TradesPlumbersPricing and profit
Plumber Business PricingBusy all year and still short at BAS time means the price is wrong, not the workload.
Pricing for plumbing business owners who set their hourly rate years ago and have been nudging it since. Build a charge-out rate from your real labour cost, on-costs, overheads and margin, and price callouts, after-hours and contract work so they all make money.
The week this is about
Sound Like Your Plumbing Business?
Your rate came from the bloke down the road
You set your hourly rate by asking around and shading it a bit under. It has never been built from your actual labour cost, superannuation, vehicle, insurance and overhead, so you genuinely do not know which of your jobs make money and which ones you subsidise.
The award went up and your prices did not
Minimum rates under the Plumbing and Fire Sprinklers Award lift every 1 July, and so do super, insurance and the merchant's prices. If your charge-out rate is the same as last winter, you have quietly given away the difference on every hour you sell.
After hours costs you more than it pays
The 10pm burst pipe gets billed at your normal rate plus a bit, while the plumber attending is on penalty rates and you are paying for a night's sleep nobody got. Emergency work should be your best margin, and for most plumbing businesses it is the worst.
Underpricing does not show up as a loss, it shows up as a busy year with nothing in the bank, and it repeats until you change the number.
Pricing and profit
Here Is What We Do About It.
The Profitable Pricing Masterclass shows you how to build a charge-out rate from the ground up, and the Profit & Freedom Masterclass connects that price to the money you actually take home. The Learning Hub adds the ongoing pricing training, and coaching holds you to the new number when a customer pushes back.
Free tool, no sign-up
Charge-out rate calculator
Put in what labour costs you, how many hours you can actually invoice and what the business spends, and it builds the rate that covers all of it and leaves a margin. It runs in your browser and nothing you type is sent anywhere.
Work out your rateHow it works
Three Steps, Starting Tonight.
Work out what an hour really costs you
Not the wage. The wage plus the ute, the insurance, the phone, the unbilled hours and the time you spend quoting. Most owners have never put that number on paper.
Price off the number, not off the last bloke
The Profitable Pricing Masterclass takes you through building a rate that carries your overheads and a margin, so you stop pricing against whoever is cheapest this month.
Hold the price and watch what happens
The Profit and Freedom Masterclass covers the part nobody warns you about: what to do when someone pushes back, and why losing the wrong job is a win.
What changes
What Plumbing Business Pricing Actually Changes.
Three things plumbing business owners walk away able to do.
Build a charge-out rate from award cost, on-costs, overhead and margin
Set a callout fee and an after-hours rate that cover penalty rates
Quote a bathroom or a fit-off knowing the margin before you send it
Questions
Plumber Business Pricing, Answered.
What should a plumber charge per hour in Australia?
Why is my charge-out rate so much higher than what I pay my plumbers?
How do I raise prices without losing my regular customers?
Plumbers
The Other Ways We Help Plumbers.
Plumber Business Training
Structured training that turns what plumbers know on the tools into a business that runs properly.
CoachingPlumber Business Coaching
A coach who has run a trade business, in your corner, holding plumbers to the plan.
SystemsPlumber Business Systems
The documented process that lets the work happen properly when plumbers are not standing there.
The free appPlumber Business App
Lessons, tools and a room full of other owners, free for plumbers with an active ABN.
Marketing and leadsPlumber Business Marketing
How plumbers get the phone ringing with the jobs worth having, not just the cheap ones.
Hiring and teamPlumber Business Hiring
How plumbers build a crew that does it right without being watched.
Start Tonight, For Nothing.
The Crew, daily Q&A, starter courses and your complimentary coaching session. Free with an active ABN. No card, no trial clock.
Turning over $20k a month or more? Thirty minutes, one on one with a trade business coach, on what is capping the business and what to fix first.