what would you charge?

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aline said:
I do these 1-hour jobs quite often. They break down as follows.

1/2-hour travel to job.
1-hour spent waiting for the manager to get off the phone and then listening to the him talk about his horses.
1/2-hour spent getting all my stuff off the truck and to the job location.
1/2-hour spent getting someone to move all the pallets of stuff they decided to put right where I need to work the night before.
1/2-hour spent listening to a worker in the area talk about the divorce he's going through.
1-hour spent doing the actual work.
1/4-hour spent listening to a worker talk about some other electrical problem he's having in the building and want's to know if I have any ideas.
1-hour spent finding the manager, waiting for him to cut me a check and listen to him talk about his horses again.
1/2-hour travel from job.

These little 1-hour jobs can easily kill half your day.
You may also need to factor in a 1/2-hour for you or your electrician to take a dump.

One more thing. Did you go out and look at the job as well? If so how much time did you spend looking at the job in the first place? Did you get paid for looking at the job or do you need to factor this time into your bid as well?
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nicely put. hands down the best response
 
Poolside said:
Guys who aren't used to dealing with the prices on the job always start out with the "sounds like a lot", but in reality they underprice themselves and the rest of us. I got over that when I noticed that every time I had my service truck taken to the dealer for a repair it was $300- $500.00. The labor was only an hour or two plus the parts. AND I had to drive the truck to them. Look at the relative cost of various services you use and you arrive at the conclusion that maybe your prices are under-priced.
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$300 to $500 for and hours truck repair time is common, you have to remember a lot of the guys thinkinng it's a lot of money, are the same ones , playing back yard mechanic.
 
tonyou812 said:
When I did the numbers i came up with $450 bucks and i feel that i can do this in about an hour and a half by myself. I figured 95 to show up plus 50 an hour.
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If you're working for $50 an hour you're one of the guys that the local contractors association is trying to put out of business. Since you mentioned the word Buss-duct I'm assuming your not doing work for a little old lady down the street, but for a large facility that should be willing to pay you at least double your 50 bucks an hour. Some contractor would charge an even higher hourly rate I know I would.
 
tonyou812 said:
I just got my liscense recently and now I am doing small jobs on my own Just to get a feel for how to run a buisness. And yes Its all legit.
My question is that im really not sure if i am charging the right amount. I have a job comming up that involves piping out of a buss duct about 40 feet to a 1900 box and a cord drop of 30 feet to a 30 amp cord end for a machine. The work to be done is all off an 8 foot ladder and the materials are supplied by me. I am moving an existing 30a fused buss switch to accomodate this machine.
When I did the numbers i came up with $450 bucks and i feel that i can do this in about an hour and a half by myself. I figured 95 to show up plus 50 an hour. But for some reason it seems like a lot to me. I feel i can do it i an hour if i "hustle" Any insight would be appreciated
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Buss duct? Pipe? 40' drop? 30 amp? This is NOT a small job. I don't know where in NJ you are, but unless it's in the part of Jersey that's in Mississippi, you'd better rethink your rate schedule.

You have to pay yourself as an employee, plus you have to pay yourself as a business owner.
 
Tony,
This morning I posed this job, to my neighbor, he is a maint manager for a large high rise office park, in new jersey, he said he is lucky to get an electrician to show up, and look at a job for $300
 
find out what other people doing similar work are charging. thats what the market price is. if you charge more than that price, you porobably won't get much business.
 
petersonra said:
find out what other people doing similar work are charging. thats what the market price is. if you charge more than that price, you porobably won't get much business.
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Electrical work, is not a commodity, contracting is not priced on an index, he is not selling soy beans, he is selling a service, his pricing will be dependent on his cost of providing that service, not looking at what some other guy is charging, the other guys may not know their own costs.

He has to find his own costs, to establish a price.
 
Thank you all for your input, it is very helpful. I thought getting my license was hard but i see the real work ahead is harder. I work for somebody right now while i am trying to start my own thing. I have purchased a new sprinter van and already have a a couple of good customers. But now i see that pricing jobs is harder than i thought. I have nothing to really go off of. and I would not want to be the guy lowering the bottom line. I have looked at some sites and have a better idea now. thanks people
 
satcom said:
He has to find his own costs, to establish a price.
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And those costs are not limited to just labor and material.

Consider all your expenses:
Outside Services
Payroll
Office Supplies
Advertising
Rent
Accounting
Legal
Telephone
Utilities
Insurance (liability, property, personal, medical)
Bonds
Permits
Licensing
CEUs
Vehicle (fuel, repairs, maintenance, insurance)
Web design & maintenance
Workers Comp
Unemployment
Depreciation
Interest Paid

Heck, even buying a handful of NECs add up these days!

And, of couse, Uncle Sam & his buddies at all levels of government.

Only when you get a handle on your true operations costs can you determine what you must charge in order to stay in business.
 
what do you do when they want to know how much it is going to cost? do you give them a ball park figure. Is it better to charge TnM? Or to figure out how much i want to make on the job? Or do you customize how you charge based on the customer?
 
tonyou812 said:
what do you do when they want to know how much it is going to cost? do you give them a ball park figure. Is it better to charge TnM? Or to figure out how much i want to make on the job? Or do you customize how you charge based on the customer?
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It appears you have a lot of work to do, before you quote any work.

The price you quoted is way low, even for a business with low overhead.
 
infinity said:
If you're working for $50 an hour you're one of the guys that the local contractors association is trying to put out of business. Since you mentioned the word Buss-duct I'm assuming your not doing work for a little old lady down the street, but for a large facility that should be willing to pay you at least double your 50 bucks an hour. Some contractor would charge an even higher hourly rate I know I would.
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At $50/hour around here, he will be out of business without any help, or he will be 1 of those guys that end up working out of an old pickup truck with no insurance.
 
satcom said:
Electrical work, is not a commodity, contracting is not priced on an index, he is not selling soy beans, he is selling a service, his pricing will be dependent on his cost of providing that service, not looking at what some other guy is charging, the other guys may not know their own costs.

He has to find his own costs, to establish a price.
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You are mostly wrong about this. In most cases EC actually is a commodity. There are plenty of ECs in most areas that can do the same work, and can do it well. There are some niches he could fill that might reduce the competition, but he is going to have to be competitively priced or he will have no business to worry about.

His costs are not an issue in determining what the market will bear. It may be a determining factor in deciding if he can make a go of it.
 
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infinity said:
If you're working for $50 an hour you're one of the guys that the local contractors association is trying to put out of business. Since you mentioned the word Buss-duct I'm assuming your not doing work for a little old lady down the street, but for a large facility that should be willing to pay you at least double your 50 bucks an hour. Some contractor would charge an even higher hourly rate I know I would.
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$95 to show up sounds fair. $50 an hour sounds cheap.

Say you operate a business and you are the sole employee. You have a service truck that is well stocked and have typical EC tools. You are talking about something in the area of $50,000 investment at a bare minimum. You are going to have to amortize that over maybe 5 years realistically. If you work 2000 hours per year, just paying the capital costs for your truck may cost you $5/hour. Operating costs for the truck could well be another $4000/year or about $2/hour.

Your health insurance will cost you some thing like $8000/year for you and your family. That adds another $4/hour to your overhead.

Liability insurance is not cheap. I don't know what it costs in youir neck of the woods, but I do know a guy in a similar business around here paying $2200/year just for himself. Call it another $1/hour.

See where this is going?
 
petersonra said:
You are mostly wrong about this. In most cases EC actually is a commodity. There are plenty of ECs in most areas that can do the same work, and can do it well. There are some niches he could fill that might reduce the competition, but he is going to have to be competitively priced or he will have no business to worry about.

His costs are not an issue in determining what the market will bear. It may be a determining factor in deciding if he can make a go of it.
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There are electricians in my area that will do 200A service changes for $800. Are you under the impression that I have to do them for $800. or go out of business? Rest assured that I charge much more than that. I sell the job. I do not tell customers what others charge. I tell them what I charge and sell the job. Are you in business?
 
gas?

gas?

bradleyelectric said:
There are electricians in my area that will do 200A service changes for $800. Are you under the impression that I have to do them for $800. or go out of business? Rest assured that I charge much more than that. I sell the job. I do not tell customers what others charge. I tell them what I charge and sell the job. Are you in business?
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Will that even cover their gas? This is one of the big problems with our trade! Clowns that go out and give work away! Hey Tony would you rather be broke and rested , or tired and broke? Remember you are trying to make money and build a business! Lawn cutters were making $50 an hour 15 years ago.Good Luck to you!!
 
petersonra said:
His costs are not an issue in determining what the market will bear.
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Absolutely.

The costs have nothing to do with what the market will bear.

Now why is it that Nike can sell sneakers for $250 when their costs to produce them will be about equal to Walmarts $10 sneakers that do the same thing.


It's all in how you sell the product.

One EC can charge more then the others if they can sell themselves. :smile:
 
iwire said:
Absolutely.

The costs have nothing to do with what the market will bear.

Now why is it that Nike can sell sneakers for $250 when their costs to produce them will be about equal to Walmarts $10 sneakers that do the same thing.


It's all in how you sell the product.

One EC can charge more then the others if they can sell themselves. :smile:
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You have to remember, your selling a service, not a product, services are not measures by a market price cap, a service unlike a product, does not have a fixed cost.

If his service is over priced, the only ajustments he can make is in his mark-ups and profits, not his costs.

The issue is, if he knows his costs, and controls them, he will be able to price his services, and those prices will be what he needs to offer this services, if he tries to price to market pressures, and reduce his costs, he can not survive selling below cost.
 
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bradleyelectric said:
There are electricians in my area that will do 200A service changes for $800. Are you under the impression that I have to do them for $800. or go out of business? Rest assured that I charge much more than that. I sell the job. I do not tell customers what others charge. I tell them what I charge and sell the job. Are you in business?
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Not an EC. I do work for a business that is probably even more competitive. We compete with profitable companies that have dirt floors sometimes in their shops.

You cannot compete in the niche he is competing in if you are not competitive with his pricing.

If you are competing in the niche of people who do not know the other guy will do it for $800 and you are charging $2000, they may well buy from you because they just don't know there is much option.

Many people do not understand there can be a radical difference in pricing from one contractor to another. Thats why it is best to shop around some to feel out the best deal (maybe not the lowest price).
 
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