and groundskeeping workers (SOC 37-3011): mean hourly $20.33
- Roofers (SOC 47-2181): median annual $55,440, median hourly $26.65
- Floor layers, except carpet, wood, and hard tiles (SOC 47-2042): median annual $56,460. This occupation covers 23,640 workers and excludes most of what our flooring calculator prices, so we weight it alongside carpet installers and tile setters rather than treating it as the sole labor input.
- Construction laborers (SOC 47-2061): median hourly $22.66, mean hourly $25.02
- Brickmasons and blockmasons (SOC 47-2021): median annual $62,120, median hourly $29.87
- Painters, construction and maintenance (SOC 47-2141): 225,190 workers, mean hourly $26.64
Reference: bls.gov/oes. CostPerProject also references the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW, NAICS 23 Construction) for state-level annual averages, and the BLS Producer Price Index (PPI) series for material cost trends — specifically PPI for Inputs to Single-Family Residential Construction (WPUIP2311101), which rose 9.2% from December 2023 to April 2026.
2. Materials — Producer Price Indices and Manufacturer Pricing
For materials, CostPerProject tracks BLS Producer Price Index series for individual categories: asphalt paving mixtures (PCU324121324121), concrete products (WPU133), softwood lumber (WPU0811), cold-rolled steel sheet (WPU101707), aluminum mill shapes (WPU102501), and clay building materials (PCU327120327120). PPI data is updated monthly by BLS.
Manufacturer retail pricing supplements PPI trend data with absolute price levels. For asphalt shingles, CostPerProject references GAF, Owens Corning, and CertainTeed published product catalogs and Home Depot/Lowe's retail shelf prices. For metal roofing, Western States Metal Roofing's published cost guide ($2.20–$5.00/sq ft material-only for 24-gauge standing seam). For pavers, Pavingstone Supply's public SKU pricing for Belgard, Mutual Materials, and Western Interlock product lines.
3. State Transportation Department Bid Tabulations
For asphalt paving specifically, CostPerProject cross-references homeowner-level pricing against state DOT contract bid data, which represents the deepest publicly auditable record of contracted material and labor costs. Active references include:
- Texas DOT Highway Cost Index (HCI) — HMAC unit bid prices — March 2026 12-month moving average: $112.09/ton; full-year 2025 average: ~$119/ton; base period (2012): $70.68/ton. TxDOT publishes a monthly HCI PDF with actual contractor unit bid prices per ton for Hot Mix Asphaltic Concrete back to 2012.
- Georgia DOT Asphalt Cement Price Index — May 2026: $687/ton
- Maryland Asphalt Association Price Index — May 2026: $800/ton
- Washington State DOT Asphalt Binder Reference — April 2026: $596–$615/ton
These indices anchor the upstream material cost component of our asphalt and driveway sealing calculators with monthly granularity.
A note on DOT data accessibility.Roughly twenty states publish bid tabulation data in some form, but the majority — including California (Caltrans), New York (NYSDOT), Florida (FDOT), Illinois (IDOT), Ohio (ODOT), Pennsylvania (PennDOT), North Carolina (NCDOT), New Jersey (NJDOT), Minnesota (MnDOT), and Washington (WSDOT) — serve their data through JavaScript-rendered Tableau dashboards, AASHTOWare licensed portals, Bid Express subscription services, or authentication-gated FTP. These are not machine-readable for ongoing primary-source citation. Texas DOT is the principal exception in the US: its Highway Cost Index PDF is publicly downloadable and contains the actual average unit bid price per ton with full historical depth. CostPerProject therefore weights TxDOT data heavily as our anchor state DOT source for asphalt paving, supplemented by the Maryland Asphalt Association and Georgia DOT public price indices. We cross-reference these against the BLS Producer Price Index series for asphalt paving mixtures (PCU324121324121) to confirm that the state-level actuals are directionally consistent with the national series.
4. National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)
For broader residential construction context, CostPerProject cites the NAHB's biennial Cost of Constructing a Homesurvey. The 2024 edition (published January 23, 2025) sampled NAHB builder members stratified by company size and census region, and reports an average single-family home construction cost of $428,215 ($162/sq ft) broken into eight construction stages. NAHB's Eye on Housing blog provides monthly cost and market trend updates that inform our forward-looking commentary.
5. Insurance Industry Replacement Cost Data
For roofing and storm-related repair pricing, CostPerProject references insurance industry data because insurers maintain the most granular per-region replacement cost databases in the US. The Verisk U.S. Roofing Realities Trend Report (April 2025) is used for directional context on storm-driven roofing demand. We previously cited specific spending and claim-severity figures here; they could not be traced to a public source on re-audit and have been removed rather than restated.
6. Industry Trade Association Data
For specific verticals CostPerProject references published trade-association research:
- Tree care: ISA Best Management Practices series and ANSI A300 standards; TCIA Benchmarking and Compensation Survey for industry wage and margin context.
- Roofing: NRCA Roofing Manual (2025/2026 editions) for installation standards and labor coefficient assumptions.
- Sod: NC State Extension 2026 Sod Producers Report (21 producers surveyed), UF/IFAS 2025 Florida Sod Inventory and Pricing Report (26 of 50 producers), and the UGA 2025 Georgia Sod Producers Inventory Survey.
- Pavers: Concrete Masonry and Hardscapes Association (CMHA, formed from the merger of ICPI and NCMA) 2025 Hardscape Production Report.
- Flooring: NWFA 2026 Industry Outlook; NAR/NARI 2022 Remodeling Impact Report for ROI data (147% cost recovery for hardwood refinishing, 118% for new install).
7. Cost-of-Living Indices for State Adjustment
State-level price variation is calibrated against three independently published indices:
- BEA Regional Price Parities (RPP) — the federal standard. 2024 data released February 19, 2026 by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis.
- C2ER Cost of Living Index — quarterly metro-level composite published by the Council for Community and Economic Research.
- BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) — state-level average construction-sector weekly wage.
8. Consumer Aggregator Data (Cross-Validation Only)
Where homeowner-reported project costs exist in publicly available aggregator databases (Angi/HomeAdvisor cost guides, Houzz & Home Study, Thumbtack platform data, HomeGuide, Fixr, LawnLove, This Old House), CostPerProject uses these to cross-validate the upper and lower bounds of its derived ranges — not as primary sources. When CostPerProject's triangulated estimate diverges from aggregator-reported figures by more than 15%, the range is reviewed before publication.
State multiplier methodology
CostPerProject applies a state-level cost multiplier ranging from 0.84x (Mississippi)to 1.35x (Hawaii) against national base rates. The multiplier reflects the blended effect of state-level labor costs, material logistics, regulatory and permitting overhead, cost-of-living differentials, and union density in the construction trades.
Validation against federal data:CostPerProject's multiplier range was validated against the 2024 BEA Regional Price Parities. BEA RPP's confirmed range across the 50 states and DC runs from 86.9 (Arkansas) to 110.7 (California), translating to multipliers of 0.869 to 1.107. 46 of 50 CostPerProject state multipliers fall within 15% of the BEA RPP equivalent.Two states deviate beyond that threshold:
- Hawaii (+22.7% vs BEA RPP):CostPerProject's 1.35 multiplier exceeds BEA RPP for general goods (1.10) because Hawaii's island logistics impose a meaningful materials premium above general goods inflation. The C2ER Cost of Living Index for Hawaii (1.79) supports the higher figure for construction inputs specifically.
- Alaska (+27.0% vs BEA RPP):our largest deviation. Alaska's 1.30 multiplier sits well above its all-items RPP because general-goods parity understates construction specifically: remote logistics, a short building season, and the highest construction wages in the country. We disclose this as the widest gap in the table rather than treating it as validated.
- New York (+15.8%) and Massachusetts (+15.4%): both sit just outside the 15% band. Metro weighting is the likely cause in each, but we have not established that independently, so both are flagged rather than justified.
What the multipliers actually correlate with
We tested our 50 state multipliers against two independent federal series and are publishing both results, including the one that is less flattering.
- BEA Regional Price Parities, all items, 2024: r = 0.934
- BLS OEWS mean hourly wage, construction laborers (SOC 47-2061), May 2025: r = 0.714
- For reference, those two federal series correlate with each other at r = 0.656
The honest reading is that our multipliers track general regional price levelmore closely than they track construction wages specifically. That is worth stating plainly, because a cost model for construction might reasonably be expected to do the opposite. It reflects how the multipliers were built: triangulated across wages, price parity and cost-of-living inputs rather than derived from wages alone.
The largest divergences between our multiplier and one implied by construction wages alone are Missouri, Illinois, Minnesota and Ohio, where wages run higher than our multiplier implies, and Virginia, where the reverse holds. We have not adjusted these to improve the correlation. Fitting the model to the metric used to validate it would make the validation meaningless.
Method, so this is reproducible: Pearson correlation across all 50 states. Wage figures are pulled from the BLS public API, seriesOEUS<FIPS>00000000000472061 03. Price parity comes from the BEA SARPP state release, LineCode 1. The wage-implied multiplier referenced above is simply each state's mean hourly wage divided by the 50-state mean, with no smoothing.
Editorial process
Every CostPerProject cost page is researched, drafted, and reviewed by the CostPerProject Editorial Team — a team of cost researchers who produce data-driven cost guides for home improvement projects across the United States. Each estimate range is sourced to at least three independent data inputs before publication. Page-level review covers:
- Source verification: Each cited figure is traced back to a primary source (federal statistical release, manufacturer published price, trade association report, or state government bid tabulation).
- Cross-source reconciliation: When multiple sources publish overlapping figures, divergences greater than 15% trigger a methodology note explaining why we adopted a particular range.
- Date stamping: Every page displays its last-reviewed date in the article header (
EditorialBylinecomponent). The underlying state cost multipliers and calculator base rates carry a content version date in the sitemap and JSON-LD schema.
Update cadence
- Cost ranges: Reviewed quarterly against the latest BLS PPI release and annually against the BLS OEWS release (typically May/June).
- State multipliers: Reviewed annually against the latest BEA Regional Price Parities release (typically February).
- Editorial pages (blog cost guides): Reviewed at minimum once per year, with year-stamped publication dates updated to reflect the calendar year of the most recent review.
- Annual flagship survey: CostPerProject publishes a full Contractor Pricing Survey in January of each calendar year, with quarterly State Cost Index updates between flagship releases.
What we explicitly do NOT do
- We do not republish contractor quote estimates from aggregator platforms as our own data. Quotes reflect pre-negotiation pricing and are not a reliable proxy for actual project cost.
- We do not apply a national average price with a simple ZIP-code multiplier. Every state multiplier is derived from multiple independent sources and validated against federal RPP data.
- We do not cite figures older than 24 months without explicitly flagging them as historical and contextualizing against the most recent PPI/OEWS release.
- We do not accept payment, sponsorship, or commercial consideration in exchange for inclusion of specific brands, contractors, or product lines in our cost ranges.
Data access and downloads
CostPerProject's underlying pricing data is publicly downloadable in machine-readable formats. No registration or paywall: