How to Charge a Minimum for Small Jobs (Trip Charge, Service Call Fee, and What to Say)

You know the call. "It's just a small thing, shouldn't take you long." A leaking hose bib. Two outlets that stopped working. A door that won't latch. Fifteen minutes of actual work, they say.

Then you load the truck, drive 25 minutes, find parking, walk it, explain it, fix it, clean up, take payment, and drive back. Your whole afternoon is gone and you billed for one hour. Do that three times a week and you wonder why a busy month still feels broke.

A minimum charge fixes most of that. Here is how I would set one up.

Quick answer

Pick a number that covers your truck leaving the driveway and one hour of work, and never go below it. Call it a minimum job charge or a service call fee, whichever sounds normal in your trade. Say it on the phone before you book, not after you arrive. If a customer will not pay it, that job was never going to make you money anyway.

Why small jobs lose money

The work is never the expensive part of a small job. Everything around it is.

Drive time, both ways. Loading the truck. The five minutes standing in the driveway while the customer tells you the story of how it broke. Finding the shutoff. A run to the supply house because the part was not what you thought. Writing it up, getting paid, and sending the invoice.

If you only count the minutes you had a tool in your hand, the job looks fine. If you count the whole block of time you could not use for anything else, it often pays less than a part time job.

There is also the part nobody counts. A small job in the middle of the day breaks up a bigger one. You were going to start the bathroom at 8 and instead you start at 11, because you stopped for a "quick fix" first.

Work out your number

Do this once, on paper, and then stop arguing with yourself about it.

1. Pick your hourly rate, the real one, with your overhead in it. Not what you pay a helper.
2. Add your average drive time and round trip. If it is 40 minutes round trip, that is time you are not earning.
3. Add the setup and wrap up time, usually 20 to 30 minutes.
4. Add a little for fuel and truck wear.

Here is a made up example. Say your rate is $95 an hour. You figure about 45 minutes of driving, 30 minutes of setup and cleanup, and you want the first hour of work covered. That is roughly two hours of your day at $95, so a minimum of around $190 makes sense, even if the actual fix is 20 minutes. Those numbers are invented, so use yours. The idea is that the minimum is about the cost of the day you are giving up, not about how long the repair takes.

Some trades split it into two pieces. A trip charge for showing up, then labor on top after the first half hour or hour. Others just roll it into one minimum. Either is fine. What matters is that the customer hears one clear number.

Trip charge, service call fee, or minimum: which one

They sound like the same thing and they sort of are, but customers react to them differently.

A trip charge feels like a fee for driving. Some customers dislike it because they feel like they are paying for nothing. It works better in rural areas where everyone understands distance.

A service call fee is what plumbers, HVAC and electricians have used for decades, so people expect it. If you are in one of those trades, use that name and do not reinvent it.

A minimum job charge is the easiest to explain for general repair, handyman, and carpentry work. "Our minimum is $190, and that includes the first hour of work." Nobody feels tricked, because the work is in the price.

I like the last one for most small shops. Pick the word your customers already know.

What to say on the phone

Say it early. The worst time to bring up a minimum is after you are standing in their kitchen with your boots on.

Something like this works:

"Happy to take a look. Just so you know up front, we have a minimum of $190 for any visit, and that covers the first hour of work. If it is a quick fix, that is what it will be. If it is bigger, I will give you a price before I start anything."

Short. No apology. You are not asking permission, you are telling them how you work.

Most people say fine. A few say "wow, for a ten minute job?" and that is where you need an answer ready.

When they push back

"That's a lot for a quick job."

You can say: "I get it. The fix might be quick, but the visit is the truck, the drive, the tools and the hour I'm holding for you. That is what the minimum covers. If you want it cheaper I would honestly try a handyman who is already in your area."

Notice you did not drop the price. You also did not get defensive. You gave them a real option that is not you. Some of them will book you anyway after that, because you did not beg.

If they say "the other guy said he'd do it for $60," the answer is "that might be the right call for you." Let them go. The $60 guy is the one who ends up leaving a half finished job and calling you three weeks later. There is a whole post on that, what to do when a customer says someone else can do it cheaper, and the short version is to figure out if it is even the same job before you defend anything.

Don't hide the minimum in the quote

If you send a written quote for a small job, show the minimum as its own line. "Minimum service charge, includes first hour." Do not bury it inside labor.

When it is its own line, the customer reads it as policy. When it is buried, it reads like you padded the price. Same dollars, very different reaction.

If the actual job comes in under the minimum, you still charge the minimum. If it runs over, you charge the minimum plus the extra time at your normal rate, or you stop and give a price for the rest. If the customer starts adding things while you are there, see what to do when a customer asks for extra work while you're here, because the minimum is the place those extras get out of hand.

Bundle the small stuff

Here is the part that makes customers happy. A minimum is not a penalty for having more than one problem.

If they have three small things, do all three inside the same visit and the same hour. Tell them that when you book. "If you have a list, send it over, because the minimum covers the first hour and we can knock out a few things in that time."

Now the minimum looks like a deal. You still get paid for the whole day, and they get their list done in one trip. Customers with a list are also your best repeat customers, so be nice to them.

Should you even take small jobs

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. A few honest ways to decide.

Take it if it is close to another job you already have that day. The drive is free at that point.

Take it if the customer is a source of bigger work. A homeowner who calls for a gutter fix and then needs a deck is worth one low margin visit. Just do not assume. Ask what else is on their list.

Take it if you have a gap in the schedule and nothing better to fill it. A paid hour beats an empty one.

Turn it down if it is far, tight on parking, and tiny. Turn it down if the customer already told you they want it dirt cheap. Turn it down if you are in a busy stretch and it will push a bigger job back.

You can turn it down politely: "I appreciate you thinking of us. For a job that small we are not the most cost effective option, and I would rather point you to someone who is. I can send you a couple of names." That keeps the door open and people remember it.

Raising the minimum later

Your minimum will drift. Fuel goes up, your rate goes up, and a number you set two years ago is now too low. Look at it once a year. If you are raising your general rates anyway, here is how to raise your prices as a contractor without losing the customers you want.

When you raise it, just start quoting the new number. You do not owe anyone a speech.

The part people forget: the follow up

Small jobs bring a lot of leads and most of them go quiet. A customer calls, you give the minimum, they say they will think about it, and you never hear back. Multiply that by a dozen a month and it is a lot of work walking away.

Some of them were never going to book. Plenty were just busy. A short text two days later gets a surprising number of them back. If you want ideas on what to say, see how to follow up on Thumbtack and Angi leads, since those small job leads behave the same way, and how to price a job if you want to check your bigger rates while you are at it.

That is what QuoteChaser does. It follows up on every quote that has gone quiet, in your own voice, and pings your phone when a customer writes back, so you spend your day on paid work instead of chasing.

Join the QuoteChaser waitlist and stop letting good quotes go cold.