Say goodbye to guesswork and safeguard your bottom line with Housecall Pro’s flat rate pricing feature. Housecall Pro's flat rate pricing feature empowers you to create reliable, profitable pricing for every service by integrating your actual costs.

In this article, we’ll guide you through the essential steps to enable flat-rate pricing, set material markups, and set labor rates. For detailed instructions on setting up your materials, please refer to our help article on Materials. By following these steps, you'll streamline your operations and confidently price your services to protect your margins and enhance your business’s efficiency.

Once you've completed these steps, your flat rate services will be set up and ready to go. Material markups and labor rates will be applied automatically, ensuring accurate and efficient pricing for your services. If you update any material markups, the system will adjust the prices for materials accordingly.

Note: Housecall Pro offers an additional feature that automatically tracks material usage and costs for flat-rate services on each job, enhancing your reporting capabilities. Learn more here.

The first step in setting up flat rate pricing is to enable the Flat Rate Pricing tool. If you haven’t done so already, navigate to the 'My Apps' section by clicking the 3x3 square icon in the upper right corner of your Housecall Pro account. From the dropdown menu, select 'Go to App Store' at the bottom.

From the App Store page, locate the 'Flat Rate Pricing' app card. Click on 'View Details' to access the app’s information.

On the details page, find the toggle switch in the upper right-hand corner. Click this toggle to turn on the app and enable it.

Now, click the arrow in the upper left-hand corner to return to the App Store.

For detailed instructions on setting up materials, refer to our help article on setting up materials. This step is essential for defining the materials you'll use in your flat rate services.

Housecall Pro’s flat rate pricing feature offers a precise way to calculate service pricing based on your business inputs. An essential aspect of this feature is the ability to customize your material markups, which ensures your pricing is both accurate and profitable.

Customizing material markups allows you to apply a consistent markup across various price points for your materials. By specifying the cost range for your materials and choosing the appropriate percentage markup, you ensure that each material is priced to cover costs and generate the desired profit. Housecall Pro will handle the calculations, automatically applying these markups to materials in your Price Book that fall within the defined cost ranges. This approach not only simplifies your pricing strategy but also helps maintain consistency and accuracy across all your services.

To customize your material markups, locate and click the ‘Price Book’ tab in the top navigation bar of your Housecall Pro account. If you have a lot of features in the top navigation bar, your Price Book may be nested under the More drop-down.

Alternatively, you can access the Price Book by going to Account Settings. Click the gear icon in the upper-right corner of your account.

Next, select ‘Price Book’ from the options on the left-hand side of the settings menu.

Please note that you must be an admin or office staff with the 'Update company account info' permission to view the Price Book feature.

Once you have navigated to your price book, ensure that Material Markups is selected from the left-hand menu under settings.

To customize your material markups, click ‘Edit’ in the upper right-hand corner of the Material Markups page to adjust the default settings we’ve provided. These defaults are designed to help you get started with ease.

You can modify the cost range and select the percentage markup you wish to apply. Housecall Pro will then calculate the profit margin for each tier based on your choices. This allows you to tailor your material pricing precisely to meet your business needs and enhance your profitability.

Once you click ‘Edit’ in the upper right-hand corner of the Material Markups page, you gain the ability to customize the default markup settings. You can add, remove, or split markup tiers to better match your pricing strategy.

To add more markup tiers, click ‘+ Markup’ in the bottom left corner while in 'Edit' mode. This allows you to introduce additional pricing ranges and corresponding markups.

If you need to refine your markup tiers further, you can split or merge rows.

Split Rows: Click the three stacked dots on the right-hand side of the row and select ‘Split rows.’ This action creates two separate markups within one cost range. The markup difference will be divided evenly between the high and low ends of the cost range you specified, and the markup and profit percentages will be updated accordingly. Splitting rows is useful when you want to apply more precise markups within a cost range, allowing for better differentiation in pricing based on material cost variations.

Merge Rows: Similarly, select ‘Merge rows’ from the three stacked dots menu. This will combine multiple rows into a single markup calculation. The resulting row will use the lowest cost value from the original rows and extend to the highest cost value. The highest markup percentage from the original rows will be applied. Merging rows is beneficial for simplifying your price book when multiple cost ranges are similar or when you want to streamline your markup structure.

Customizing your markups by splitting or merging rows ensures that your pricing reflects the true cost and profitability of your materials, allowing you to manage your margins more effectively.

If you mark up a material by 100% that costs your business $10 but you charge $20 for then the breakdown would look something like this:

Once you have enabled flat rate pricing and material markups, you’ll see a new toggle option when adding or editing materials. Please refer to our article on the Materials Price Book for instructions on how to edit or add materials and apply material markups.

Before diving into setting up labor rates for flat rate pricing, it’s crucial to understand your cost structure.

The Total Annual Cost of Doing Business Calculation Template below is a valuable tool for this. It helps you calculate the total expenses associated with running your business, which is essential for determining accurate pricing.

To calculate your Total Annual Cost of Doing Business, follow the steps outlined in the below template.

The first step in finding your break-even labor rate is to calculate your Total Labor Costs. Add up the following expenses to get your Total Labor Costs:

The second step is to calculate your Total Overhead Costs. Add up the following expenses to find your Total Overhead Costs:

The third step is calculating your Total Annual Cost of Doing Business. To calculate your Total Annual Cost of Doing Business:

This section provides a practical example to help you understand how to determine your break-even labor rate. Now that you’ve used the Total Annual Cost of Doing Business Calculation Template to determine your total expenses, the next step is to translate these costs into a rate that ensures you cover your expenses and achieve profitability. This example will guide you in setting an effective pricing strategy by calculating your break-even labor rate.

Step 1: Calculate Weekly Costs

Once you’ve calculated your Total Annual Cost of Doing Business, you need to break it down into weekly costs. For example, if your Total Annual Cost of Doing Business is $480,000:

Step 2: Determine Your Average Billable Hours per Week

Next, estimate your average billable hours per week. Here’s how:

Step 3: Calculate Your Break-Even Labor Rate

Finally, determine your break-even labor rate by dividing your weekly costs by your average billable hours:

The Break-Even Labor Rate of $115 per hour is the amount you need to charge to cover all your costs and achieve profitability. This rate ensures that each billed hour contributes to meeting your expenses. It’s crucial to periodically review and adjust this rate as your costs or business conditions change, to keep your pricing strategy aligned with your financial goals.

To create or edit your labor rates for Flat Rate Pricing:

Once you have enabled flat rate pricing, you’ll find a 'Calculate Flat Rate Price' toggle in the pricing section when creating or editing services. This toggle generates a price based on the cost of labor, materials, and the service itself, displaying both the markup and gross margin.

If you have set up labor rates, these will be automatically applied. You can adjust the job hours using the hour field and add additional labor rates by clicking '+ Labor Rate Item.' In the materials section, search for existing materials or add new ones using the '+ Materials' option.

For detailed guidance on how to edit or add services, apply labor rates, and calculate flat rate pricing, please refer to our help article on the Service Price Book.

Watch the video below for more details and guidance in turning on flat-rate pricing, setting up your materials and labor rates, and building services that use flat-rate pricing!

This section provides information on how to view and edit flat rate items on mobile, depending on your specific setup.

For comprehensive editing of your flat rate services, we highly recommend using the web portal. This ensures you can manage your flat rate items accurately within your Price Book on the web.

If you have services that are flat rate enabled, you will see a banner when editing or creating a service: "This is a flat rate service. Visit the website to manage cost and price." This banner notifies you that the service is a flat rate item.

Please note that if you want to turn off material markups for a material, this action must be performed from your Price Book on the web. Doing so will unlock the cost and price fields for future modifications on mobile.

If you have a material with material markup enabled, you will see the following banner when editing or creating the material: "This item uses a flat rate material markup. Visit the website to manage cost and price." This banner notifies you that the material is marked up.

Keep in mind that if you want to turn off material markups for a material, you must do so from your Price Book on the web. This will unlock the cost and price fields, allowing for future modifications on mobile.

For more information on Price Book Mobile features, please review our Help Center article on the key features of Price Book Mobile.