How Much Should You Charge for a Service Call?

Ask ten service business owners how they price a service call and most will say some version of "what everyone else charges" or "what feels fair." Neither of those numbers is connected to your actual costs, which is how businesses end up busy and broke at the same time.

Start with your true hourly cost, not your hourly wage

Your service call price needs to cover more than the time you're standing in front of the customer. Add up:

Technician labor cost (wage + payroll taxes + benefits)
Vehicle costs (fuel, maintenance, insurance, depreciation) — often $8-15/hour when averaged out
Tools and equipment wear
Overhead (insurance, software, phone, office, admin time) — typically 15-25% on top of labor
Drive time, which is often unpaid to the customer but very real to you

A tech you pay $28/hour often actually costs you $45-55/hour once vehicle and overhead are factored in. If you're pricing a service call at $65 flat and it takes 90 minutes plus 20 minutes of drive time each way, you may be barely breaking even before parts.

The flat-fee vs. hourly question

Flat "diagnostic" or "trip" fees ($49-99 is common) work well because customers know the cost upfront and it protects you on quick jobs. The risk is undercharging on calls that run long. A common structure: a flat trip/diagnostic fee that covers the first 30-45 minutes, then a clear hourly or per-task rate after that, stated before you start.

Price for the call, not just the labor

A service call isn't just labor time — it's the cost of having a truck, a phone line, insurance, and a scheduling system ready to respond same-day. That readiness has a cost even on days with fewer calls. Businesses that price purely on labor minutes tend to underprice systematically, because they're ignoring the cost of capacity.

A real example

Say your fully-loaded hourly cost is $52/hour, and your average service call (including drive time) takes 75 minutes. Your break-even on labor alone is about $65. Add a reasonable margin (most trades target 20-40% net on service calls) and a realistic price lands somewhere between $85 and $110 for a standard call — even if competitors are advertising $49 "trip fees" that come with heavy upsells later.

Don't forget to review it

Costs creep — fuel, insurance, parts — and prices set two years ago rarely keep up unless you review them at least annually. A 5-10% adjustment once a year is far less painful for customers than a 30% jump you're forced into later.

Make the pricing easy to apply consistently

Once you know your real number, the biggest risk is inconsistency — one tech quoting $65, another quoting $90 for the same job. Standardizing service call pricing into your estimate templates keeps every quote consistent no matter who's writing it, which is one of the simpler things ServiQ helps with once you've done the math above.