Offer more, honestly · Every business
Trip Fees and Minimum Charges: How to Set Them and Explain Them
A service call fee is easier to charge, and easier for customers to accept, when it is built from what a visit really costs and stated as part of the price before the visit is booked.
Set your service call fee to cover what it costs to get a technician and vehicle to the door and to diagnose the problem, which means vehicle cost, travel time, the first stretch of on-site time, office time and a margin. Tell the customer the amount, what it covers and whether it is credited toward the repair at the moment they book, and put the same words on the confirmation, the invoice and your website.
The calculation to copy
| Average round-trip miles per call (Assumption; use your own dispatch records) | 24 |
|---|---|
| Vehicle cost per mile (IRS business standard mileage rate, July 1 to December 31, 2026) | $0.76 |
| Vehicle cost per call (Calculated (24 × $0.76)) | $18.24 |
| Travel plus diagnosis time (Assumption) | 75 minutes |
| Loaded labor cost per hour (wage, taxes, insurance) (Assumption) | $60 |
| Labor cost per call (Calculated (1.25 hours × $60)) | $75.00 |
| Office time to book and dispatch (Assumption and calculation) | 10 minutes at $25 an hour, $4.17 |
| Cost of a call before any repair (Calculated ($18.24 + $75.00 + $4.17)) | $97.41 |
| Service call fee with a 20% margin (Calculated ($97.41 ÷ 0.80)) | $121.76 |
Illustrative example; replace every assumption with your own numbers. The IRS rate was 72.5 cents a mile for January 1 to June 30, 2026, and 70 cents for 2025; it is a convenient stand-in for full vehicle cost, not a substitute for your own records.
A minimum charge works the same way for small jobs: set it at the cost of the call plus the shortest realistic job, often the first hour, so a five-minute fix does not lose money once the drive is counted.
Decisions to make once, in writing
- Credit or no credit. Many businesses credit the fee toward an approved repair; if you do, say so in the same sentence as the fee.
- Zones. If some calls run much farther than average, set a second fee for an outer zone instead of raising everyone's fee.
- After-hours and same-day. Price these as separate, named fees, not as a surprise on the invoice.
- Members and repeat customers. Decide whether maintenance plan members pay a reduced fee or none.
- Review date. Recheck the inputs twice a year, since fuel, wages and the IRS rate all change.
What to say when booking
"There's a [amount] service call fee. That covers the drive out, the technician's time to find the problem and a written price for the repair before any work starts, and if you go ahead with the repair, the [amount] is taken off the total."
Why it works
Research on prices split into a base price and separate charges, reviewed in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, finds that customers judge extra charges as less fair when they are large compared with the base price or when there are several of them, and judge them more harshly when they don't trust the seller. In one early study included in the review, 23% of buyers ignored a separate charge entirely when recalling the total, so an unannounced fee is likely to be a surprise on the invoice, the moment fairness judgments are hardest on a business. Stating one fee, early, with the reason attached, avoids that moment.
Sources
- Internal Revenue Service. Standard Mileage Rates. 2025 and 2026 business rates.
- Greenleaf, E. A., Johnson, E. J., Morwitz, V. G. and Shalev, E. The Price Does Not Include Additional Taxes, Fees, and Surcharges: A Review of Research on Partitioned Pricing. Journal of Consumer Psychology 26(1), 2016.
Related reading: What to Leave Behind After a Service Call So Customers Call You Back · The Hidden Costs That Turn a Profitable Job Into a Loss · How to Price a Service: Cost, Value and What the Market Will Bear · How to Talk About Price Without Apologizing
Email hello@osnovaops.com about your service call pricing
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