I try to flat rate most projects these days so I am averaging $150+/hour.
Electricians in my area seem to cut each others throats. Hourly prices vary anywhere from $75.00/hr (residential) to $175.00/hr (commercial). You can't get a plumber to change out a sink washer for less than $125.00 and they all stick together or are close on pricing. Why can't we do the same ?
Why have a service call fee of $75 (example) then say a 2-hour minimum for a total of $150?
Why don't you just say the service call is $150 to start with?
Doesn't make sense to me, you will never charge just the $75, so just make the combined price your service call fee.
If you were to say to the customer $150 and I were to say $75 with a 2 hour minimum, I would probably get the job. Because the customer hears and pays attention to the dollar amount. The $75 sounds a lot better (even though it is the same at the end).
It is like an item costing $10 or $9.89. The $10 sound expensive, even though they are both about the same.
over the years we track the service business in our area and when the big yellow and now the big google guys took over they have averaged 149 to 179 service rates they are flat, they never give an hourly rate, the service call allows them to give a flat rate estimate for the work required, customers tell me you can't get a service upgrade for less then 4,200 and they are alum service cable with cheap loadcenter
we are a residential service company and we have a 69.00 dispatch fee then we have a 197.00 diagnostic fee once the problem is found then we charge according to our price guide. We switched from minimum times due to customer objections. We had a two hour minimum but most repairs were an hour or less so customers did not feel they owed for two hours.