Mileage Rate for service call

[Andy T]

What is the going rate for mileage on a service call out in the UK?Less hourly rate?

[slingblade]

What is the going rate for mileage on a service call out in the UK?Less hourly rate?


These chaps seem to know their stuff,

http://fridgetech.com/rates/

seems reasonable to me.

[rbartlett]

These chaps seem to know their stuff,

http://fridgetech.com/rates/

seems reasonable to me.

We tinker round the edges but that is basically our stance.

Cheers

Richard

[frank]

We also charge out at £0.45p/mile :)

Should put it up though with all the increases in raw diesel costs and the AA recommended costs of ownership :)

[Andy T]

My fuel is my biggest overhead.So 50miles there and 50 Back =100*0.45=£45+ 2hours travel at £24+ 1 hour site time at £24. to replace a relay on a domestic fridge.Total is £117+Vat.Ok is £24/h for a 20 years experience fridge guy to cheap is my next question.I have just started up on my own after working for a in house company for 20 years(I have not got a clue as to my worth).How much for a day rate sub contacting on a semi perminent basis.compared to casual day rate.What is a sub contract hour rate? is it the same as a direct customer?How do I up my rates to an existing customer, as I went in at a price to get off the ground with work and open doors the customer has me employed at a rate that is paying bills ,but not realy making a profit.What can I say?I fix fridges ,thats all I know,being P.A.Y.E all my life.This must be a situation a lot of you started at.It's a learning curve!!

[monkey spanners]

We started out three years ago charging 40p/mile and 25pounds/hour. About a year ago we put this up to 50p/mile and 30pounds/hour. Another local company charges 35pounds/hour,don't know thier mileage rates. A company we do some install work for doesn't charge mileage as all thier work is in the town where they are based, but they do mark up their parts more. At the end of the day you've got to cover all you costs and have some left over to make it worth the risk/effort of being self employed. For sub contract work we charge 200pounds/day/man plus 50pounds to cover transport. I dread to think what will happen if road pricing comes in, we'll have customers refusing to pay because we called at the wrong time of day!!

[Andy W]

Charges vary enormously according to the type of work you do, industrial you can charge what you like, now the problems with pricing starts when you start to do corner shops / small business, when they ring what do they always ask, do you charge a call out charge, the biggest culprits of this are ethnic minorities (not been racist but dead true) always want something for nothing, the other factor is what your competition charges in your area, if you are a lot more expensive your services will not be used, like I said it depends what part of the market you are aiming for. If you repair a domestic you can not go charging silly prices as the appliances are cheap to replace, I have a fixed price to replace a stat or relay, I screen domestic calls, if it sounds like a faulty compressor I tell them, waste of my time going for very little money. Also I only attend to domestics within a 10 mile radius of my office if I can fit them in, if not I pass them on to another local bloke.

On commercial equipment I have a good regular customer base within a 15 mile radius of my office so I charge a fixed attendance fee then my usual hourly rate, no mileage charge, if I go further a field which I do not need to do anymore unless called out to specialist equipment I charge what I think the job is worth to me.

At the end of the day you need to be competative with the other local firms, offer a good service and give that little extra personal service. Works fine for me.

If all your work is sub contracting which I no longer do, the contractor usually dictates to you what they want to pay, as a new company just starting out you have to agree to these things to get a start.

All the above is what I have found in my 28 years in the industry and 8 years on my own, may not work for you but works just fine for me.

I must add that in my area there is 1 company but lots of 1 man bands so that is what dictates charges, one guy who has now packed up was marking up compressors £5 and at one time no call out and dirt cheap hourly rates, he did a lot of damage in our area, he was always very busy but made no money, ended up a laughing stock, I say to my customers when they moan about prices, "quality costs, pay peanuts, you get monkeys" but you have to be established first.

[IceMan_4000]

My fuel is my biggest overhead.So 50miles there and 50 Back =100*0.45=£45+ 2hours travel at £24+ 1 hour site time at £24. to replace a relay on a domestic fridge.Total is £117+Vat.Ok is £24/h for a 20 years experience fridge guy to cheap is my next question.I have just started up on my own after working for a in house company for 20 years(I have not got a clue as to my worth).How much for a day rate sub contacting on a semi perminent basis.compared to casual day rate.What is a sub contract hour rate? is it the same as a direct customer?How do I up my rates to an existing customer, as I went in at a price to get off the ground with work and open doors the customer has me employed at a rate that is paying bills ,but not realy making a profit.What can I say?I fix fridges ,thats all I know,being P.A.Y.E all my life.This must be a situation a lot of you started at.It's a learning curve!!


Andy Your customers will tell you what you are worth. If you have built a good relationship with the customer and made it easy for them to pay you. Then the worry about the rate will be less of a worry.


as for how to up your rate, UP IT just up it. Think about adding a percentage that is easy to equate to the cost of living increase your area has seen.

As for fuel we charge the service units to our customers per hr. Your service unit is an asset to your customers. Charge them for it,


Our current structure is

$85.00 CND/hr regular time

$127.50 CND/hr after hours

$6.00/hr service unit

3% consumables


And if a customer tells me they do not want to pay hourly for a service unit. I tell that is fine but for the next call they will have to bring there plant to me.


Provide the best service your customers can not live without and price matters way less.

[Simon Butler]

I've havn't changed my mileage rate for a few years, despite the increases in fuel. I've found that people tend to notice mileage rates more so keep them low almost as a loss leader. At 25ppm it covers the fuel and i'm quite happy to get my full hourly rate for sitting on my arse listening to audio books.

My full rates are on my web site:
http://butlerrefrigeration.co.uk/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15&Itemid=28

I won't do domestics anymore, so if anyone in Manchester wants me to point domestic calls in their direction let me know.

[paul_h]

Do you guys charge mileage instead of call outs? Or do you charge both?
Never heard of a mileage rate here. But I charge au$60 flat fee callout.

Of course if a job is too far (50 miles!? I don't go further than 20km) I don't take the job. Surely the UK is small enough and there's enough rfrig engineers out there that they don't need to call someone so far away anyway?

During the christmas/new years period, I didn't travel any further than 15min and I make a lot of cash. I was too busy to attend jobs too far away, and the au$60 callout for 15min drive was free money. The smaller the job I did, the quicker I moved onto the next job and the more I made in charging call out fees.
I was loving domestic split systems that only had a blocked drain or blown capacitor. $110 per job and you could do 8 of them a day easy if you only had to travel 15min between each one.
The rest of the year I'm begging for scraps, but at least for 1-2 months a year it's easy money with a callout fee and picking only nearby jobs.
My call out fees pays for the petrol, insurance, advertising, licensing, phone and other vehicle costs.
My billed hourly rate is what I earn each week before tax, business costs do not come out of my hourly rate, well at least that's my plan and how I've structured it.
Seems fair to me as I do a lot of work that's non billed anyway, and don't always have 8hrs a day worth chargeable hours anyway, (travel time and getting parts)

[refrep]

usually call out charges from £30ph to £85 most small end users wont pay this to say that their (domestics only)are defunked!