How to Price Jobs Profitably Without Losing Work

Pricing is one of the hardest skills in any trades or service business. Charge too much and you fear losing the job. Charge too little and you work for pennies. Most owners aren’t short of skill — they’re short of a simple, reliable method for quoting work that protects profit without scaring customers off.

The real reason pricing feels hard

For most tradespeople, pricing tension comes from two competing fears:

• Fear of losing the job — “If I quote too high, they’ll go to someone cheaper.”
• Fear of undercharging — “If I quote too low, I’ll end up resenting the job or rushing to avoid losing money.”

What makes this worse is the set of hidden costs that many small businesses forget to include:

• Travel and fuel
• Picking up materials
• Admin time: scheduling, quoting, messages
• Revisits and corrections
• Tool wear, replacements, and disposables
• Tax and insurance obligations

When you miss these items, you *feel* busy but the bank balance says otherwise.

Break your price into components

A profitable quote has four building blocks:

1. Direct materials

Exactly what you’ll buy for the job. Include delivery, waste, and a small buffer for price changes.

2. Labour

Not just the hours on site — but your real hourly rate including:

• Admin time
• Travel
• Preparation
• Clean-up

3. Overheads

A portion of what keeps your business running: tools, fuel, software, insurance, accounting, marketing, training. These don’t appear on quotes, but they must be built into your pricing.

4. Profit margin

Profit isn’t greed — it’s what allows you to reinvest, replace tools, take time off, grow, and survive quiet months. Profit should be planned, not whatever is “left over.”

A simple pricing formula you can reuse

You don’t need spreadsheets or complicated formulas. A reliable starting point is:

Materials + (Hourly rate × hours) + overhead allowance + profit

Include a minimum job fee

For tiny jobs, a minimum fee protects you from losing money on travel and setup time. Most successful tradespeople have one; many regretted not introducing it sooner.

Example

Translating your numbers into a clear quote

Customers don’t see your internal math — they see clarity, structure, and confidence. Good quotes answer questions before the customer asks them.

Write clear line items

• Exactly what you’ll do
• Materials included
• What’s excluded
• Any assumptions (e.g. access, condition, timings)

Add optional upsells

Offer variants: basic, standard, premium. Or add-ons they can accept with a click (GoTaskhub supports optional line items).

Using GoTaskhub quotes to standardise pricing

Your pricing becomes more consistent instantly when you stop writing each quote from scratch.

Create templates for common jobs

Add predefined line items, quantities, and notes. Build a library that grows with your experience.

Track win rate over time

See which quotes convert, at what price points, and whether your prices are creeping too low or too high.

Common pricing mistakes & how to avoid them

• Forgetting travel time and disposal costs
• Never raising prices for loyal clients
• Discounting because you “feel bad,” not because it’s a strategy
• Being vague on scope — leading to scope creep
• Not tracking whether jobs were profitable

Communicating price with confidence

What to say when presenting your quote

“This includes everything needed to complete the job professionally — materials, labour, preparation, cleanup, and full aftercare. We’re not the cheapest, but we do the job right the first time.”

When a client says: “Can you do it for less?”

Offer scope adjustments, not discounts. Example: “If you’d like to bring the price down, one option is removing the optional sanding step or choosing standard materials instead of premium.”

When it’s okay to walk away

If a client wants quality work but bargain-bin prices, they’re not the right customer. You win more long-term by focusing on the customers who value your standard.

Next steps

• Create your first quote template in GoTaskhub
• Review your last 10 jobs and check whether they were profitable—or just felt busy
• Explore Quotes and Home Expenses to tighten your real numbers