Hourly Rate for a Self Employed Electrician?

[dhutch]

Charge for the job.
Me as a customer I dont want an hourly rate.

But surely you need to know your hourly rate, to work out thr cost of a job, from the amount of time you forecast it will take?

I see your point, but if I come up with £30/hr and others locally charge £20, then Im not going to get any business?!

Or to turn it on its head, if you want to charge £30/h you need to come up with a story for why you cost more and why thats good for them!

As a customer (in this case) I agree on not inflating materials cost. If i get a quote for a job, say they exhaust on my car and its a good one and im busy and need it done I will roll with it, but if im feeling hard up or that its a bit steep I will ask for a breakdown for labour/materials/etc and then run the materials costs through google to see if I can do better. Pick a few of the more expensive items, and or two of the cheaper ones. If he has put £25 on for two exhaust clamps and gsf has them for £7 each, thats my first line of attack.

Attacking his hourly labour is a lot harder, and I dont know is overheads, or expected wage. Although with a garage job, much of it from 'the book' which again, negates that line.


Daniel

 

[dingodeano]

Charge for the job.
Me as a customer I dont want an hourly rate.

But surely you need to know your hourly rate, to work out thr cost of a job, from the amount of time you forecast it will take?

I see your point, but if I come up with £30/hr and others locally charge £20, then Im not going to get any business?!

Or to turn it on its head, if you want to charge £30/h you need to come up with a story for why you cost more and why thats good for them!

As a customer (in this case) I agree on not inflating materials cost.

Attacking his hourly labour is a lot harder


Daniel

I'm upfront with my customers about my 10% on materials.
You could try and attack what you want if I priced a job for you I would tell you to go and pull faces at your *ick. (No offence)
I priced a jewlers in handsworth for a Sikh gentleman. He kept texting asking for a discount. I finally replied saying we could use cheaper 'screwfix fittings' of cheaper quality leave timers out and have manual switches Ect.
He replied by saying he didn't want cheaper fittings he wanted a discount on labour (75.00) half day.
I replied labour cost is set to cover cost of living and run Buisness.
He replied " when can you start?"
You should always just be upfront and make your pricing crystal clear. Like my charge scale :-

Call it a drink
Half a day
Day

 

[dhutch]

I'm upfront with my customers about my 10% on materials.

Oh yeah, dont get me wrong, 5-10% for the effort of sourcing it, particularly if your up front about it, if fair enough if thats what you want. But its a long way from 30% undecalired mark up, where as said, google will embaress you.


Daniel