Hourly billing usually charges for wrench time only. The drive, the diagnosis, the parts run, the paperwork - you pay for those hours, but you rarely bill them. Put your real numbers in below and see what that habit costs per year.
| Hourly | Flat rate | |
|---|---|---|
| Labor billed per job | $0 | $0 |
| Parts (with markup) | $0 | $0 |
| Revenue per job | $0 | $0 |
| Recovered per job | +$0 | |
| Recovered per year | +$0 |
Estimates for illustration: the gap shown is only the unbilled labor hourly billing gives away (parts markup is held equal in both models). Your results depend on your rates, mix, and market.
Start Forever Free - build your price book See what Flat Rate Plus Online doesForever Free requires no credit card and never expires.
One upfront, fixed price for a repair task instead of billing time and materials by the hour. The price is built from the real cost of the whole job - labor, travel, diagnosis, parts, and overhead - so the customer approves a known number before work starts and you recover every hour the job actually takes.
Because the clock only runs on site. Drive time, diagnosis, parts runs, and paperwork are real hours you pay wages and overhead for, but rarely bill. Flat rate builds the full time-to-deliver into the task price, so those hours stop being a gift.
Most homeowners would rather know the exact price before work begins. Flat rate removes the anxiety of watching a clock, makes approval a simple yes or no, and lets your techs present good-better-best options professionally.
You can build one from your labor rate, task times, and parts costs - or start from a professionally built library. Flat Rate Plus Online's Forever Free account includes the tools to build and manage price books online, and the paid plan unlocks roughly 3,500 handcrafted tasks, good-better-best proposals, invoicing, and a QuickBooks Online sync that gets sales tax right to the penny.