Most new trade businesses charge way too little
Here’s the trap almost every new lawn care or plumbing business falls into: you look at what the guy down the road charges, knock a few bucks off to “win the job,” and call it a price. Then six months in you’re slammed with work, exhausted, and somehow broke. That price was never built to make money. It was built to be cheap.
The fix is simple but it feels uncomfortable at first: price off your costs and the income you need, not off the competition. A real price covers your labor at a fair rate, your overhead, your parts, and a profit on top. Skip any one of those and you’re quietly paying customers to use your services.
How to price a job for real profit
Whether you’re mowing lawns or fixing water heaters, the same handful of levers decide whether a job is worth doing. Get these four right and the price takes care of itself.
1. Start with a target hourly rate
Your hourly rate is the floor everything else sits on. It is not what an employee earns hourly. It has to cover your skill, your downtime, your slow season, and the hours you spend quoting and driving that nobody pays you for directly. For a new lawn care solo op, $50–$70/hr of on-site time is a sane starting range. For licensed plumbers, $100–$150/hr billable is common, and higher in metro markets.
2. Add overhead so the truck pays for itself
Overhead is everything you spend to stay in business that isn’t tied to one job: insurance, equipment, fuel between jobs, repairs, phone, software, marketing. A quick way to handle it is to add a flat percentage (often 12–20%) on top of your labor. The calculator above bakes this in for lawn care so you’re never quoting a price that forgets the gas tank.
3. Mark up parts and materials
If you buy a $80 part and install it for exactly $80, you just worked for free on the parts side. Markup pays you for sourcing, hauling, stocking, and warranty risk when that part fails. A 25–50% markup is standard across the trades. On the plumbing calculator, the parts markup is its own input so you can dial it to your market.
4. Charge a service-call fee, and quote flat-rate
A service-call fee (also called a trip charge or diagnostic fee) covers the cost of simply showing up: the drive, the truck, the time before you’ve turned a single bolt. $79–$129 is typical for plumbing. Pair it with flat-rate pricing instead of pure hourly. Flat-rate means you quote one price for the job up front. The customer knows the number, and you’re protected when a “quick” job turns into a three-hour fight with a corroded fitting. Hourly billing punishes you for being fast and good. Flat-rate rewards it.
Frequently asked questions
How much should I charge for lawn mowing?
For a typical residential lawn (around 10,000 sq ft) a solo operator usually lands between $45 and $65 per visit for mow, edge, and blow. The right number depends on your serviced area, drive time, and your target hourly rate. Use the lawn care calculator above to build the price off your real costs instead of guessing. As a rule, never quote under roughly $40 for a stop, even on tiny yards, because windshield time and setup eat your margin fast.
What is a good plumber hourly rate?
Most independent and small-shop plumbers bill $100–$150 per hour, with bigger metros and emergency work pushing $150–$200+. But hourly is just the building block. Customers actually pay a flat-rate quote that bundles your service call, labor, and marked-up parts. Use the rate helper above to back into the exact hourly number you need to hit your income goal.
Should I charge hourly or flat-rate?
Flat-rate, almost always. Hourly billing makes the customer nervous (open-ended bill) and punishes you for being efficient. Flat-rate gives the customer a clear number and protects your margin when jobs run long. Calculate your true cost using an hourly target, then present it as one flat price.
What overhead percentage should I use?
If you haven’t tracked your numbers yet, start at 15% and adjust. Once you have a few months of real expenses, divide your total annual overhead by your total annual revenue to get your actual percentage. Many trade businesses land somewhere between 12% and 25%.
How do I raise my prices without losing customers?
Raise them on new quotes first, and raise existing customers a reasonable amount (5–10%) with clear, friendly notice. The customers who leave over a fair increase were never profitable anyway. The ones who stay value showing up on time and doing it right far more than they value the cheapest price.
