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How to Price an HVAC Service Call: A Contractor's Guide

HVAC service call pricing covers diagnostic time, parts, and labor. Here's how to price HVAC service calls to be profitable without losing clients.

1 min readBy TimeFotos

HVAC service call pricing has two components: the diagnostic fee (covers travel, time to diagnose) and the repair price (parts + labor for the fix). Here's how to set both.

Diagnostic fee: Should cover your actual cost for travel + 30-60 minutes diagnostic time + overhead allocation. Many markets support a flat diagnostic fee; some apply it to the repair if they proceed.

Repair pricing: Parts at cost plus markup + repair labor time × your hourly labor rate. Don't price repairs by "what the market charges" — price from your actual costs.

Emergency and after-hours: Add a premium (25-50% is standard) for weekend, evening, or holiday calls.

Track actuals: Common repair types (capacitors, contactor replacements, refrigerant) become standard-priced over time once you know your actual cost. TimeFotos logs job history by address.

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