Pricing guides for service businesses
These guides walk through how to price common service jobs from what they actually cost you: labor time, materials, travel, a share of overhead and the margin you choose. Each one is written for one trade, with that trade's units, a worked example and the pricing mistakes that most often cost owners money.
The same five ingredients, every trade
Whether you are pricing a driveway wash, a fall cleanup or a season of snow plowing, a sound price is built from the same parts: the hours the job takes at your crew's real speed, what an hour of labor costs you once taxes and insurance are included, the materials and consumables, the travel and a fair slice of overhead, and finally the margin. What changes from trade to trade is the unit you measure in and the things that slow a job down.
Guides
- How to price a fence jobBuild fence prices from materials per foot, crew pace, gates, corners, slopes, tear-out, overhead and margin, with a worked cedar privacy fence example.
- How to price house cleaningPrice house cleaning from team hours, supplies, drive time, overhead and margin, with separate prices for first cleans, maintenance cleans and move-outs.
- How to price landscaping jobsPrice landscaping from materials, markup, crew days, equipment, overhead and margin, with a worked paver patio example and the mistakes that eat profit.
- How to price a painting jobPrice interior and exterior painting from production rates, prep time, paint quantities, sundries, travel, overhead and margin, with a worked example.
- How to price pressure washing jobsPrice pressure washing from your real costs: production rates per surface, chemicals, drive time, overhead and margin, turned into a per-job quote.
- How to price snow removalPrice snow removal from expected storms, minutes per visit, truck costs, salt and margin, then sell it as a seasonal or per-push contract.
Start by timing your own jobs
Every guide relies on knowing your production rate. To find yours:
- Time a handful of typical jobs from arrival to departure, not just the hands-on part.
- Record the size of each job in the trade's unit: square feet, linear feet, rooms, loads or visits.
- Divide size by hours to get a rate, and keep separate rates for different surfaces or tasks.
- Re-check the rates each season as crews, equipment and conditions change.
About these guides
- Do these guides give market prices for my area?
- No. Prices vary too much by region, season and business to quote one number responsibly. The guides show a method for building a price from your own costs, with worked examples labelled as illustrations.
- How often are the guides updated?
- Each guide shows the date it was published and the date it was last reviewed. They are reviewed when the method or the advice in them changes.
- Who writes them?
- The Scopie team writes them for owners of small service businesses. They are general business information, not legal, tax or financial advice.
Put your prices to work
Store your working prices as items in Scopie and every quote starts from numbers you trust.
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