Book · Money Hole

Pricing Calculator

Find the lowest price each job can carry, quote above it from value, see which services actually pay you per hour, and know how many customers a price rise can lose before it costs you, with a working spreadsheet that does the math.

A Black Flag Media Book

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What's Included

What’s Inside

The 4-Input Pricing Formula, with a worked example priced right and wrong
The calculator: a spreadsheet with live formulas (Excel, Numbers, or import into Google Sheets)
Job Pricer: floor price, a margin check on any quote, and the break-even line for a price change
How many customers can a price rise lose? Worked on your numbers
Service Mix: every service ranked by contribution per hour and lifetime gross profit, with the 4-step drop test
The ceiling in dollars, and how to present 3 prices biggest first
Price 3 Jobs: a one-week worksheet with the formula built in
14 paper templates: overhead, utilisation, labor cost, time log, margin, price notice, answers to price questions
Quote log with contribution per quote sent, a baseline, a 20-quote price-step check and 30 and 90 day look-backs

KEPT CURRENT · When platforms or standards change, the library changes with them.

The Problem

Most owners have never worked out what 1 hour of their business costs. So they price by feel or copy a rival, and some jobs quietly pay less than they should.

The owners who do the math often make the next mistake: they cut a job that sits under its full share of overhead. The rent stays, the job's money goes, and profit falls. This book gives you both numbers: the floor for setting prices, and contribution for deciding what to keep.

Your prices are not too low because you are worse. You are pricing by feel instead of by math.

The 4-Input Pricing Formula

4 inputs give you the floor. Value sets the price above it.

Input 1, COST: the direct cost of this job only. No crew wages, no overhead.
Input 2, TIME: the hours the job really takes, all people added up, tracked not guessed.
Input 3, RATE: loaded labor cost per hour plus overhead per labor hour.
Input 4, MARGIN: the slice of the price you keep, chosen from the profit you need.

What's in the Book

Chapter 1, The 20-Minute Check: the true floor price of the job you sell most, with a pen and a calculator. Free to read.
Chapter 2, Why Prices Go Wrong: the 8 counting errors, from labor counted twice to dropping a job that pays for your overhead.
Chapter 3, The 4-Input Pricing Formula: the formula, and the card-fee version.
Chapter 4, Build Your Numbers: overhead, utilisation, loaded labor cost, your margin, tracked hours.
Chapter 5, Floor, Ceiling, Quote: the ceiling in dollars from the customer's real alternatives, 3 prices biggest first, the card-fee lever and its rules.
Chapter 6, Which Services Pay You: contribution per hour, lifetime gross profit, LTGP to CAC, and the 4-step drop test.
Chapter 7, Raising Prices Without Drama: how many customers a rise can lose, contribution per quote sent, and the 20-quote test rule.
Then: 3 worked composites (1 that went wrong), the Price 3 Jobs scorecard, 5 metrics, 13 common mistakes and the 30 and 90 day look-back.

A Sample: How Many Can You Lose?

A hypothetical plumber raises a drain repair from $725 to $850. Parts are $160 and labor is $180 either way. Contribution goes from $385 to $510 a job. $385 / $510 = 75.5%, so he needs 75.5% of his old jobs to stay level. He can lose up to 24.5% of them and still be ahead. Every number is a round hypothetical. The book shows you how to run it on yours.

Questions

Does it tell me what to charge? No. It gives you the lowest price you should quote and a way to put a dollar figure on the highest. Where you stand between them is your call. There are no industry margin tables or rate bands in it.

Do I need Excel? No. The spreadsheet opens in Excel and Apple Numbers, and imports into Google Sheets. Every formula is also on paper in the templates.

Is it for my trade? It is written for small service businesses that sell hours of work: plumbing, HVAC, cleaning, landscaping, salons and the like. The examples are a plumber, a cleaning company and an electrician, all hypothetical.

Who This Is For

The owner of a small service business (a plumber, an HVAC shop, a cleaning company, a landscaper, a salon) who sets prices by feel or by copying competitors and has never worked out what 1 hour of their own work really costs.