The short answer
A price book that works over the phone has four parts: a short list of the jobs that make up most of your calls, one clear price or range for each, the fees and rules that apply to every job, and an honest list of the work that cannot be priced until a technician sees it.
Most service businesses already have prices. They are in the owner's head, adjusted by mood, by how the customer sounds and by how busy the week is. That works while the owner answers every call. It stops working the day a second person, or an AI receptionist, picks up the phone.
As of October 2026, the businesses that quote consistently by phone are not the ones with the cleverest pricing. They are the ones who wrote it down. This guide walks through building the book step by step, with example prices that are clearly hypothetical. Replace every number with your own. Where the guide mentions software, it refers to Run with Jarvis, and capability claims are limited to its published plan list.
Why write a price book at all
Callers want a number. The first question on most service calls is some form of "how much?" A business that answers "we would have to come out and see" to every version of that question loses callers who only wanted to know whether the job was closer to two hundred dollars or two thousand. How to handle those conversations is covered in handling price shoppers on the phone.
Consistency protects you. When two customers on the same street pay different prices for the same job, they eventually compare notes. A written price removes the accident.
It lets other people quote. An office manager, a new dispatcher, a technician on site and an AI receptionist can all state the same price if it is written in one place.
It shows you which jobs make money. You cannot compare a price against a cost if the price changes every time. Once prices are fixed, a job that loses money becomes visible.
It shortens the call. A quote read from a book takes seconds. A quote invented on the spot takes a conversation.
Step 1: List the jobs that make up most of your calls
Do not start by pricing everything you have ever done. Start with what repeats.
Pull three months of invoices. Sort them by job type. In most trades a small set of jobs accounts for the bulk of the work: for a plumber, drain clearing, toilet repairs, faucet replacements, disposals and water heaters. For a locksmith, lockouts, rekeys and key replacement. For an appliance tech, a handful of failures per machine type.
Aim for 20 to 40 lines. Fewer than twenty and too many calls fall outside the book. More than forty in the first version and it will not get finished. The number is a working range, not a rule.
Name each job the way customers describe it. The line should say "Kitchen sink clogged" as well as "Kitchen drain clearing, through cleanout", because the first version is what a caller says. An AI receptionist, like a new hire, matches the caller's words to a line.
Split jobs that have two honest prices. If a drain clearing through an accessible cleanout takes half the time of one through a roof vent, those are two lines. Hiding both under one price means one of them is always wrong.
Note what each job assumes. Standard access, a ground-floor location, a common brand, parts that are on the truck. The assumptions become the conditions under which the price holds.
Step 2: Choose a pricing model for each job
Not every job belongs at a flat rate. For each line, decide which of three models fits.
| Model | How the customer is charged | Best for | Risk to the business | Can it be quoted by phone |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flat rate | One fixed price for the job, agreed before work starts | Routine jobs with a predictable scope | You absorb the overrun when a job runs long | Yes, as a firm price when the stated conditions are met |
| Time and materials | Hourly labor plus parts, billed after the work | Open-ended troubleshooting and unknown scope | Customer may dispute the hours, and efficient techs earn you less | Only as an hourly rate and a minimum, never as a total |
| Range quote | A stated low and high, narrowed on site | Jobs that vary by size, access or equipment | The customer anchors on the low end | Yes, as a range with the reason it varies |
Flat rate is the backbone of a phone-quotable book. The customer agrees to a number, the technician is not watched by the clock, and a fast technician makes you more money, not less.
Time and materials still has a place. Tracing an intermittent electrical fault or opening a wall with unknown damage behind it cannot be flat rated honestly. Publish the hourly rate and a minimum, and say plainly that the total depends on what is found.
A range quote is the middle path. "Most water heater replacements of that size run between X and Y, depending on venting and code upgrades" gives the caller what they need to decide whether to book, without promising a number you cannot keep.
Whichever model you choose, write it on the line. The person quoting should never have to guess which kind of price they are reading.
Step 3: Build each flat rate from your costs
A flat rate that is copied from a competitor is a guess about someone else's costs. Build yours from your own.
Work out your cost per billable hour. Suppose, hypothetically, a technician's loaded labor cost, meaning wage plus payroll taxes and benefits, is $48 an hour. Suppose the business has $16,500 a month in overhead, covering vans, insurance, rent, office wages and software, and three technicians who each bill 100 hours a month. That is 300 billable hours, so overhead is $55 per billable hour. The cost of one billable hour is then $48 plus $55, or $103.
Count all the time, not only the wrench time. Suppose replacing a garbage disposal takes 1.25 hours on site and the average drive to a job is half an hour. That is 1.75 hours. At $103 an hour the labor and overhead cost is about $180.
Add materials at what they cost you to supply. Suppose the disposal and fittings cost $115, including the time someone spent ordering and stocking them.
Add the profit you intend to make. Cost so far is about $295. If the business needs $80 of profit on a job this size, the flat rate is $375.
Check it against reality. Look at the last ten times you did that job. If the real time averaged two hours on site, not 1.25, the price is wrong before it is published.
Every number above is invented for illustration. Your labor cost, overhead and billable hours will differ, and the result is sensitive to billable hours in particular: a technician who bills fewer hours a month makes every hour cost more. For local wage data to sanity-check your labor assumption, the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes occupational wage figures. For tracking whether each job actually earned what the book assumed, see job costing and profit per job.
Step 4: Offer good, better and best where it makes sense
On replacement and installation jobs, one price forces a yes-or-no decision. Three options turn it into a choice between versions of yes.
Good is the like-for-like fix. It solves the problem with standard parts and your normal warranty.
Better adds the things a careful technician would recommend anyway: the new shutoff valve, the upgraded part, the extended labor warranty.
Best is the long-term answer: the higher-grade equipment, the longest warranty, the related work done at the same visit.
A hypothetical water heater line might read: Good at $1,450 for a standard tank swapped like for like, Better at $1,790 with a new shutoff valve, pan and expansion tank, Best at $2,350 with a longer-warranty tank and the same additions.
Rules for options. Each tier must be something you would be comfortable having installed in your own house. The differences must be real and easy to say in one sentence. And the tiers belong on jobs where a choice exists. A lockout does not need three options.
On the phone, lead with the range. A caller does not need three descriptions read aloud. "Replacement runs from about $1,450 to $2,350 depending on the options you choose, and the technician will walk you through them" is enough to book the visit.
Step 5: Set the trip or diagnostic fee
Every price book needs an answer to "how much to come out and look?"
Decide what the fee buys. A diagnostic fee pays for a trained person to travel to the property and find the actual cause. Say that. A fee described as "just to show up" sounds like a toll.
Decide whether it is applied to the repair. Many businesses credit the diagnostic fee toward the job if the customer goes ahead that day. That turns the fee into a deposit on the repair and gives the customer a reason to say yes on site.
Keep it one number where you can. A hypothetical line: "Diagnostic visit $89, applied to the repair if you approve the work during the visit." One sentence, quotable by anyone.
Separate the fee from the flat rates. If a job is fully flat rated and booked by phone, state whether the diagnostic fee applies on top or is already included. Callers will ask.
Disclose it before the visit. A fee the customer first hears about at the door is the start of a dispute. General federal guidance on advertising and pricing claims is published by the Federal Trade Commission. State and local rules on written estimates and disclosures vary, so check with an attorney about what applies to your trade and location.
Step 6: Write the after-hours rule
After-hours pricing is where improvised quotes do the most damage, because the call comes when the owner is tired and the customer is stressed.
Define the window. For example, standard pricing from 7 AM to 6 PM on weekdays, after-hours pricing outside it and on listed holidays.
Choose a simple mechanism. A flat surcharge, such as a hypothetical $120 added to any job dispatched outside the window, is easier to quote and easier for a customer to accept than a multiplier.
Put it in the first quote. The caller should hear one total that already includes the surcharge, or hear the surcharge named in the same breath as the price. A fee that appears after the customer has agreed feels like a trick even when it is fair.
Offer the alternative. "Tonight it is this much. First thing tomorrow it is this much." Some callers will wait, and both outcomes are a booked job.
The full treatment, including how to set the amount, is in after-hours and emergency surcharge pricing.
Step 7: Decide how travel is priced
Travel is a real cost, and a flat rate built on an average drive loses money at the edge of the map.
Draw the standard zone. Inside it, the flat rates apply as written. A hypothetical rule: no travel charge within 15 miles of the shop.
Add zones, not formulas. A second ring with a fixed fee, such as a hypothetical $35 for 15 to 30 miles, can be quoted in one sentence. A per-mile calculation cannot.
State the edge. Beyond the outer ring, the answer is "we do not serve that area", said politely and early in the call.
Use ZIP codes for the phone. Callers know their ZIP. Whoever answers can place them in a zone without a map.
How to set the rings using drive time is covered in the service radius and drive-time pricing guide.
Step 8: Mark what stays "technician confirms on site"
The most important column in a price book is the one that says when not to quote.
Diagnosis-dependent work. "My furnace is making a noise" has a dozen causes. The honest phone answer is the diagnostic visit and its fee.
Anything behind a wall, under a slab or inside a sealed unit. If the scope is not visible, the price is not knowable.
Code and permit questions. Whether a replacement triggers an upgrade depends on what is there now and on local requirements. A technician confirms it.
Unusual equipment. Commercial units, discontinued brands, imported fixtures and specialty vehicles belong outside the flat rates.
Stacked problems. When a caller describes three issues, quote the visit, not the sum.
For each of these, the book should give the person on the phone something to say: the diagnostic fee, a typical range if you have one, and the next available appointment. "A technician confirms on site" is a complete, professional answer when it is followed by a booking.
Step 9: Write each line so it can be read aloud
A price book is a script as much as a spreadsheet. Format every line the same way.
Job name and the customer's words for it. "Toilet runs constantly. Toilet rebuild, standard tank."
Model. Flat rate, time and materials, or range.
Price. One number, or a low and a high.
What is included. Labor, standard parts, haul-away, warranty length.
Conditions. Standard access, common brand, inside the standard zone, during standard hours.
What changes the price. The one or two things that most often move it.
What to say if the conditions are not met. Usually: book the diagnostic visit.
Keep the wording plain. If a sentence cannot be said naturally on the phone, rewrite it.
How an AI receptionist uses the price book
The price book is the instruction set for automated quoting. On Run with Jarvis, the AI Receptionist answers around the clock in English and Spanish as part of every plan, and what it can quote depends entirely on what you have written.
It matches the caller's description to a line. This is why the customer's own words belong in the book.
It checks the conditions. Location against your zones, time against your after-hours window, equipment against the assumptions on the line.
It states the price the same way every time. The flat rate, the fee and the surcharge are delivered identically at noon and at midnight. There is no bad day and no discount given because a caller pushed.
It does not quote what you marked as on-site. For those lines it explains the diagnostic visit and moves to booking.
It books. The quote is followed by an appointment on the calendar, with the quoted job attached to the customer record so the technician arrives knowing what was said.
The mechanics, including how to test the quotes before going live, are in how an AI receptionist quotes prices from your price list. The principle is that the AI is exactly as good as the book. A vague book produces vague quotes. A clear one produces quotes you would have given yourself.
Review cadence
A price book is out of date the day a supplier raises a price. Put the review on the calendar.
Monthly: check the exceptions. List the jobs where the technician changed the price on site. Each one is either a missing condition or a wrong number.
Quarterly: compare price to cost. For each line, look at the completed jobs: actual hours, actual materials. Reprice the lines that are losing money. Remove lines nobody used. Add lines for jobs that kept appearing.
When costs move: act immediately. A labor increase or a supplier price change should reach the book that week, not at the next review.
Annually: revisit the cost per billable hour. Overhead and billable hours drift. Recalculate the base number every line is built on.
Date every version. Anyone quoting should be able to see which version is current. The Small Business Administration publishes general pricing and cost planning resources for owners doing this for the first time.
Rolling it out
Week one: build the list and the fees. Twenty to forty jobs, the diagnostic fee, the after-hours rule, the travel zones.
Week two: price and test. Build each flat rate from cost, then check every line against recent invoices for that job.
Week three: quote from the book only. Everyone who answers the phone uses it. Note every call where the book had no answer.
Week four: fix the gaps. Add the missing lines and tighten the conditions.
After that, the monthly and quarterly rhythm takes over.
Common mistakes
Pricing every job you have ever done. The book never gets finished. Start with what repeats.
Copying a competitor's prices. Their costs are not yours.
Forgetting drive time. The technician is paid for it whether or not the price covers it.
No conditions on the line. A flat rate with no stated assumptions is a promise to do the hard version for the easy price.
Hiding the fees. A surcharge revealed after agreement costs more in trust than it earns.
Letting technicians discount freely. Exceptions should be recorded and approved, or the book is decoration.
Never reviewing it. A two-year-old price book is a list of jobs you are doing at a loss.
Quoting diagnosis-dependent work to win the call. You win the call and lose the argument on site.
Where to start
Print last quarter's invoices and group them by job. Circle the twenty job types that appear most. Write one line for each using the format above, add the diagnostic fee, the after-hours rule and the travel zones, and you have a first version that can be quoted by anyone who answers your phone.
Then decide who that should be. If calls are going unanswered while you are on jobs, a written price book is what allows an AI receptionist to quote and book them for you.
Plans are on the pricing page: Core $500, Pro $750 and Elite $1,200 per month, with zero setup fees, unlimited users and month-to-month terms. To talk through how your price book would be used on live calls, get in touch.
