How do contractors price jobs based on actual business costs instead of competitor rates?
We run a contracting business in Juneau, Alaska. It’s a remote town with no roads in or out, so our market does not work like most places. Lead generation is not our problem. The work is there. Our bigger challenge is filtering demand, choosing the right jobs, and pricing from the actual cost of running the business instead of just asking, “what does everyone else charge?” That has changed how we look at pricing. Two companies can do the same job with completely different numbers behind it: equipment payments, fuel, insurance, payroll, repairs, debt, admin time, material costs, disposal, taxes, and risk. Competitor pricing matters, but only to a point. If our cost structure is different, their price can’t be our whole pricing strategy. We have a CPA and bookkeeper we trust, so the books are not something we’re guessing on. What we’re working on now is turning the P&L and balance sheet into real-world pricing decisions: what the equipment needs to bill, what materials need to carry, what minimums make sense, and which jobs are actually worth putting on the schedule. We’ve also been using AI to organize that information into pricing structures, quote templates, equipment rates, per-ton pricing, material pricing, and job-type frameworks. To be clear, we’re not using AI to tell us what to charge. We’re using it to organize what we already know, pressure-test assumptions, run simulations, and find holes before they show up in the bank account. The more we work through it, the more we wonder how often underpricing comes from not having a clear link between pricing and the actual cost of running the business. Curious how others think about this. When you price work, do you start with your own numbers first, the market first, or a mix of both? For those using AI, have you used it for pricing, estimating, job costing, or financial review beyond emails and marketing content?What advice do you have for starting a new service business?
Hi everyone! I'm Ryan with Jackson Site Services. Just starting out as a skid steer services business in Central Oklahoma and about to bid my first driveway install and maintenance contracts. What advice does anyone have for both just getting started and first jobs? What's the best advice you were ever given?Standard Price Book Strategy - How do you make standardized prices with unstandardized Projects?
I've been thinking a lot about quoting speed lately and wanted to open this up for discussion. As a GC, almost every project I take on looks different from the last — different scopes, different conditions, different moving parts. That makes it hard to build a price book the way a trade contractor might, where you're doing the same tasks repeatedly. But I know quoting faster would help me and my team tremendously. Right now we're rebuilding estimates from scratch too often, and I feel like there's a better way. So my question for the group is: do any of you have a price book built out while doing GC work or anything with a lot of project variability? If so, how did you structure it? Are you pricing at the unit level, bundling common scopes into packages, or something else entirely? And how do you handle the stuff that doesn't fit neatly — older buildings, difficult site conditions, sub pricing you can't fully control? I'm not looking for a perfect system, just something that gets my team quoting faster and more consistently. Curious what's actually working for people in the real world.Building My Cultural High Tea / High Coffee Business — What Lead Tactics Work Best
Hi everyone, I’m Desiree — I’m currently building Desire Treats, a mobile High Tea & High Coffee fusion service inspired by African, Caribbean, and Latin culture. I’m based in Edmonton and still in the early stages, but a recent win for me was finalizing my Passport Menu and getting my mobile setup ready for private events and office bookings, with plans to expand into yacht‑style experiences and warm‑climate markets in the future. One thing that really shaped my business direction is my Passport Menu concept — offering destination‑inspired desserts paired with curated tea and coffee flights. Customers can explore different cultural flavors and collect digital stamps to unlock rewards. I’ll be expanding the Passport Menu with dishes as the business grows, and I’m also exploring partnerships with existing commercial kitchens to help me get started operationally. Long‑term, my goal is to take Desire Treats into Florida and eventually expand across warmer countries like Mexico, Central America, and South America, where cultural fusion and outdoor experiences thrive. As I prepare to launch, I’d love to learn from others here: What lead tactics have brought you the highest‑quality clients for mobile or event‑based services (including higher‑end markets like corporate events or yachts)? Referrals, partnerships, ads, community groups, or something else? I’m also shaping my business model to stay accessible. Long‑term, I want to create options that support people facing financial barriers while still maintaining consistent pricing and a sustainable service. My goal is to build a business that grows while helping others grow too. Appreciate any insights as I get ready to roll things out.What information did you get from you Google Profile review?
First off thank you Jobber and Phil for doing this. What an amazing thing for you guys to do for us. For those of you who got a review, what did you learn about your profile to strengthen it? I hope we can all compile here and we can all read through and make our GBP that much stronger! I learned that I for sure need more photos on there and I need to link my social media pages.What offer(s) do you use to seal the deal?
What offer actually wins you jobs? Discounts, guarantees, referral credits—what's working for you? In this episode of Masters of Home Service, Savannah Revis breaks down: How to make your offer easy to say yes to Building your offer around customer pain points Backing your offer with real numbers (not guesswork) Never miss an episode of Masters of Home Service. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Do you know your actual effective hourly rate per client — once travel time is included?
Hi everyone — I'm a developer, not a cleaning business owner, so I'll be upfront about that. I'm doing early research before building anything. I've been spending time in this community and something keeps catching my eye. There are a lot of conversations about pricing, undercharging, and knowing your numbers — but the specific gap I keep noticing is this: Jobber shows you revenue per job, but it doesn't tell you your real effective hourly rate per client once you factor in drive time and how long a job actually ran versus what you quoted. For a residential cleaning business with recurring clients, that seems like it could matter a lot. The client who pays $200 but takes 45 minutes to drive to might look identical in Jobber to a client who pays $180 and is 5 minutes away. My question, specifically for cleaning business owners using Jobber: is this actually a problem you run into? Are you tracking profitability per client in any way right now — spreadsheet, gut feel, something else? And if you're not tracking it, is that because it's genuinely not a priority, or because there's no easy way to do it inside Jobber? Not selling anything — I haven't built anything yet. I'd genuinely love to have a 15-minute conversation with a few people who manage recurring residential clients in Jobber. Happy to share what I learn with anyone who's interested. Drop a comment or DM me.
