minimum charges & call out charges

[Matt1959]

To the trade guys on here that offer services in private customers homes -

do you have a minimum charge irrespective of time taken on the work?

If so, what do you charge?

Does it come under the guise of a "call out charge" or charge for the work or a bit of both?

Whats the shortest time you've taken on a job, and was the customer happy to pay a minimum charge?

I sometimes carry out work that takes me literally a couple of minutes to complete but that takes 1 hour travelling time plus fuel. I tend to be a bit soft when charging for this type of thing and need to tighten it up a bit so wondering what others do here...

 

[oldeagleeye]

I am not a tradesman Matt but I am often a customer and I think that the fairest way is to set a min call out charge which includes say 30 mins work. Then its is swings and rounderbouts isn't it.

If it is a quick job you have more or less covered your travelling time and I don't think you can take it all into consideration. I know I wouldn't take on a job 50 miles away if I was busy. So any cash coming in at slow times is useful.

You might also want to bear in mind that the HMRC deductable allowance for travel is 45p a mile. I doubt many customers would want to pay £22.50 extra for your fuel. They would try someone nearer.

Anyway. You don't say what service you offer but I would have said that £40 quid would be a reasonable call out charge and cover fixing small jobs like drilling a lock. Fitting a washer etc.

Robert

 

[Deleted member 54079]

I don't have a call out charge but don't travel for an hour to what I may think wil be a two minute job unless the customer was fully aware of what the charge may be due to travelling time and fuel. It is always a difficult decision and a number of years ago I worked as a service engineer for a very large oil company maintaining garage equipment where I could travel for two or three hours for a two minute job but the companies view was it was a swings and roundabout situation and as long as the customer was happy they would continue to use our service.

Back to the question no I don't have a call out charge but as long as your price is reasonable people will pay as they are pleased you visited and resolved their problem.

 

[Tej]

I don't have a call out charge but don't travel for an hour to what I may think wil be a two minute job unless the customer was fully aware of what the charge may be due to travelling time and fuel. It is always a difficult decision and a number of years ago I worked as a service engineer for a very large oil company maintaining garage equipment where I could travel for two or three hours for a two minute job but the companies view was it was a swings and roundabout situation and as long as the customer was happy they would continue to use our service.

Back to the question no I don't have a call out charge but as long as your price is reasonable people will pay as they are pleased you visited and resolved their problem.

Large companies.. its a numbers game!!
When the swings and roundabouts don't happen in their favour... they go broke in style.

When you are a one man band or even a 2/3 man outfit.. you cannot afford to work freebie!! One has to cover the costs and a bit besides to sustain oneself... so yes.. there must be a reasonable minimum charge to cover!!

 

[CKG]

Look at it this way.

If your driving an hour to a job you're probably doing about 50 miles, and you have to drive back. So that's 2 hours time and 100 miles and maybe 30 mins on the job

A small van will do 100 miles on a tenner. So out of your £40 you have £30 left to cover your 2 hours travel time and 30 mins labour = £12 per hour equivalent.

It's at that point you see the sums don't add up.

 

[Tej]

Look at it this way.

If your driving an hour to a job you're probably doing about 50 miles, and you have to drive back. So that's 2 hours time and 100 miles and maybe 30 mins on the job

A small van will do 100 miles on a tenner. So out of your £40 you have £30 left to cover your 2 hours travel time and 30 mins labour = £12 per hour equivalent.

It's at that point you see the sums don't add up.

Very few people.. if any.. even think about the extras( overheads) that have to be accounted for.

Insurance costs.. for the van and also EL and PL
amortize for the upkeep of the van.( running costs, replacement, wear and tear etc)
replacement of tools!
etc etc

 

[oldeagleeye]

I know what you mean Tej but if there is no food in the fridge £12 quid an hour ain't that bad.

 

[Tej]

I know what you mean Tej but if there is no food in the fridge £12 quid an hour ain't that bad.

Agree with you there.. anything is better than sitting on your arse contemplating the world.

I did not mean that one should not do the work!!.. but one should not forget the overheads...leads one to a false sense of security..
make as much as the job will bear.. should be the motto.
and yes.. you are gonna win some and lose some as a matter of course.
thats business.

 

[G. Lasagne]

for repairs i charge £45+vat per hour, it's not a call out fee but if im there 5 minutes then it's rounded upto an hour, after the first hour i round up to nearest 30 mins.

a first call tends to be around the 15-45 minute mark as the problem is normally easily diagnosed.

However a boiler service will take 30-60 mins and i charge £55+vat as its a set price.

So if your doing a specific job frequently, its good to have a set price.

For a boiler exchange which is normally completed in a day i look to charge about £600 a day on top of parts.

I think you should just charge what you need to charge depending on your overheads etc.

 

[Tej]

for repairs i charge £45+vat per hour, it's not a call out fee but if im there 5 minutes then it's rounded upto an hour, after the first hour i round up to nearest 30 mins.

a first call tends to be around the 15-45 minute mark as the problem is normally easily diagnosed.

However a boiler service will take 30-60 mins and i charge £55+vat as its a set price.

So if your doing a specific job frequently, its good to have a set price.

For a boiler exchange which is normally completed in a day i look to charge about £600 a day on top of parts.

I think you should just charge what you need to charge depending on your overheads etc.

Absolutely right.. spot on

 

[Matt1959]

thanks guys, some good responses there

I must admit, I have a minimum charge per hour below which I will not drop. I can see the point that £12ph is useful if you need chips on the table but soon as a business becomes this, I think you've lost the initiative and will fade away espically if you are a one man band as its so crucial to keep the hourly rate as high as possible as theres only so many hours in the day.

What prompted my post was I had 3 jobs this morning in different clients houses. 1 took 2 minutes, 1 took 3 minutes and 1 took 45 minutes. They all lived in our local city 8 miles from where I live so I charged £25 each for 2 and £50 for the other which included travelling there and back. All seemed happy with paying a minimum charge of £25 and I think I could have got £35.

I think this would all go wrong with having to travel more than say 20 miles/ 45 minutes round trip because as stated earlier, you then have to charge so much for travel and whilst some will pay, some won't.

I agree with Gas about charging in increments of half hour after one hour, in fact I'd thought about charging quarter hours to be even fairer.

Re. swings and roundabouts - I hate this phrase. be fair and straight and charge what it costs

Part of my work is getting marks out of furniture polished finishes btw

 

[CKG]

What prompted my post was I had 3 jobs this morning in different clients houses. 1 took 2 minutes, 1 took 3 minutes and 1 took 45 minutes. They all lived in our local city 8 miles from where I live so I charged £25 each for 2 and £50 for the other which included travelling there and back. All seemed happy with paying a minimum charge of £25 and I think I could have got £35.

That's more like it £100+ an hour.

Shame it's never quite as easy as that every hour of every week!

 

[Matt1959]

That's more like it £100+ an hour.

Shame it's never quite as easy as that every hour of every week!

well not quite - the headline figures always sound good!

heres how it broke down and its an illustration on how we can waste time and money though today I was relaxed about it so I'm happy with what I got....

travel to city address 1 = 20 minutes
time to do job 2 minutes
chatting and wriitng bill etc 20 minutes

travel to city address 2 = 15 minutes
time to do job 3 minutes
chatting, bill, looking at another job = 20 minutes

travel to city address 3 = 5 minutes
time to do job 45 minutes
chatting, bill etc 10 minutes

travel home 20 minutes

The above detail is what tradesmen never tell you when your in the pub hearing all the "I get £50ph bla bla" by the time you've taken out chat, loading and lugging, cuppas, billing, stopping for grub, phoning plus the swings and roundabouts where you've taken a hit on the job, it doesnt look so good

 

Re call out fee's people are paying for what you know as well as what you do.

Earl

 

[Judge_Joolz]

But - if that was all you did today = £100 gross!

Personally, I need to gross more than that to cover my outgoings.

Best regards

JJ

 

[Matt1959]

But - if that was all you did today = £100 gross!

Personally, I need to gross more than that to cover my outgoings.

Best regards

JJ

perhaps you have higher outgoings than me:|

 

[lockie]

One thing many forget is that in this type of trade you limited by the number of available hours in a week.If i was charging £40 for a call out to a "simple job like drilling a lock" i would be out of business in no time.Insurance,tools,stock,van,fuel,parking c charge,marketing,ongoing training and more all adds up.Getting 4 jobs a day would leave me very little profit at that rate.

People are paying for your skill as much as your time.If a job only takes 2 minutes because of the time you have put in learning that skill it should be rewarded financially.I know of several locksmiths who can charge over and above the going rates because they can do jobs quicker due to their high skill levels.The companies that use them book them up for the day but get more jobs done that others walk away from or take ages to achieve,myself included.

The problem is joe public think your making a fortune if its too quick and react to it.Quite often i know i can sort a job quickly but put on a show and pad it out a bit so the customer doesnt get funny about the price,crazy, but something ive learned works well with customer relations and repeat work from them as opposed to the "is that it ?" comments
Society expects everything done instantly these days.Take ages doing something and they feel they get their moneys worth.

 

[Tej]

One thing many forget is that in this type of trade you limited by the number of available hours in a week.If i was charging £40 for a call out to a "simple job like drilling a lock" i would be out of business in no time.Insurance,tools,stock,van,fuel,parking c charge,marketing,ongoing training and more all adds up.Getting 4 jobs a day would leave me very little profit at that rate.

People are paying for your skill as much as your time.If a job only takes 2 minutes because of the time you have put in learning that skill it should be rewarded financially.I know of several locksmiths who can charge over and above the going rates because they can do jobs quicker due to their high skill levels.The companies that use them book them up for the day but get more jobs done that others walk away from or take ages to achieve,myself included.

The problem is joe public think your making a fortune if its too quick and react to it.Quite often i know i can sort a job quickly but put on a show and pad it out a bit so the customer doesnt get funny about the price,crazy, but something ive learned works well with customer relations and repeat work from them as opposed to the "is that it ?" comments
Society expects everything done instantly these days.Take ages doing something and they feel they get their moneys worth.

Cannot fault even a single word of that. Absolutely true...

Excellent post Lockie

 

[maxine]

We don't have a callout fee but we do have a minimum fee which covers the first half hour and overheads and is within a certain travel distance only and outside of that we charge extra by distance.

We also have preferred supplier agreements with some local businesses which gives a discount in return for them always calling us first.

I think it is better to have a standard price and then discount this at discretion depending on circumstances and quite often we will give people advice for free over the phone. For us it works well to give a bit on callouts as it leads to future work and recommendations.