Cost & Quoting

Pressure Vessel and Tank Fabrication Cost Estimation: Building a Defensible Quote

A cost breakdown for quoting fabricated vessels: material, weld and fit-up labor, nozzles, NDE, coating, and the estimating errors that erase margin.

On a typical carbon steel pressure vessel, material runs 30 to 45 percent of cost, labor 35 to 50 percent, consumables and NDE 8 to 15 percent, and shop overhead plus margin the rest. Plate is the biggest single line. SA-516-70 carbon plate has ranged from $0.85 to $1.60 per lb over recent cycles, and 304L stainless from $2.50 to $4.50 per lb. Price the delivered weight from the Plate Yield calculator, not the finished weight, because 12 to 22 percent nesting drop is metal you buy and cannot bill as product.

Convert weld length into labor dollars, the largest controllable cost. A skilled fitter-welder loaded rate typically runs $65 to $110 per hour in the US including burden. Deposition governs hours: SMAW deposits about 3 to 5 lb/hr, FCAW 8 to 12 lb/hr, and SAW 15 to 25 lb/hr on girth seams with a positioner. For the 75 lb of deposited metal on a mid-size vessel, FCAW at 10 lb/hr is 7.5 arc-hours, but arc-on time is only 25 to 40 percent of clock time, so budget 20 to 30 shop hours. Feed those into the Fabricated Vessel Cost model.

Nozzles and fit-up are chronically underbid. Each set-on nozzle with a reinforcing pad carries layout, bevel, fit, weld, and NDE. Budget 3 to 8 labor hours per nozzle depending on size and whether it needs a repad, and more for self-reinforced or long-weld-neck flanges. A vessel with twelve nozzles can hide 60 to 90 hours, roughly $5,000 to $9,000, that a lump-sum plate-and-weld estimate misses. Use the Nozzle Labor calculator per penetration and the Fit-Up Labor calculator for shell course, head, and internal alignment so tack and bracing time is on the quote.

Consumables are small per pound but add up. At 88 lb of FCAW wire purchased for 75 lb deposited, wire at $1.80 to $3.20 per lb plus shielding gas and flux lands around $250 to $400 on this vessel. The Weld Consumable Cost calculator applies deposition efficiency, 0.80 to 0.90 for flux-cored, so you are not quoting deposited weight when you buy gross weight. Add grinding discs, backing, and purge gas for stainless, which can double consumable cost on a TIG root.

NDE and code paperwork are real line items, not overhead. Full radiography for E = 1.0 costs more than spot RT at E = 0.85, but spot RT forces thicker plate, so the trade shows up in both material and NDE columns. Budget RT at $8 to $20 per exposure, UT of nozzle welds, PWHT if plate exceeds thickness or service limits (a furnace cycle can run $2,000 to $6,000), plus the ASME U-stamp administrative and AI inspection time. Missing PWHT on a 1.25 in thick SA-516 vessel is a five-figure rework surprise.

Coating and hydrotest close out the quote. Compute external and internal painted area with the Paint/Coating Area calculator; a 7 ft x 20 ft vessel has roughly 440 ft^2 of shell plus heads. A three-coat epoxy system at $4 to $9 per ft^2 applied is $1,800 to $4,000. Hydrotest adds water, pump rental, disposal, and a day of stand time; size the fill with the Hydrotest Capacity calculator so you bill the water weight and cycle, especially where treated or demineralized water is required for stainless.

Overhead and margin must sit on a true cost base. Shop burden (cranes, positioners, building, QC) commonly adds 20 to 35 percent on direct labor, and gross margin targets of 12 to 25 percent depend on backlog and risk. On a project totaling $60,000 direct, a 28 percent burden and 18 percent margin push the sell price near $91,000. Quoting margin on an understated base is how shops win jobs and lose money. Build the stack in the Fabricated Vessel Cost calculator and keep material, labor, and burden visible.

Three errors erase margin repeatedly. First, quoting finished plate weight instead of purchased weight, a 15 to 20 percent material miss. Second, using arc-on hours instead of clock hours, which understates weld labor by 2.5 to 4x. Third, forgetting rework: even a 3 percent RT reject rate on 148 ft of weld means grind-out and re-weld hours plus reshoot NDE. Add a 5 to 10 percent contingency on labor for first-article or non-repeat vessels, and hold it as a named line so it is not silently spent.

Published 2026-07-01.