Service Pricing Guide for Renovation & Maintenance Contractors

What a good one includes

• A fully burdened labor rate calculator that accounts for wages, payroll taxes, insurance, and non-billable hours.
• An overhead recovery plan that distributes your fixed monthly business expenses, like vehicle maintenance, software, and shop rent, across your active working hours.
• A flat-fee menu for your top ten most common service calls and maintenance tasks to make on-the-spot quoting fast and consistent.
• A tiered material markup schedule that ensures you make a profit on every piece of lumber, pipe, or fixture you source and transport.
• A structured markup strategy for subcontractor labor, protecting your bottom line when hiring specialty trades like plumbers or electricians.
• A clear scope-of-work template and change-order pricing policy to protect you against unpaid, extra client requests.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Basing your prices solely on what your local competitors charge without calculating your own unique business overhead and survival numbers.
• Forgetting to factor in drive time, material pickup runs, and administrative hours when setting your daily or hourly labor rates.
• Selling materials to clients at your exact cost, which neglects the time spent sourcing them and the liability you assume if they fail.
• Giving vague verbal or single-number estimates without breaking down labor, materials, and contingencies, leading to project disputes.

Frequently asked questions