Handyman - how are you guys figuring out what a job actually needs to pay?

Hey SirDumas​ - You are on the right track. It's good to get a handle of that stuff early on. I'd say the faster you can give prices for things the easier your life will become later. You need to figure out what 1-2 years from now your business would need to have steady growth then charge that today. Are you going to need a bigger work truck? What's that monthly payment? Do you have storage? Etc etc. Figure out what you'd pay somebody, all in with burden, multiple it by 2 then that's the amount you bake in to the price. 

What I've done to save me a lot of thinking is have either a half day or full day rate. Half day is $550, Full day is $950. If you're by yourself your would probably be less but that's what I need to charge to have it make sense for me. I generally stay away from any jobs less than a half day because by the time you load your tools, hit the store, wrap your mind around a project, that's a half day anyway. Why plan your day around an hour job unless you're willing to do a bunch of small jobs in a day (we all were at one point)?

Also, I use chat GPT for pretty much all estimating now. It knows my rates, I have it in the settings to heavily scrutinize my thought process and challenge my thinking (so it's not just being agreeable). I have it put together a production schedule for a job and I review that to see if it makes sense then make sure the daily charge rate translates to the final number.

I hope that's not confusing but HMU privately if you want more info on any of that! 

Every pricing method comes down to knowing your numbers or using flat rates.

​Spreadsheets give you full control over overhead, billable hours, travel, and margins, but updating them for every job takes time.

​Apps like Jobber, Joist, or Housecall Pro use saved line-item templates and static price lists. They speed up quoting, but they don't automatically adjust for overhead changes or actual post-job tracking unless you manually compare job costing reports.

​Flat-rate price books lock in standard prices for common repairs. They make quoting fast, but you lose money if a job takes longer than average or travel time is high.

​Using a system that calculates job prices from your real income goal, overhead, travel, and material markup—and then compares estimated costs against actuals after the work is done—is job costing. It is the most accurate way to make sure every job is actually profitable.