Quote:
Originally Posted by Sliver
Yeah, it sounds like CaptainYooh is talking more from the perspective of a large organization. Small business can't afford to have dedicated staff to respond to RFPs. Also, we don't do jobs worth 100s of thousands so there's nowhere to roll that type of overhead into. Like, if the job I'm doing at your house will cost $450 once I have everything I need, where do I charge you for my time to come out there and the fuel it takes to do it? Also, if I spend an hour away with you in the middle of the day, that's an hour later I'm staying at night away from my family to do my other jobs. There's a cost that needs to be directly billed to the person triggering the cost. Charging an onsite measuring/estimating fee is fair and transparent.
My company does some work at people's homes as well. If you have a project that is basic and you've sent me photos and rough dimensions, I can usually give you a price over the phone. If I then need to go to your house, I'll take a 50% deposit on the project first. I can't afford to have me or one of my guys running around all over the city with no guarantee of work or compensation. If I can't get a good read on what it is that you need, I'll charge you an hour to come to your house that you can apply toward the price of the project if it goes ahead. But guess what, I'll pad the job by that hour anyway since I don't think it's fair to expect anyone to work for free.
I can tell you the vast majority of people have no problem with this pricing. The usual response is, sounds fair.
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This has been our experience as well.
I understand that charging $75 for an estimate that will lead to $250 worth of work is probably not going to fly, but charging 1% or less of the overall project value for estimates with the agreement that it can be reimbursed has generally not been a problem at all.
We handle things a bit differently. We'll charge for the estimate, but then do the on-site visit + measuring for no cost once the project goes ahead. Deposits are standard practice.
We also don't make a habit of charging for every single change order, something a lot of companies are happy to do and make you sign a contract that they will and you need to pay.
I just feel that establishing where the costs are out of the gate is a good way to vet clients. If you have good clients and you do a good job you tend to grow your business faster.
I also think a lot of the opinions here are coming from a Calgary market that has skewed pricing. I do not live in Alberta but we have bid on jobs in Calgary and the pricing structure has been through the roof for years.
Lots of people might have had bad experiences with that especially during some of the boom years.