Running the Business · Part 2
Pricing models: hourly vs. a flat-rate price book, the service fee, and good/better/best, inside the rules for service calls
How you price is a business decision. What the price has to look like on paper is law, and for the most common plumbing job, the service call, the law is specific: one service charge, a stated contract price, no payment until the work is done, no work beyond the problem the customer called about. This lesson lays out the three pricing models a plumber can run, hourly, flat-rate price book, and good/better/best options, with the real tradeoffs of each, and then maps each model onto the two contract forms California allows, so the way you price never puts you on the wrong form.
What the full lesson covers
- Hourly is easy to compute and hard to sell; every slow minute is a fight. A flat-rate price book prices the task, not the time, which customers prefer and which rewards you for being good. Good/better/best is a price book with options, and it raises the average ticket honestly when the options are real.
- A service charge (trip fee, dispatch fee, diagnostic) is lawful and normal; on a service and repair contract the law allows exactly one, and the contract must say so in the statutory sentence.
- B&P 7159.10 lets you use the short service-and-repair form only if the job is $750 or less, the customer called you, you sell nothing beyond what fixes the problem, and you take no money until the work is complete. Fail any one and the job is a home improvement contract under 7159, with its down-payment limits and progress-payment rules.
- On a time-and-materials service call, the actual amount may not exceed the estimated amount without the customer's written authorization. Get it before the second hour.
- Whatever the model, the price book is built from the estimating method in the next lesson: labor cost, materials, overhead recovery, and margin. A price book without that math is a guess with a binder.
Unlock the full lesson
This is the public summary. The full lesson has the method, the worked cases, the checklists and the templates:
- All in-depth lessons, exam prep and After the License
- 1,000+ practice questions
- AI tutor (100 messages included)
- 14+ hours of audio lessons
- Full-length practice exams
- Pass guarantee
Start Free — Create Account$149 one-time · lifetime access · no subscription
Already have an account? Sign in
More lessons in Getting Work
- 1Where the first ten jobs actually come from
- 2Supply-house relationships and credit: the account, the terms, the personal guarantee, and the notice your supplier sends your customer
- 3Subbing to general contractors: how to get on the list, what they check, and the four clauses in the subcontract that matter
- 4Property managers, home-warranty companies, and realtors: volume vs. margin, and the paperwork each one lives on
- 5Google Business Profile, reviews, and referrals: the only marketing that matters in year one, and the two laws that govern reviews
- 6Advertising law for a licensed contractor: the number on every ad and the van, the word you can never use, and what a misleading ad costs
- 7Pricing models: hourly vs. a flat-rate price book, the service fee, and good/better/best, inside the rules for service callsYou are here
- 8Estimating as a method: takeoff, labor units, materials, overhead recovery, markup vs. margin, and contingency
- 9Estimate vs. quote vs. bid: the legal difference, and the moment a number becomes a contract
- 10Public works: DIR registration, prevailing wage, certified payroll, and apprentices. A separate world; know it before you bid
- 11Template: the estimate worksheet, blank and worked
- 12Template: the price-book starter. Forty service tasks, each with the line that builds its price
- 13Template: the first-90-days marketing plan. Thirteen weeks, one page, nothing paid