Do you charge for estimates

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Jhr

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With the price of gas fluctuating so much I have thought about charging a fee when some one calls for an estimate/come out and look at this job. The fees $19.95 for residential, $39.95 for commercial 1/2 hour max, it will be called a site evaluation fee, is this something to consider, is this legal to charge two differant prices for differant types of work, is to cheap ?

[ October 29, 2005, 08:51 AM: Message edited by: Jhr ]
 
Re: Do you charge for estimates

you can charge whatever you want.

i think it is too cheap. if you want to do this, charge them for a standard service call.
 
Re: Do you charge for estimates

I personally feel this is a very smart and practical method of both recovering the cost of providing a service to a potential customer and also by weeding out those who are going to be too cheap anyway. If a customer is not willing to pay for your time and expertise to travel, evaluate, provide a proposal and estimate for a job, they will not be willing to pay for the work itself.

In my area, we a have a contractor or two that use the ESI method and are probably the only companies charging properly for their services. I see alot of contractors that are barely able to pay their employees and are beat up everyday by builders and developers becasue they don't charge enough and provide too many incentives with the contracts.

We shouldn't be ashamed of the value of our expertise and abilities as contractors and electrcians. Doctors and lawyers figuered this out a long time ago.
 
Re: Do you charge for estimates

A lot depends on if you are a 1 man shop.Also depends on size of job.You can not afford to pay a man to go estimate a 4 hour job.Also depends on the customer.If this is for a customer thay often uses your service then i would say free.Home owner wanting to add a fan or something are likely shopping for price.Go out with normal materials and be prepaired to start it right now if they like the price.They say yes then no charge but we all know you figured it in.Would you not charge to go replace a wall switch that took 5 minutes ? Sure you will charge.And an estimate takes far more time than that.One man shops when not busy or its close or on way to another job can afford to offer the service free.I want paid for every minute i am on payroll.That might be to sit at a parts counter eating doughnuts.When i was on my own i gave rough estimates for on phone for small things.A major job like perhaps wire a house would be worth a free trip.Gas prices might start to change how we all do buisness.
 
Re: Do you charge for estimates

I would love to charge for estimates. It seems better than 65% of the people who call for service work are just price shopping. Out of curiosity, Ill drive by a service upgrade estimate 2-3 weeks later, and see it hasnt been done still. With diesel at 3.60gal, any guesstimate over 10 miles away just costs me 9.00 minninum.
 
Re: Do you charge for estimates

I'd love to charge for estimates, but no other EC in my area does. Because of this, I'm scared to start doing so. Not like I don't have enough work already anyhow. I work in the cost of giving estimates for work that I don't get into the general overhead. In that way, the people who I do work for more of less pay for the estimate time for the work that I didn't get.

I still struggle with perhaps charging a small fee, not to pay myself back for the time and gas, but to sort out the tire kickers. Perhaps I will work up the nerve sometime soon.
 
Re: Do you charge for estimates

Some ECs around here do charge for estimates, but most don't seem to. For the ones who do charge, a common policy is that the estimate is free if the EC is hired. I've heard plumbers generally don't do free estimates.

I get most of the work I do estimates for, so I haven't felt the need to start charging for estimates. I also work almost exclusively in the city where I live, so I don't spend a lot of money on gas since I don't drive all that far to job sites.
 
Re: Do you charge for estimates

I don't see how anyone can not charge for estimates, given the rising cost of fuel and time it takes.
 
Re: Do you charge for estimates

I've never charged for estimates yet. One thing I've stopped doing is including my detailed scope of work with my quotes. Several times, my SOW documents have turned into bid docmuents. No more.
 
Re: Do you charge for estimates

What we do is charge all customers a 35$ evaluation fee. We do a ton of resi service work. We provide the customer a bid based on our evaluation and if they do the work the eval fee rolls into the total. No work, they pay 35$. If the eval requires troubleshooting we h we stop and inform the customer of our sliding scale for same. 113 first hour and on up at about 100 per hour. We have task schedules to give bids on other tasks such as new circuits,circuit extensions, hanging fixtures,rewiring circuits,spas, hot tubs, etc etc.
We also now have instituted a fuel surcharge omn all calls which result in actual work being done. No surcharge on eval only.

[ October 30, 2005, 04:14 PM: Message edited by: stew ]
 
Re: Do you charge for estimates

Stew
113 first hour and on up at about 100 per hour.
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Is this for one electrician or electrician with helper
We also now have instituted a fuel surcharge omn all calls which result in actual work being done
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Home Depot has a fuel sur charge policy if you return there equipment with less fuel than you recived it $4.00 a gallon. I do like the $35.00 Evaluation fee for all, I know of several ECs that advertise the $19.95 fee for residential only, " ask us about our $19.95 service call" is the way it is worded, others have trip charges around $39.95 for all, one EC charges x amount for first 1/2 hr then x amount each additional hour. I think I'll go with the $35.00 fee for all , like Bryan says it weeds out the cheap skates and price shoppers.

[ October 30, 2005, 10:08 PM: Message edited by: Jhr ]
 
Re: Do you charge for estimates

Originally posted by jimwalker:
A lot depends on if you are a 1 man shop.

One man shops when not busy or its close or on way to another job can afford to offer the service free.

I want paid for every minute i am on payroll.
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This is totally a s s backwards. A shop with several employees working in the field has the ability to be earning money while someone is out estimating. A one man shop does not have this ability. One guy that does four hours of estimating a week that bills himself out at $90.00 per hour is out $18,000 a year. Would you not rather have that money. As a one man shop that is a lot of cash to make up on jobs.

Don't forget that there is more time that goes into an estimate than just meeting the customer. Initial phone call, 10-30+ minutes. Time out to see job 1-2+ hours. Time at desk pricing materials and job, writing up on computer 1-2+ hours.
Starts to add up.

I too want to be paid every minute I am on the payroll.

Having said all that I have not charged for estimates because the work I have been doing for years has been with the same contractors and the volume and steady work load is something you can't put a dollar figure on. Also most of the jobs they just want done whatever the cost so no estimate needed as they know what I am charging in general.
Their work is slowing down (scary slow :eek: )so I have been taking on more work from outside sources. I will be starting to charge for estimates even though I know nobody else in my area does.
I'll start out with $75.00 to come out and see the job and see what kind of reaction it gets.
 
Re: Do you charge for estimates

I guess in my original post I should have ommitted the "give estimate" part, the fees I was talking about were for going out and looking/doing a take off of the job, taking all the info back to my desk and working out the estimate. most coustermers won't be willing to pay the service call fee of $78.00 per hour, but the amount of gas that it takes sure can eat you up :eek: .
 
Re: Do you charge for estimates

I like the idea to waive the estimate time if you receive the job. That's a good sales approach. I also like the idea of not giving a proposal that is too detailed. I have been burned on that before by my competition. Shame on me.
 
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