I've struggled with my pricing structure over the last 18 months in two ways.
One is to ensure I'm getting the hourly rate I want/need and not undercharging and the other is to ensure the structure is easily understood by the customer and appears congruent & clear.
If anyone would care to look at
Its hard to comment without knowing what typical job times are turning out to be, and what level of turnover you are seeking to achieve. If anything though, the pricing seems a little on the low side.
I notice you have simplified it and removed the bits about pre-booked half days etc. You could go further and simply say:
Minimum charge (includes 30 mins of work): £30 up to 1 hour for £50, and then £20/hour for time over that.
That would give a day rate of £190 with some front end loading for short jobs.
(pick your own numbers obviously)
Is there a particular reason for the non linearity at four hours? (i.e. you are adding £15/hour until then, then add £20, then drop to £10).
You perhaps should spell out that this is the labour charge only and excludes materials.
No comment on the structure as such but your prices seem very low to me.
When you say "travel included", do you not want to specify that that means only in your local area?
As with the previous 2 posters, I'd suggest keeping the 20quid/hour increment right through - and specifying a mileage or time range for the "included travel". Some people may not be calling because they think they're out of range - or vice versa.
You could also, on the same charging basis, offer a light removals service (e.g. just move some boxes from A to B - or move the washing machine to auntie's house and replumb at new location). That might be an opportunity for some potential new customers to meet you and gain confidence in you.
One other thing to think about is how you increase prices when it becomes necessary. A uniformly incremental structure means you can just add 5 quid at every price point at sometime in the future.
If it's any consolation, you're going through the classic new own- business/self-employed price adjustment. I heard all the warnings about "you'll set your prices too low to start with" - and still did it myself.
On my screen the type used is very small, borderline on impossible to re= ad particulary as it is a serif font. This applies to the whole site. I'd also look at the colours used in the mouse over and active bits of the L= H menu, active and mouse over use the same (boring) grey, mouse over has a= white drop shadow which looks "odd".
As others have said what does the included travel mean? I have this tap =
washer that needs changing I somehow don't think you'll come up to the North Pennines to do it for =A330... Give a radius, time and/or places y= ou are happy to travel to for that inclusive amount. Possibly give a p/mile= for further distances but bear in mind a realistic figure is likely to p= ut people off, realistic being around 50p/mile (fuel, servicing, repairs, insurance, depreciation/replacement). Most people will think only in ter= ms of fuel which is around 15p/mile or less.
The list of up to x hrs for =A3n is on the large side and difficult to t= ake in. Better, IMHO, to break it down to:
=A330 first half hour includes travel. Next 30 mins =A315. Subsequent hours =A315 pro rata.
This gives you 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, 105, 120, 135, 150, 165.
More or less what you have now but a much simpler method of arriving at =
the figure. Also frees up screen space for your travel info and spread o= ut or add some other info. You don't mention if parts/materials are include= d or not...
I'm coming to the conclusion that I could increase prices.
Yes - pilot error :-) I've changed it.
I quite like the linear idea because it appears the each extra hour is only £15 or even £10.
Good idea, although it does say on the home page where I operate, I could repeat/emphasise it.
Unforetunately the van isn't big enough (Kangoo) and it's pretty full anyway.
Good idea again.
At the moment I'm more or less fully booked untill the end of July - I suppose that should be telling me something.
Yes, I should specify that - thanks.
The font is Verdana 10pt. Mouse over & active are blue on my screen with no drop shadow. What browser are you using?
Changed the travel & materials bit.
Absolutely. Certainly on the hourly rates and especially if you are having days with lots of small jobs.
You can still quote fixed prices for well defined jobs if there is push back on the price.
It depends on what the work mix is and what you are comfortable with as a pipeline.
I suspect that the short handyman jobs have to be done fairly quickly or people will go elsewhere whereas the larger projects can be on a longer timescale.
Dead right. I have finally got my advertising just about right. The aim is to keep about two weeks ahead booked up, people will wait two weeks, but not much more. The van signwriting has buggered this by bringing in loads of work! I have a few afternoons free to cope with smaller jobs.
I would leave out the "charged extra at cost price" bit on the materials. There is no reason why you should not charge reasonable retails prices for materials and hence give yourself opportunity to benefit from any bulk price reductions / trade discounts you can achieve. It is also worth bearing in mind that the time and fuel required to get and deliver materials is not free and needs to be paid for somehow.
You cannot rely on any given font being available or used even if available. Font size under HTML is expressed as 7 numbers (1 to 7) with 1 being the smallest, there is no fixed relationship between these numbers and a size in points (1/72nd of an inch). The generally accepted default size for body text is 3, your pages set 2 for body text.
Then bear in mind that both font and size can also be overidden by the browser at the users discretion...
Each "button" is outlined with a 1 pixel black box. An "active" box has a
4 pixel wide dark grey section inside this along the base and right side, the drop shadow. The fill is a light grey. Text is blue/purple. An inactive box has light grey for the drop shadow and white fill, mouse over the drop shadow goes white and the fill goes grey. Text colour never changes.This is probably down to Frontpage and MS. Different versions of Frontpage generate pages that only render as expected under some versions of Internet Explorer. Use a different browser and things can just be "different" (like the buttons) or a complete and utter mess with images overlapping text and so on.
Mozilla 1.7.12 - Mozilla/5.0 (OS/2; U; Warp 3; en-US; rv:1.7.12)
I'd mark everything up at least 10% to help cover the costs of going to get or having them delivered. Provided you parts/materials prices are not over those that the punter can get them for from B&Q or WHY they won't mind.
particulary as it is a serif font. This applies to the whole site. I'd also look at the colours used in the mouse over and active bits of the LH menu, active and mouse over use the same (boring) grey, mouse over has a white drop shadow which looks "odd".
As others have said what does the included travel mean? I have this tap washer that needs changing I somehow don't think you'll come up to the North Pennines to do it for £30...
North Pennines do not have an ME postcode. It is there in the "our charges" section that he only covers ME postcodes:-)
Adam
Keep up at the back. The ME postcode restriction wasn't there when I commented.
Indeed, this is a FP limitation I think, typically you would specify you font choice as a prioritised list rather than a single font - that way it degrades more gracefully on odd browser setups.
You can also specify fonts in points, in which case they will look about right if the screen DPI setting matches the monitor size, or you can also specify pixel dimensions making the page layout more precise, but less accessible.
In most cases yes.
Indeed, its not even consistent on successive versions of IE. The other problem with most FP templates is they scream FP Template at you!
Quite right! I just changed it!
Changed it to 3, I think it looks better, how is it looking from yor=ur end? .
Not much I can do about that only having MS FP. The punters seem to like it though.
Acording to my web stats about 92% of my visitors use MS browsers, so I'll have to live with it.
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