How to Price PM Service and Set Mobile Mechanic Rates

There is no national rate for mobile diesel or PM work. Rates vary by region, equipment, and the customers you serve, and a number copied from someone else's market says nothing about your costs. The rate that holds up is the one you build from what an hour of your business costs, plus the margin you need. This page shows how to build it.

Start with the cost of a billable hour

List what the business costs to run for a year, then divide by the hours you can actually bill.

• Fixed costs: the service vehicle and its upkeep, insurance, tools and diagnostic equipment, phone and software, licenses and registrations, and anything else you pay whether or not you work.
• Your pay: what you need to take home for the year.
• Billable hours: not every hour you work. Driving between jobs, quoting, buying parts, invoicing, and waiting on site all take time nobody pays for directly.

Cost per billable hour = (fixed costs + your pay) ÷ billable hours. Your hourly rate needs to sit above that number before you add profit. If billable hours are a small share of your working week, your rate has to be correspondingly higher, or you need to win back time.

Decide how to charge for travel

Mobile work brings the service to the customer, and the drive is part of the job. The common ways to recover it:

• A trip or service-call charge per visit.
• Travel time billed at a rate, sometimes a lower one.
• Zones or radius pricing: one price inside a distance, more beyond it.
• Built into the price of a PM, which works best when the route is predictable.

Batching several units at one customer location in one visit spreads the trip across more work, which is one reason fleet PM is attractive mobile work.

Flat-rate or hourly?

• Flat-rate PM prices a defined scope per unit, for example a PM service on one tractor. Customers like knowing the price ahead of time. You carry the risk if the job runs long, so define what is included.
• Hourly passes the time risk to the customer and suits diagnostics and repairs where the scope is unknown.
• Many service providers price PM flat and repairs hourly, with additional work found during a PM quoted separately before it is done.

Parts, fluids, and the small charges

Decide how you will price parts and fluids, whether you charge for consumable supplies and the disposal of used fluids and filters, and whether after-hours or emergency calls cost more. Write these down so every quote is built the same way.

Show the customer what they paid for

A price is easier to accept when the customer can see the work behind it. A clear write-up of what was checked, what was found, and what was done is part of what you are selling. See what belongs in a PM report for the customer.

In Blue Collar Parts, the technician marks the work complete, then sends the record to their customer as a separate, explicit step; the customer confirms it to view it. See what Blue Collar Parts is.

This page is general guidance for service providers. It is not financial, tax, or legal advice, and it does not suggest or publish market rates.