Pricing and quotes
How should you price and quote jobs when you work for yourself?
· 9 min read
On this page
- Why shouldn’t you just copy another pro’s hourly rate?
- How do you work out your hourly rate?
- Should you charge by the hour or a flat price?
- How do you set a minimum charge and a trip fee?
- How much should you mark up materials?
- What should a quote include?
- How fast should you send a quote?
- When should you raise your prices?
- Should you post your prices on your website?
- Questions
- Sources
Work your hourly rate back from what you want to take home, your taxes, your yearly costs and the hours you can actually bill, which are fewer than the hours you work. Then quote most jobs as a flat price built from that rate plus marked-up materials, set a minimum charge that covers the drive, and send the quote the same day.
This page is for pros who work alone or with a helper and set their own prices. We sell websites to trade pros, so we have no stake in what you charge. You won’t find a “going rate” here, because rates swing a lot by area and trade, and copying one skips your own costs. Instead you’ll work your number out from your costs, then turn it into quotes customers can say yes to. The hourly rate calculator does the math as you read.
Why shouldn’t you just copy another pro’s hourly rate?
Because their rate covers their truck, their insurance, their slow weeks and the hours they can bill, and none of those match yours. The figures people quote online usually come with no cost basis at all. Employee pay is a useful floor to start from, though, since it’s what someone earns doing the work when somebody else pays for everything else.
Median pay for employees in May 2025, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). These figures leave out self-employed workers. Checked Oct 26, 2026.
| Occupation | Median employee pay |
|---|---|
| General maintenance and repair workers (closest BLS group to handymen) | $49,590 a year, $23.84 an hour |
| Carpenters | $60,580 a year |
| HVAC mechanics and installers | $61,010 a year |
| Electricians | $63,190 a year, $30.38 an hour |
| Plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters | $63,800 a year |
On top of that pay, an employer covers the van, fuel, tools, insurance, licenses, marketing, the office work, half of Social Security and Medicare, and every hour that isn’t billed. On your own, you pay all of that yourself. The IRS puts the self-employment tax rate at 15.3% (12.4% Social Security plus 2.9% Medicare), before any income tax. So if you charge what an employee earns per hour, you’re working for less than an employee takes home.
How do you work out your hourly rate?
Start from the money you need in a year and divide by the hours you can actually put on an invoice. Five steps:
- Pick your take-home pay for the year: what you want to live on after tax.
- Add a tax set-aside. Ask your accountant for your number. Self-employment tax alone is 15.3%, and income tax comes on top.
- Add your yearly business costs: truck payment, fuel and upkeep, insurance and licenses, tools, phone and software, your website, marketing, and anything else the business pays for.
- Add a profit margin for the business, so a broken-down truck or a slow month doesn’t come out of your pay.
- Divide by billable hours. Driving, quoting, buying materials, callbacks and invoicing are real work, but nobody pays you by the hour for them. Count only the hours that end up on invoices.
These are the example numbers from our calculator, not a recommendation. A handyman wants to take home $60,000, sets aside 25% for tax and has $19,900 a year in costs. $60,000 ÷ 0.75 = $80,000 before tax, plus $19,900 in costs is $99,900. With a 10% margin, that’s $99,900 ÷ 0.9 = $111,000. At 30 billable hours a week for 48 weeks (1,440 hours), the rate is $77.08 an hour, so about $80. If only 80% of those hours get billed, it’s $96.35, so about $100.
That gap between $80 and $100 is why billable hours matter more than anything else on the list. Put your own numbers in the hourly rate calculator and use the slow-year rate as your target if your work is seasonal.
Should you charge by the hour or a flat price?
Use hourly pricing while a job type is still unpredictable for you, and flat prices once you know how long it takes. You don’t have to pick just one.
| How you price | Works best for | Risk to you | What the customer likes or doesn’t |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hourly (time and materials) | Diagnosis, repairs with unknowns, work you haven’t done often | Low: slow jobs still pay. But getting faster earns you less | No surprise for you, but an open-ended bill for them. Give a range and say when you’ll call if it runs over |
| Flat price per job | Jobs you can scope from photos or a visit | You eat the overrun if you guessed wrong | They know the number up front, which makes quotes easy to compare |
| Price list for common jobs | Repeat jobs: faucet swaps, outlet installs, gutter cleanings, a standard lawn cut | Low once your times are tracked | Fast quotes, often over text, and prices you can post on your website |
| Minimum charge plus hourly | Small jobs and service calls | Low: the minimum covers the trip | Clear, as long as you say the minimum before you drive out |
To build a flat price: estimate the hours, add a buffer for the job type, multiply by your rate, then add materials with your markup and any disposal or permit costs. Track your real hours on every job, and adjust the price list when the numbers drift.
How do you set a minimum charge and a trip fee?
Price the visit, not just the work. A 20-minute fix across town still costs you the drive both ways, so the minimum charge has to cover your drive time at your hourly rate plus what the truck costs per mile.
For the truck, the IRS standard mileage rate for business use is a handy yardstick for what a mile costs if you haven’t tracked your own. It’s 76 cents a mile for July 1 to December 31, 2026, up from 72.5 cents in the first half of the year.
A 30-mile round trip at 76 cents a mile is $22.80 in vehicle cost. If the drive takes 45 minutes and your rate is $80 an hour, that’s another $60 of your time. So about $83 is gone before you open the toolbox. A minimum of the trip plus your first hour, about $160 in this example, would cover that short job across town without losing money.
Two common ways to show it:
- One minimum charge that includes the trip and the first hour. Simple to explain, and customers don’t see a separate “fee.”
- Zones. No trip fee inside your core towns, and a flat trip fee for anything farther out. List the towns, so nobody is surprised.
How much should you mark up materials?
Enough to cover the time you spend buying, hauling and returning parts, plus the risk of a part failing. Decide the margin you want to keep first, then turn it into a markup, because they’re never the same number.
| Margin you keep | Markup to add | $100 of materials becomes |
|---|---|---|
| 10% | 11% | $111 |
| 20% | 25% | $125 |
| 25% | 33% | $133 |
| 33% | 50% | $150 |
| 50% | 100% | $200 |
“I mark up 20%” and “I make 20%” are different things. A 20% markup leaves a 16.7% margin, so you keep $16.67 of every $100 the customer pays for materials, not $20. The formula is markup = margin ÷ (1 − margin).
What should a quote include?
Everything a careful customer needs to compare you with the other quotes they got. The FTC tells homeowners to get more than one estimate and says a written one “should include a description of the work to be done, materials, completion date, and the price.” It also tells them not to automatically pick the lowest bidder, and to ask why prices differ. So spell out what makes yours different. Copy this checklist:
Our free estimate template has these fields, adds up the totals, and prints or saves as a PDF. For bigger jobs, you may also need a signed contract, and the template page covers when.
Giving two or three options (for example, repair now versus replace) also helps. The customer compares your options with each other instead of only comparing you with someone cheaper.
How fast should you send a quote?
Send it the same day you see the job, while you’re still fresh in their mind. If the customer is collecting several estimates, as the FTC advises, a quote that shows up a week later may arrive after they’ve already chosen. Follow up once a few days later with a short text asking if they have questions.
Speed starts before the quote, though. If a customer’s first call goes to voicemail, they may call the next pro on the list. A missed-call text-back buys you time until you can call back. Just starting out and short on jobs to quote? Our first 30 days plan for getting your first customers covers that part.
When should you raise your prices?
Re-run your numbers at least once a year, and any time a big cost moves. Costs do move: the IRS raised its business mileage rate partway through 2026, from 72.5 to 76 cents a mile. Other signs it’s time to raise prices:
- You’re booked out more than two or three weeks most of the year.
- Almost every quote gets a yes. If nobody ever says no, you may be the cheapest option.
- Your insurance, fuel or parts costs went up, or you added a helper.
- You haven’t changed your prices since you started.
Give regular customers notice before new prices apply to them, and update the prices on your website and quotes on the same day.
Should you post your prices on your website?
Posting “starting at” prices or ranges for your common jobs can save you time. People who can’t afford the job filter themselves out before they call, and the ones who do call already expect your price. Use ranges, not exact numbers, for anything that depends on the house, and say what changes the price.
A line like “Most faucet replacements: $150 to $250, parts included” is easy for customers to understand. It also gives Google and AI search tools something specific to show when someone asks what the job costs. What else belongs on the site is in what a trade website should have.
Questions trade pros ask
How much should a handyman charge per hour?
Enough to cover your take-home pay, taxes and yearly costs, plus some profit, divided by the hours you can really bill. With the example numbers in our hourly rate calculator that comes to about $80 an hour, but your area, costs and hours will change it. For context, BLS puts the median pay of employed general maintenance and repair workers at $23.84 an hour (May 2025), and an employer pays the truck, tools and slow weeks on top of that.
What is a fair trip charge?
One that covers the drive: your time behind the wheel at your hourly rate plus what the truck costs per mile. As a yardstick for vehicle cost, the IRS standard mileage rate for business use is 76 cents a mile for July 1 to December 31, 2026. Many pros fold the trip into a minimum charge instead of listing it separately.
Should I charge for estimates?
For a quick job you can price from photos or a short visit, a free estimate is easy to offer. For estimates that take real time, like a full remodel walk-through or diagnosing a problem, many pros charge a visit fee and credit it to the job if the customer books. Say which you do before you drive out.
How much should I mark up materials?
Decide the margin you want to keep first, then convert it: markup = margin ÷ (1 − margin). Keeping 20% of the price takes a 25% markup, and keeping 33% takes 50%. A 20% markup only leaves you about 16.7%.
Should a beginner charge hourly or by the job?
Hourly is safer while you learn how long jobs take, because slow jobs don’t cost you. Track your real hours on every job, and once you can predict a job type within about half an hour, switch it to a flat price so customers know the number before you start.
Sources
- Self-employment tax (Social Security and Medicare taxes), IRS (last reviewed Jun 27, 2026) Self-employment tax rate 15.3%: 12.4% Social Security plus 2.9% Medicare. Checked Oct 26, 2026.
- Standard mileage rates, IRS (last reviewed Jul 28, 2026) Business use: 76 cents a mile for Jul 1 to Dec 31, 2026 (IR-2026-29); 72.5 cents for Jan 1 to Jun 30, 2026. Checked Oct 26, 2026.
- General Maintenance and Repair Workers, Occupational Outlook Handbook, BLS (last modified Aug 27, 2026) Median pay May 2025: $49,590 a year, $23.84 an hour. The similar-occupations table lists 2025 median pay for carpenters ($60,580), HVAC mechanics and installers ($61,010) and plumbers ($63,800). Wage data exclude self-employed workers. Checked Oct 26, 2026.
- Electricians, Occupational Outlook Handbook, BLS (last modified Aug 27, 2026) Median pay May 2025: $63,190 a year, $30.38 an hour. Checked Oct 26, 2026.
- How To Avoid a Home Improvement Scam, FTC Consumer Advice (July 2022) What a written estimate should include; don’t automatically choose the lowest bidder; some states limit down payments. Checked Oct 26, 2026.