Aluminum Up 1,390% Since 2019: How to Bid When Material Prices Are Insane

If you priced a job in 2019 and tried to build it today at the same number, you'd be bankrupt before the foundation was poured.

Aluminum is up 1,390% since 2019. Steel tariffs just hit 50% as of February 2026. Copper climbed 11.8% year-over-year. Lumber tariffs are north of 35%. And according to the Associated General Contractors of America, 43% of general contractors had projects canceled outright because tariff-driven costs made the numbers unworkable.

This isn't a blip. This is the new reality of construction bidding.

If you're a small-to-mid contractor — running a crew of 5, 20, or 50 — you can't absorb these swings the way a national firm with $2 billion in bonding capacity can. One bad bid on a material-heavy project and you're underwater for months.

So how do you bid profitably when the price of everything keeps moving? That's what this guide is about: practical, field-tested strategies for protecting your margins in a market that refuses to sit still.

The 2026 Material Price Landscape: What You're Actually Dealing With

Let's put the numbers in context before we talk strategy.

Aluminum: The Headline Number

The 1,390% increase in aluminum since 2019 is staggering, but it didn't happen overnight. A combination of global supply chain disruptions, energy cost spikes in smelting regions, and escalating trade policy has compounded year after year. For contractors working on commercial facades, HVAC systems, electrical conduit, or any project with significant aluminum components, this isn't an abstract statistic — it's the difference between a profitable job and a loss.

Steel: Tariff Shock at 50%

The February 2026 steel tariff increase to 50% landed on top of an already-stressed supply chain. Structural steel, rebar, metal decking, studs — the cost impact cascades through almost every project type. If you're bidding structural work right now, your material line items from even six months ago are already stale.

Copper and Electrical Costs

Copper's 11.8% year-over-year increase hits electrical contractors and plumbers hardest. Wire, piping, fittings — these aren't substitutable materials. You can't value-engineer your way around copper in most electrical specs.

Lumber: The Tariff That Won't Quit

Lumber tariffs above 35% continue to punish residential and light commercial builders. Canadian softwood lumber imports — the backbone of North American framing — carry a cost premium that shows no sign of easing.

Strategy 1: Price Escalation Clauses — Your Single Most Important Protection

A price escalation clause is contract language that allows the contract price to adjust if material costs move beyond a defined threshold during the project. It's not new, but it's no longer optional.

How to Structure an Effective Escalation Clause

Define the trigger. Most escalation clauses tie to a specific index — the Bureau of Labor Statistics Producer Price Index (PPI) for construction materials is the standard. Your clause should specify:

• Which materials are covered (steel, aluminum, copper, lumber — be specific)
• The baseline price or index value at the time of bid
• The threshold that triggers an adjustment (typically 3–5% movement)
• The frequency of review (monthly or quarterly)

Define who pays. The cleanest structure is a shared-risk model: the contractor absorbs the first 3–5% of increase, the owner covers anything beyond that. This shows good faith while protecting you from catastrophic swings.

Define the documentation. Specify that adjustments will be supported by supplier invoices, PPI data, or both. Owners and their attorneys are more likely to accept a clause that includes clear documentation requirements.

What to Say When an Owner Pushes Back

Owners resist escalation clauses because they create budget uncertainty. Here's how to frame it:

That math usually lands. A 5% escalation is cheaper than a 15% contingency baked into the bid.

Strategy 2: Material Price Locks With Suppliers

An escalation clause protects you contractually. A material price lock protects you financially.

How Price Locks Work

You negotiate a fixed price with your supplier for a defined period — typically 30, 60, or 90 days. Some suppliers will extend to 120 days for strong relationships or volume commitments.

Making Price Locks Work in Practice

Lock early, lock specific. The moment you have a reasonable bill of materials, get quotes locked. Don't wait for the signed contract. A 60-day lock from bid submission usually covers you through award and mobilization.

Get it in writing. A verbal quote isn't a lock. You need a written commitment — a purchase order, a supplier quote with an expiration date, or a formal price agreement. If the supplier won't put it on paper, it's not real.

Stack your locks. On larger projects, lock your highest-volatility materials first. Right now, that's aluminum and steel. Copper and lumber next. Commodity materials like concrete and aggregate are more stable — lock those closer to pour dates.

Understand the limits. Most suppliers build a small premium into locked pricing — typically 1–3% above spot. That's the cost of certainty. It's worth it.

Strategy 3: Bid Structure and Timing Adjustments

The way you structure and time your bids matters more now than it ever has.

Shorten Your Bid Validity Period

If you're still submitting bids valid for 90 days, stop. In this market, 30 days is standard. 45 days is the upper limit for most material-heavy projects. Beyond that, you're giving the owner a free option on your pricing while the market moves against you.

Break Out Material Costs as a Separate Line Item

Instead of burying materials in a lump-sum bid, break them out. This does two things:

1. It makes escalation clauses easier to administer
2. It shows the owner exactly where cost pressure is coming from — which builds trust and makes change orders less adversarial

Use Allowances for Volatile Materials

For materials with extreme volatility (aluminum, specialty steel), consider bidding with an allowance — a budgeted amount that adjusts to actual cost at time of purchase. The owner sees the projected cost, and you reconcile against actuals.

Bid More, Bid Selectively

In a volatile market, your win rate matters less than your margin rate. It's better to bid 20 jobs and win 5 at healthy margins than to bid 10 and win 7 at razor-thin numbers. Be disciplined about walking away from projects where the owner won't accept reasonable risk-sharing terms.

Strategy 4: Supplier Relationships Are Infrastructure

In a stable market, you can shop every job to the lowest bidder. In a volatile market, relationships are worth more than a few points on a quote.

Why Relationships Matter Now

• Priority allocation. When materials are scarce, suppliers fill orders for their best customers first.
• Better lock terms. A supplier who knows your volume and payment history will offer longer locks and tighter pricing.
• Early warnings. Good suppliers will tell you when a price increase is coming before it hits. That 48-hour heads-up can save you thousands on a time-sensitive bid.
• Flexibility on terms. Net-30 vs. COD matters when your cash flow is stretched across multiple projects with rising material costs.

How to Build Supplier Leverage as a Small Contractor

You don't need to be a $50M/year buyer to get good supplier relationships. You need to be:

• Reliable. Pay on time, every time. This alone puts you ahead of 60% of contractors.
• Consistent. Even modest but steady volume beats sporadic large orders.
• Communicative. Give your suppliers advance notice on upcoming projects. They can plan inventory and offer better pricing when they see your pipeline.

Strategy 5: Real-Time Cost Tracking — Because Spreadsheets Can't Keep Up

Here's where most small contractors get hurt: they bid a job in January, buy materials in March, and the 8% cost increase between those dates comes straight out of their margin.

The Problem With Static Estimating

If your cost data lives in a spreadsheet that gets updated quarterly — or worse, annually — you're bidding on ghosts. Material prices in 2026 can move meaningfully in a single week. A tariff announcement, a supply disruption, a currency swing — any of these can move your numbers overnight.

What Real-Time Tracking Looks Like

Modern construction management platforms pull in current pricing data, track purchase orders against estimates, and flag variances before they become problems. Instead of discovering a cost overrun at the end of a project, you see it developing in real time and can act — whether that means triggering an escalation clause, accelerating a material purchase, or renegotiating with a supplier.

Tools like Hammer Suite are built for exactly this: giving small and mid-size contractors the cost visibility that used to require a full-time estimating department. When your material costs update in real time and your project budgets adjust accordingly, you're making decisions based on what things actually cost — not what they cost three months ago.

The Data Advantage in Bidding

Contractors who track actual material costs across projects build something invaluable: a historical cost database. Over time, you're not guessing at material inflation — you're projecting it based on your own purchasing data. That's a competitive advantage that compounds with every project.

Practical Takeaways: Your Bidding Checklist for 2026

Here's the distilled version. Print this out and tape it next to your estimating desk:

The Contractors Who Survive This Market

The contractors who come through this period of material volatility won't be the ones who bid the lowest. They'll be the ones who bid the smartest — with escalation protection, supplier relationships, real-time data, and the discipline to walk away from bad deals.

Aluminum at 1,390% over 2019. Steel tariffs at 50%. These aren't numbers that let you wing it.

Build your bidding process around the reality that prices move fast, margins are thin, and the contractors who track their costs closest are the ones who keep their doors open.

Sources: HousingWire, Associated General Contractors of America (AGC), ConstructConnect — February 2026 data.