Pricing Question... (Don't Shoot Me)

JNLP

I've tried to not ask about pricing, as there are 100's of those posts already & they drove me insane reading all of them & everybodies different replies.

Sitting at home bored today though, I came up with a good one while staring out my window. Looking at a place across the street & starting wondering how I would paint it & how long it would take.

Say using ladders/picks this job would take 2 guys 2-3 days a side.
Using a JLG it would take 1 day a side.

So if you figure your prices by manhours, how would you charge when using a JLG? Would you still charge for 2-3 days a side, or would you take the pay cut & only charge 1 day a side?

mdshunk

BANG! ...you're dead.

Gordo

Charging anything less than what you need to make would be stupidity.
I have never understood how other contractors use estimating books to come up with their numbers. Who makes these numbers? What are their assumptions? ----That you need to make 20 hour before taxes.

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Looks like some pros were here.

Frankawitz

I would charge as much as I could get. I think making $95.00 an hour is better then making $25.00 an hour any day.

Brushslingers

Answer is no, you make the extra cash from the day not needed to work in order to pay the rental on the lift.

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Benn

BMAN

You charge as much as you can impress them with your qualifications to do a good quality job within or above their expectations.
So if you leave a bad impression then you cant charge much.
So if you make a good impression you can charge as much as they can afford or have budgeted for the project!

Mike Finley

If you are charging using manhours, you charge it based on the lower man hours using the lift, you add in for cost of renting the lift +15% to cover your time & expenses surrounding getting the lift and returning it.

You do another job in the days that you saved.

If you own the lift you should already have built into your charges the depreciation on the lift for every day you use it.

You complete 2 jobs in the time it would have taken you to do 1 and you make the same amount of money.

Difference is you've given your company a competitve edge in pricing by taking advantage of technology. The client in question got a job done for less money, you made the same, you guaranteed you would get the job since you were cheaper than the competitors using picks, you got 2 customers added to your potential repeat and referral basket in the time you would have gotten 1.

Win/win/win/win/win......