Am I charging enough?

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A1cbr

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I wanted to find out what some of you guys would charge to repair 3 outside secuirty lights. There are two sercurity lights both are 400 W Metal halide.
One had a bad photocell, and the other had a bad ballast. Also replaced the two 400W bulbs. The third was a 70 w high pressure sodium that I had to total replace with a new fixture. Now it took a total of 4 hours to complete everything. I charged them $389.56, am I to high? Also I live in Ga.
 
If you pay all your overhead, labor, material, and other misc expenses PLUS keep a little for yourself, you are charging enough.
 
A1cbr said:
I wanted to find out what some of you guys would charge to repair 3 outside secuirty lights. There are two sercurity lights both are 400 W Metal halide.
One had a bad photocell, and the other had a bad ballast. Also replaced the two 400W bulbs. The third was a 70 w high pressure sodium that I had to total replace with a new fixture. Now it took a total of 4 hours to complete everything. I charged them $389.56, am I to high? Also I live in Ga.
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As long as you charged that plus material x material markup.
 
Labor 4 Hrs. @ $82.00 328.00
Photo Cell 1- @ 12.00
Ballast 1- @ 52.00
Bulbs 2-@ 19.00 Ea 38.00
Fixture 1-@ 79.00

Total 509.00


The $82 may be ok if you have little overhead, or your working in a depressed area, in the metro, or wealth areas, rates seem to be 90 to 120 low and 150 up high, it's tough to give a number on what your area will support, but rather then worry, what others are charging, figure all your overhead costs, add your burdened labor costs, and then add on a nice profit.

Remember even as a one man shop, your overhead is still there, all your insurances, truck operating expenses, and truck payments, truck replacement costs, advertising expenses, phone, office expenses, tools and equipment, accounting, and legal expenses, professional fees, shop expenses, state and local taxes, along with a bunch of other expenses.

IMO Any rate, less then covering all your overhead, labor and profit, is a hobby not a business, and electrical work, is not a hobby.
 
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I'd be higher than SATCOM
He's giving materials away at cost... Not me!
IMHO if your asking if you charged enough, you already know you didn't.
If you were asking " Did I overcharge them" Then you know you did.
You gave them a very good price. If you believe in karma go buy a Lotto ticket.
 
If he had two people there, do you charge by the person or by the hour? If both guys are working at either end of the job and get done at half the time or you have 6 guys working there and get done in 20 minutes, how would you charge for that? Is it 6 x hourly rate or 2 x hourly rate ?
As for materials if you don't charge a mark up on your costs you are loosing money. Its the gas, the interest on the charge card, its your time paying for them at the end of the month. Does your credit card company want 20% on there money? Why shouldn't you get a return on your outlay?

You are not too high. If they complain about the costs, you don't want to work for them. They have a re-enforcing mind set you are charging too much. It is psychological warfare on you to charge them less and hurts your position when you get to the next job. Its Electrician Abuse, tell them you forgot to add equipment (ladder) rental.

If you charge enough they will respect your work, pay promptly, not hesitate to call you back when they have more work to do. You don't want to be the discount electrician. Your customers are not capable nor knowledgeable enough to do the work. They must pay someone else to do this. They feel uncomfortable asking someone else to do this. Their ego's are getting in the way of common sense. To get them to a position to feel comfortable you are socially obligated to charge them "enough" so that their ego's will reward them for calling the "right guy. It's not that you didn't Charge them enough, it is that you insulted them by not proving to them they were over their heads (literally) by costing them lots of money. You have to sell to there ego, not there pocketbooks. It will make both of you happier.

This was also an opportunity to flat rate this by giving them a set price on each fixture. If you charged $250 each fixture replacing each fixture's ballast and lamp and guaranteeing each for 2 years saying they will have light there and can incorporate this cost over two years of their taxes as building depreciation or maintenance costs you would be talking to the accountant and get them to OK the job. They would realize the cost benefit and also be the one writing the check. Notice how you just doubled your payoff?

OK so you might not get this job, according to Liberty Mutual if you fall from a 10 foot height you have a 50/50 chance of the fall being fatal. Do you want to make $30 today changing out these lights with those statistics? Maybe the guy complaining how much it costs should do the job the first time then call you to fix what he did, he will be much more appreciative.
 
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"I'd be higher than SATCOM"

And you would be right, i din't want to mark-up the material, i don't know what his mark-up is, but you brought up a good point, the mark-up is a profit center.
 
Well I think the customer is happy but it was hard to tell. My material cost pretty close to SATCOM. I added 20 % to the materials for my profit. As far as labor goes it seems the electricians charge any where from $50 to $75 an hour around here. Thanks for the info.
 
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