Using the Markup Simulator

This article walks through the Markup Simulator in Stimaro — a scratchpad for trying markup changes against the current bid before you commit them. It covers how to open the panel, what the sliders and Target Bid Solver do, how to read the Live Preview, and how to apply or discard the scenario you've been testing.

What the Simulator is for

Markup is a judgment call, and the right number is rarely obvious on the first try. You want to see what happens to your bottom line before you change anything — nudge labor up two points, trim profit half a point, and watch where the bid lands. The Markup Simulator is that safe space. It mirrors your markup settings as sliders and shows the resulting bid live, but it never touches your real bid until you tell it to.

Think of it as scenario testing. You can move every lever, compare the result against your saved bid, and walk away without consequence — nothing you do in the Simulator sticks unless you click Apply.

Opening the Simulator

Open the Bid tab and click the Simulator button in the toolbar (its tooltip reads Markup simulator). The Markup Simulator panel opens on the right side of the view, loaded with your bid's current markup values.

The sliders

The panel gives you a slider for every markup lever on your bid. Each slider steps in 0.5% increments and ranges from 0% to 50%. They're grouped the same way the Markup Summary panel is:

A category slider marks up only the direct cost in that category — moving Labor changes the markup on labor cost and nothing else. The Overhead & Profit sliders layer on top of the marked-up direct costs, in the same order the bid calculates them. As you drag any slider, the Live Preview recalculates immediately, so you can watch each move's effect on the total.

Reading the Live Preview

The Live Preview shows the full breakdown of the bid your current slider positions would produce, layer by layer:

• Direct Cost — your base built-up cost, before any markup
• Category Markup — the per-category markups from the sliders
• Direct Cost Markup — the shared markup across the bid
• Project OH — project overhead
• Corporate OH — corporate overhead
• Profit — your profit layer
• Bond — bond premium, if the job carries one
• Balanced Bid — the resulting bid total, shown in bold

Below the breakdown is a delta readout that compares the previewed Balanced Bid against your saved bid — for example +$4,200 vs saved balanced bid or -$2,750 vs saved balanced bid. The readout is green when your scenario comes in lower than the saved bid and red when it comes in higher, so you can see at a glance which direction you've moved the number and by how much.

The Target Bid Solver

Sometimes you're working backward from a number — you know the total you want to hit and need to find the markup that gets you there. The Target Bid Solver embedded in the panel does that for you. Enter the total you're aiming for and the solver works backward to the lever percentage that produces it.

1. Enter your target total in the Target Bid Solver.
2. The solver calculates the lever percentage that lands the bid on that number.
3. Click Use to move the matching slider to that percentage.

Use only moves the slider — it drops the solved percentage into the Simulator like any other slider change. It does not commit anything to your bid. You still review the Live Preview and decide whether to apply it, exactly as you would with a change you dialed in by hand.

Applying or discarding your scenario

Nothing you do in the Simulator reaches your real bid until you act on it:

• Apply — saves the markup you've been testing to the bid. This is the only commit in the panel.
• Reset — returns every slider to your saved values, undoing the scenario you were exploring. An Undo toast appears in case you reset by mistake.

Because Apply is the single point of commitment, you can experiment as freely as you like — move every slider, run the solver, compare against your saved bid — and know that closing the panel or hitting Reset leaves your bid untouched.