Flat-Rate Price Book Builder

The builder works in four steps and covers plumbing, HVAC and electrical shops. Nothing gets priced until the last step, so you can move through it fast.

Step 1: Your team

You start by telling the builder about your crew: how many techs you have, what you pay them on average, what payroll tax, benefits and workers comp add on top, how many hours a year each tech works, and what share of those hours you actually bill.

Not sure what to put in? Our plumbing, HVAC or electrical labor rate calculators explain each of these numbers in more detail.

Step 2: Overhead and goals

Next, you add what it costs to keep the business running and what you want to make from it.

That's your annual overhead (rent, vehicles, insurance, software, office staff, marketing, but not tech wages), the salary you want to pay yourself, your target profit margin and your parts markup.

If you price parts by margin instead of markup, you can switch it. Our Parts Markup Calculator shows both for the same part, so you can see the difference.

Step 3: Your tasks

Once your numbers are in, the builder loads a starter list of about 70 common jobs for your trade, grouped by category. Each task starts at a suggested time, the middle of the usual range for that job.

From there, you put in your own hours and your own material cost, delete what you don't do, and add anything that's missing.

For crew jobs like a whole-house repipe or a service upgrade, enter the total hours for the whole crew. Two techs on an eight-hour job is 16 hours.

Step 4: Your price book

In the last step, the builder prices everything. Every task you kept gets a good, better and best price, plus a summary with your break-even labor rate, recommended labor rate, number of tasks and average good price.

Each price is built the same way:

• Labor = task hours x your recommended labor rate
• Materials = your cost x (1 + markup)
• Good = labor + materials
• Better = good + 20%, Best = good + 45% (you can change both)
• Each price is rounded once at the end: nearest $5 by default, or nearest $1, or a $9 ending
• No task goes below half an hour of labor, because a 15-minute job still has a truck roll in it. You'll see a "min" tag where that applies.

To double-check the margin on any single task, run it through our Service Price & Profit Margin Calculator.

Here's an example for a three-tech HVAC shop:

• 3 techs at $32 an hour
• 20% payroll tax, benefits and workers comp, so a loaded wage of $38.40
• 2,080 working hours each (6,240 total), 60% billable (3,744 hours)
• $150,000 annual overhead
• 10% target margin

Owner salary is left at $0 here to keep the example simple. Add yours in step 2, since leaving it out makes every price in the book too low.

Payroll comes to $239,616. Add $150,000 of overhead and the shop's total cost is $389,616. Spread over 3,744 billable hours, that's a break-even rate of $104.06 an hour. At a 10% margin, the recommended labor rate is $115.63.

Now take one job from the list, a capacitor replacement. Say it takes your tech 0.75 hours (45 minutes), the part costs you $28, you mark parts up 50%, and you round prices to the nearest $5.

• Labor: 0.75 x $115.63 = $86.72
• Materials: $28 x 1.5 = $42.00
• Good (labor + materials): $128.72, rounds to $130
• Better (good + 20%): $154.46, rounds to $155
• Best (good + 45%): $186.64, rounds to $185

The builder sets the spread between tiers. What goes into each tier is your call. For this job, good could be the capacitor swap, better could add a contactor check and coil rinse, and best could add a hard start kit and a warranty.

Be honest about billable hours

One number changes every price in the book: how many of the hours you pay for actually get billed. A tech paid for 2,080 hours a year doesn't bill 2,080. Drive time, parts runs, callbacks and shop time all come out of it. The builder starts at 60% billable. If you set it higher than what your techs actually bill, every price in the book comes out too low.

Count the whole job in your task times

When you set the time for a task, count everything the tech does on that job, not just the repair itself.

In HVAC, that means getting into the attic or crawlspace and the time for refrigerant recovery and evacuation. In plumbing, it's shutting off the water, draining down and the trip to the supply house. In electrical, it's fishing wire through finished walls and any permit or inspection time you build into the price. Setup and cleanup count in every trade.

Start from the suggested range, then ask your techs how long the job really takes them. That conversation is also where tech buy-in starts, and a book your techs don't trust won't get used.

Use your own material costs

Material costs are the part of a price book that changes most often, and they depend on your supplier and your area. Owners who buy a pre-priced book often find the material prices are nowhere near what they actually pay.

Some costs move faster than others: copper and PEX in plumbing, refrigerant and motors in HVAC, wire in electrical. Put in your own costs, and keep markup and margin straight: a 50% markup is a 33% margin.

Define tiers by what's included

Good, better and best only work if each tier means something different to the customer, so they should differ by scope, not just by price.

For a running toilet, good could be a new fill valve and flapper, better could add a new supply line, and best could be a full rebuild kit with a warranty. For a GFCI outlet, good could be the swap itself, better could add testing the other outlets on that circuit, and best could add a weather-resistant upgrade and a warranty. Write down what each tier includes in words a customer understands, so every tech offers the same thing.

Keep it simple enough to use

A price book only helps if your techs use it on every call. Owners say it plainly: a simple book gets used and a complicated one gets ignored. Sixty clear tasks your techs actually quote from beat three hundred nobody opens.

With flat-rate pricing the customer approves a price before the work starts. There's no surprise on the invoice and no argument about how long the job took.

It also takes the clock out of the job. An experienced tech who finishes a capacitor swap in 30 minutes earns the shop the same price as one who takes an hour, so speed and skill pay off instead of costing you money. Every tech quotes the same price for the same job, and you know your margin before you take the job, because the price was built from your own costs.

Good, better and best adds one more thing: the customer picks an option instead of saying yes or no to a single price.

Time-and-materials still fits work where you can't see the scope up front, like a whole-house repipe, rewiring an older home or remodel work. Plenty of shops run flat rate for service calls and a quoted bid for project work.