Hey everyone,
Looking to tighten up my pricing model and job minimums heading into the rest of the season.
For single-operator shops:
Curious to see how everyone balances closing fast versus avoiding scope creep.
A clear minimum charge protects your time and makes pricing fair for every customer. Start by working out what it costs to send a truck out, including travel, fuel, labour, and the time to prepare the estimate. That cost is your floor, and any job below it will cost you money even if it looks like easy work. For 2026, many owners are setting a higher minimum because fuel and labour costs keep rising. Site estimates work best when you explain the minimum up front so customers are not surprised later. Virtual estimates can save a visit for simple jobs, while larger jobs still deserve an in person look. The more customers who find you on Google first, the easier it is to hold your minimum because you have plenty of enquiries to choose from. A steady flow of new enquiries also means you can say no to jobs that do not fit your price.
Rank Maple
Read more: getting found on Google for local jobs
The way I set a minimum is to work out what a truck rolling out the door costs per hour once you include drive time, fuel, insurance, and the admin time to quote and invoice, then make the floor cover the smallest realistic visit plus that overhead. For most one-truck shops that ends up being roughly a two-hour block even if the task takes forty minutes. On estimates, I use satellite or photos to pre-screen and weed out the jobs that were never going to pencil, but anything with unknown condition, tight access, or multiple structures gets an in-person look. The scope creep problem is usually less about the estimate method and more about what the quote says: listing what is explicitly not included has saved me more arguments than any pricing change.
I've moved to almost completely video estimates.
Everything else becomes an hourly service call. We're $250 for the first hour and $125 an hour after that, and I think I'm going to raise that amount.
But basically, for all quotes, I'm using LiveSwitch to do virtual estimates. Clients actually love it. It's definitely something you should look into.
https://join.liveswitch.com/vyi79avf9b1g
We start off at minimum $55 for us to come out to do either a one time cleaning or our initial clean up + prepayment for the rest of the month of recurring services. I've actively worked hard to pull cash forward so I'm happy to say on average our clients are paying ~$170+ within their first 30 days.
That is a solid plan. Those are definitely fair rates. It sounds like your quality of work speaks for its self. What's the percentage of customers that retain monthly service vs the one time clean?
