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Home Services/Flat-rate pricing calculator
Free tool · for HVAC companies

HVAC flat-rate pricing calculator

Put in your wages, overhead and target margin once, then add your jobs. You get a flat rate for each one and a price sheet to download, with the arithmetic shown.

1. Your shop’s numbers

Burdened labor, an hour
$42.00
Overhead, an hour
$62.50
One billed hour costs
$104.50

2. Your jobs

$181
$187
$110
$702
Replace capacitor: ($42.00 labor + $62.50 overhead + $40.00 parts) ÷ (1 − 20%) = $180.63

Include drive time in hours. These are your costs, not market prices, so check them against what your area will pay.

The starting values are examples, not benchmarks or market prices. Replace them with your own.

How the math works

Cost first, then margin

The formula is the one ServiceTitan publishes: fully burdened labor, plus materials, plus an overhead allocation, divided by one minus your target margin (ServiceTitan). Because overhead is already in the cost, what remains is the share of the price left over, which is why we call it a target margin here.

Worked example, using the calculator’s starting numbers, which are ours for illustration. A $30 wage plus 40% burden is $42.00 an hour. $25,000 of overhead over 400 billed hours is $62.50 an hour. So one billed hour costs $104.50 before parts.

A one-hour capacitor job with $40 of parts then costs $144.50. At a 20% target, the flat rate is $144.50 ÷ 0.8 = $180.63. Simply adding 20% would give $173.40, which leaves only 16.7%. That gap repeats on every ticket.

Billed hours matter most. Overhead is shared across them, so a shop billing fewer hours has to charge more for each one. Try halving the hours in the calculator and watch what happens to every price.

Using the result

Turning prices into a price book

  1. Start with your twenty most common jobs. Time them from real tickets, drive time included, rather than from memory.
  2. Cost parts at what you really pay, and decide whether your parts prices should include waste, returns and trips to the supply house.
  3. Set margins by category if you need to. ServiceTitan suggests this, since labor time and material costs vary across kinds of work.
  4. Check the market, then look at the outliers. A price well above what your area pays points to a costing or overhead question.
  5. Review regularly. Flat-rate prices go stale. ServiceTitan recommends reviewing margin by task, close rate, discounts, callbacks and overrides, and updating when costs change.

ServiceTitan also lists the drawbacks: you need accurate cost data, which new services lack, and a quick job’s price can seem high to a customer who doesn’t see the labor involved. So explain what the price includes before the work starts. ServiceTitan sells software for this, and a spreadsheet can do it too when you’re small. This calculator isn’t accounting advice; your accountant’s numbers are the ones to rely on.

Pricing is half of a profitable job. The other half is what it cost to win it. Our shared-lead cost calculator shows what each booked job costs from bought leads, and 15 HVAC marketing ideas covers cheaper calls.

Flat-rate pricing · FAQ

HVAC flat-rate pricing questions

How do you calculate HVAC flat-rate pricing?

Add fully burdened labor, parts and a share of overhead for the job, then divide by one minus your target margin. A job that costs $144.50 at a 20% target margin is priced at $144.50 ÷ 0.8 = $180.63.

What is the difference between markup and margin?

Markup is a percentage of cost, and margin is a percentage of the price. Adding 20% to a $144.50 cost gives $173.40, which is only a 16.7% margin. To keep 20% of the price, you divide by 0.8 instead.

What margin should an HVAC company target?

There's no reliable published standard, and it depends on your overhead and market. One business coach quoted by ServiceTitan says to aim for at least 20% net, and says most contractors make under 6%. Use your own books, and ask your accountant if you're unsure.

Is flat-rate better than time and materials?

It gives you predictable prices, faster quotes and fewer billing disputes. The drawbacks are that it needs accurate cost data, goes stale if not updated, and a quick job's price can look high to a customer who can't see what's behind it. Many companies use both.

What should the billable hours figure be?

Use the hours you really bill to customers, not the hours your technicians are paid for. Drive time, shop time and callbacks are real, but they aren't billed, so counting them makes every job look cheaper than it is.

Does this tell me what to charge in my area?

No. It tells you what a job has to cost to meet your own target. Check that against what your market will pay. If the price is far above it, look at your overhead and billable hours before you cut the margin.

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