Pricing for a job need help

[JLHELEC]

Thank you for the wise words guys. Very much appreciated

 

[Dustydazzler]

Thank you for the wise words guys. Very much appreciated

When I went from employeed to self employed I found pricing properly the hardest thing to get right often pricing way too cheap for the first few years

I started to ask other local self employed trades what they were charging and I was way too cheap and way too busy so put my rates up straight away

 

[LukeD]

Rule one ... When a client thinks you are only there to earn a wage you are in trouble . The price covers , Wage, costs of tooling etc .legal costs . Van costs and pension /saving etc etc . In life the highest chargers tend to be the busiest !

 

[buzzlightyear]

I priced up a job recently to sort out
A job a builder has not finished off electrical work,
Sent a email regarding the work.
Came back to say waiting for another builder to come back to her, price up what needs doing.
Won't hear from them again.

 

[UNG]

Pricing a job when the job can have many variables is difficult.
Looking at the job and pricing it where everything goes to plan with no deviation is bordering on achieving the impossible which very very rarely happens
My old business partner always priced jobs and assessed what he called the buggeration factor or degree of difficulty which was based on things not going to plan or finding that things that were not obvious on a site visit
How many trades are going to be on site all wanting / fighting for the same bit of space at the same time
The smoke detector you mention could take an hour or two but could easily take most of a day if hard wiring by the time you lift a carpet and floorboard or two
The testing and certification is another area that is often overlooked but all adds to the overall time to complete the work
It is all to easy to list the components of the work but without knowing the site layout it is purely crystal ball guesses as to how much you should charge
So much time can be lost because you can't isolate something because someone needs power or you are waiting on the plasterer skiming the walls and ceiling, so 2 - 3 full days onsite then turns into a mix of full days and ½ days and you then need to find other work to fill the ½ days to make your daily rate

For every job that goes to plan with zero problems there will be many more that don't the ones that go to plan can and usually are good earners the ones that don't have to be priced such that if it goes drastically wrong you have at least kept the loss to a minimum

 

[buzzlightyear]

Ist you set the price not a customer
All jobs need to be estimated just in case a hic up. Or you are a blind man going in blind.

 

[WallaceP]

I would say 3 days maybe 4. You will need to allow time for chit chat, nipping out to van/merchants, testing, fuse fairy all these take longer than you think

When doing jobs, time yourself to get more confident in estimating.
if you are going to do that. Don’t just time the time it takes to connect a socket for example start the clock from saying im going to do that socket, so gathering tools, the socket and tidying up.

Another thing to think about is how old the exising fire alarms are and if you should just replace the lot of them at the same time.
Also consider a mains powered fire alarm with radio interlink.

 

[snowhead]

Is this customer someone random or a friend / neighbour / relative.?

If any of the last 3, it should make no difference to the price, mates rates are full rates.

Plus everything above said by others and not to forget that whatever you quote / charge, the customer may want to dispute it when it comes to paying, or even not want to pay at all.

 

[UNG]

I would say 3 days maybe 4. You will need to allow time for chit chat, nipping out to van/merchants, testing, fuse fairy all these take longer than you think

When doing jobs, time yourself to get more confident in estimating.
if you are going to do that. Don’t just time the time it takes to connect a socket for example start the clock from saying im going to do that socket, so gathering tools, the socket and tidying up.

TBH the best indicator I have found is to periodically do a job review every few months and compare the pricing to the actuals of a few jobs to verify that your pricing is in the right ball park, when you throw in travel time on a job it can certainly skew costs and it can mean you alter your working hours slightly, simple things like spending an extra hour onsite can mean you get more work done rather than waste an hour sat in all the rush hour congestion for a 15 - 20 min journey

Another thing to think about is how old the exising fire alarms are and if you should just replace the lot of them at the same time.
Also consider a mains powered fire alarm with radio interlink.

Done this plenty of times and in the last few years the technology has massively improved

 

[Dustydazzler]

Is this customer someone random or a friend / neighbour / relative.?

If any of the last 3, it should make no difference to the price, mates rates are full rates.

Plus everything above said by others and not to forget that whatever you quote / charge, the customer may want to dispute it when it comes to paying, or even not want to pay at all.

Rates are Rates

I used to dread pricing jobs for friends and family as the first thing they ask for is 'Mates rates'