by FantasyLab

Am I underpriced?

Six numbers, about a minute. You'll get the hourly rate that covers your business and your paycheck, and how many weeks a year your current rate has you working for free. It all stays on your phone.

1 of 6 Free · no email
  1. sample
    What you'd text a customer today. Leave it empty to skip the comparison.
  2. sample
    Door to door. Driving and paperwork count.
  3. sample
    52, minus vacation, holidays, sick days and rain days.
  4. sample
    Your wage, before income tax. Profit comes on top of it.
  5. sample
    Truck, fuel, insurance, phone, tools, software, ads. Not your pay.
  6. sample
    As a rule of thumb, most solo shops land around 60 to 65%. Driving, supply-house runs, free estimates and invoicing eat the rest of the week.

    You work 12.6 weeks a year for free.

    At $65 an hour, a full year of work brings in what 35.4 weeks should at $88.15. 3.0 of the missing weeks are your own bills and pay. The other 9.6 are the profit. Right now the truck gets paid before you do.

    Sends your weeks figure and the link. Your costs and your rate stay off it.

    • Paid 35.4 weeks
    • Bills and pay not covered 3.0 weeks
    • Profit not charged 9.6 weeks

    "For free" is measured against your target rate, which is your costs, your pay and the profit you set. It's an estimate from the numbers you typed, not financial or tax advice.

    Before you text the price

    Price a job

    Priced at your $90 shop rate. Pick the job, check the hours, add the parts. Doing more than one job on the same visit? Add each one. The trip, the minimum and the small-job buffer get charged once, the way the kit prices a ticket.

    The sample is a kitchen faucet. Type your job.

    The job

    80 jobs from the kit's price book, or type your own.
    The kit starts it at 1.5 h each. Typical is 1 to 2 h. Use your own time if you know it.
    The small stuff ($20 of supplies) is already in the price. Type what you pay for the fixture or parts. It gets marked up 25%, same as in the kit.

    Price to text

    $230

    • Replace kitchen faucet1.5 h at $90$160
    • Small-job buffer, under 4 h$24
    • Trip charge, once a visit$35
    • Contingency, 5%$11
    • Price to text$230

    Covers your bills and your pay, with 45.2% profit on top. Your target is 20%.

    Trip $35, a 15% buffer on visits under 4 hours, 5% contingency and a $195 minimum are the kit's starting settings. In the kit you set your own. Your rate and costs never go in the text.

    After the job

    Was that job worth it?

    Four numbers from a job you just finished. You'll see what your time earned on it, held up against your break-even.

    The sample is the bathroom refresh from the kit's own job log. Type yours.

    The whole job, change orders you billed included.
    Door to door, including the estimate visit, supply-house runs, the drive and the cleanup. If you were on it, count it.
    What you paid, not what you billed.
    The "while you're here" stuff. 0 if none.

    Below target

    Your time earned $75.94/hr What's left after materials and extras, per hour on the job. Your break-even is $70.52/hr.
    Real margin5.1%
    Your target20%
    To make your margin it needed $4,035

    It covered you, barely. Your time earned $75.94 an hour against a $70.52 break-even, a 5.1% margin. To make your 20% on those real numbers it needed $4,035: $635 more.

    Real cost = real hours × your break-even + materials + extras, the same as the kit's Was I Right? tab.

    30% markup is not 30% margin

    Markup is what you add on top of your cost. Margin is how much of the final price you keep.

    A job costs you $1,000. You add 30% markup, so you charge $1,300. You keep $300, which is 23% of the price, not 30%.

    To actually keep 30%, you need about 43% markup. The bigger your target margin, the wider the gap gets. The full markup to margin chart.

    Your margin is
    23.1%
    Mark up by
    42.9%

    Your first 12 prices.

    Twelve common jobs from the kit's Price Book, priced at your shop rate (the target rate above, rounded up to the next $5). The formula is the kit's own. Hours × rate, plus supplies marked up 25%, rounded up to the next $5.

    Hours and supplies are the kit's starter numbers, not a survey of your market. Change your numbers above and the prices follow.

    Email this list to me

    Opens your own email app with the list filled in. Nothing is sent to us.

    Pricing tips, by email

    Pricing tips now and then, and news about the True Rate kit. Confirm by email, unsubscribe anytime. Privacy

    Starter prices at your shop rate
    TaskHrsPrice

    Priced at a $90.00 an hour shop rate. The kit has 80 jobs like these, and its Price This Job sheet adds the trip and minimum charges.

    Get all 80 for $39

    Make your rate card.

    An image of your shop rate to post in a trade group, put on your page or text to a customer who asks why you charge what you do. Only the shop rate shows unless you add more. It's drawn on your device, and nothing gets uploaded.

    Goes on the card and the price sheet. Saved only in this browser.
    On the card

    Your costs are your business. Leave these off if the card is for customers.

    Shape

    Print a price sheet for the truck.

    Your first 12 prices on one page, with your name and number on top. Clip it to the board or leave it on the dash. They're the same prices as the table above.

    Opens your browser's print screen. Pick "Save as PDF" to keep a copy on your phone.

    Pass it to someone who prices by gut. The calculator is free and never asks for an email.

    Now price every job from it.

    The full True Rate kit turns this rate into prices. You get an 80-job price book, a Price This Job sheet with trip and minimum charges, a markup and margin converter, a Was I Right? log, a customer estimate and Get Paid Texts.

    Get the kit · $39 See what's inside

    One-time purchase. Google Sheets or Excel.