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Pricing

View the thread, titled "Pricing" which is posted in UK Plumbers Forums on UK Plumbers Forums.

helpsy

Plumbers Arms member
Plumber
Gas Engineer
What's your charges?
I do £40 first hour, £35 per hour after, £225 for a full day, £80 first hour emergency then back to £35 per hour. No VAT yet!
 
I charge 30pph, every hour , i dont charge extra for call outs unless ive to leave a job to attend, and same with OT if its my descision to work late then straight time, £80 for cp12 £50 service
 
£60 for hour one, £35 for each hour after that. VAT on top. Get the odd job I lose due to pricing (mostly small one hour jobs which I'm not too bothered about anyway) but if they don't like my pricing there are plenty more in the queue who do.
 
45 per hour plumbing 60 for gas no reduction for subsequent hours no day rate as such. but price jobs to make as much as possible.
 
At the moment £40 first hour £30 after that £200 a day. A letting agency I work for get £30 an hour flat rate as they give me a bit of work. £50 service+ £20 additional appliances. Llgsc £50 for 2 appliances £20 per additional appliance.

I'm only a new company so don't want to go in too heavy at the moment and am happy with what I'm earning for such a new company once I'm established and I have a good name it will start rising to £50/£40 £250 a day.
 
When you do the sums you need to be charging £250 plus VAT (if applicable) per day to make any sort of decent living in this game really.
 
No you dont

I'm with Kieran on this. It's possible to live on less, of course, but if you want to retire whilst you still have working knees and back, and not worry about turning on the heating, to be able to treat the kids & grandkids, that figure is about right or even slightly low...
 
I can live quite comfortably on 500 a week although I prefer 1200 a week .

The govt will be keeping me in old age regardless
 
@hammers4spanner, are you talking about the wage you take home or the profit your business makes? The 2 are completely different of course and I want to be clear we are talking about the same thing. £200 per day is £48,000 turnover before sales of parts are added in, based on a 240 day working year. At £250 per day the turnover is £60,000 which is an extra £12,000 of profit per year as fixed costs are the same. I think £15k per year is fairly typical of running costs for a plumbing business. So as a sole trader you can pay yourself £33k a year if you don't want to grow your business, based on £200 per day, assuming you book out every working day of the year and your van is never off the road.

This is a good wage I would say and not one I would want to dip much below given all the hassle that goes with running a business. Certainly not when plumbers can earn £25k now quite easily just for working for someone else.

For me the extra £12k per year gained by charging £50 extra a day goes into growing the business, buying more vans etc. This will be my pension one day and will be much better than any pension I can buy from large companies who **** my cash up the wall!

All I know is from my experience, on £200 a day I simply could not earn enough money to expand my business and I would still have been working on the tools now. At £250 per day I am doing this less and less and letting employees do more of the work so I can grow my business. Without meaning to sound patronising (as it's not meant to be), this was the biggest lightbulb moment for me in 6 years of running my business. I could either be busy working on the tools or busy working on my business. I know which one I prefer!

Interestingly, workload has increased since my rates have gone up. Perhaps the good customers that we want link price to quality??
 
When you do the sums you need to be charging £250 plus VAT (if applicable) per day to make any sort of decent living in this game really.

£250 a day?? You're outgoings must be huge if you have to earn that to make a "decent" living.

I dont do any private work, I only do contracting. I can earn anything from £160 to £240 per day doing this, but I'd say I average out at about £190 a day.

This is gives me roughly £45k a year turnover and that's having 4 weeks off a year.

My outgoings are minimal, probably about £3k per year, so my taxable income is about £42k a year.

Id say I live quite comfortably really, I have cash in the bank, an expensive house and a really good van 🙂

To have to earn £250 a day +vat to make a decent living is a lot man
 
£250 a day?? You're outgoings must be huge if you have to earn that to make a "decent" living.

I dont do any private work, I only do contracting. I can earn anything from £160 to £240 per day doing this, but I'd say I average out at about £190 a day.

This is gives me roughly £45k a year turnover and that's having 4 weeks off a year.

My outgoings are minimal, probably about £3k per year, so my taxable income is about £42k a year.

Id say I live quite comfortably really, I have cash in the bank, an expensive house and a really good van 🙂

To have to earn £250 a day +vat to make a decent living is a lot man
Is that not living with your mum though? How are your outgoings so low? Low miles?
 
£250 a day?? You're outgoings must be huge if you have to earn that to make a "decent" living.

I dont do any private work, I only do contracting. I can earn anything from £160 to £240 per day doing this, but I'd say I average out at about £190 a day.

This is gives me roughly £45k a year turnover and that's having 4 weeks off a year.

My outgoings are minimal, probably about £3k per year, so my taxable income is about £42k a year.

Id say I live quite comfortably really, I have cash in the bank, an expensive house and a really good van 🙂

To have to earn £250 a day +vat to make a decent living is a lot man

Nail on head. My annual diesel bill is more than that. Accountant is about half that again. Add insurances, GSR registration etc etc.
 
@hammers4spanner, are you talking about the wage you take home or the profit your business makes? The 2 are completely different of course and I want to be clear we are talking about the same thing. £200 per day is £48,000 turnover before sales of parts are added in, based on a 240 day working year. At £250 per day the turnover is £60,000 which is an extra £12,000 of profit per year as fixed costs are the same. I think £15k per year is fairly typical of running costs for a plumbing business. So as a sole trader you can pay yourself £33k a year if you don't want to grow your business, based on £200 per day, assuming you book out every working day of the year and your van is never off the road.

This is a good wage I would say and not one I would want to dip much below given all the hassle that goes with running a business. Certainly not when plumbers can earn £25k now quite easily just for working for someone else.

For me the extra £12k per year gained by charging £50 extra a day goes into growing the business, buying more vans etc. This will be my pension one day and will be much better than any pension I can buy from large companies who **** my cash up the wall!

All I know is from my experience, on £200 a day I simply could not earn enough money to expand my business and I would still have been working on the tools now. At £250 per day I am doing this less and less and letting employees do more of the work so I can grow my business. Without meaning to sound patronising (as it's not meant to be), this was the biggest lightbulb moment for me in 6 years of running my business. I could either be busy working on the tools or busy working on my business. I know which one I prefer!

Interestingly, workload has increased since my rates have gone up. Perhaps the good customers that we want link price to quality??
Great post
 
£15k a year to run a plumb business you need to reign that in big time ,

You need to asses your outgoings

Like most i want to earn good solid money however i have had many a time where i have earnt £500 a week . Thats still 26k a year ( if working every week) , however even with four weeks off its still 24 k. I dont earn 24k tho but more however outgoings of £15k is some going

I wont be relying on the govt for a pension other means.
 
Is that not living with your mum though? How are your outgoings so low? Low miles?

I still live at home while I'm doing my house up yeah, but why would who I live with have any bearings on how much it costs me to work??

My outgoings are diesel, van insurance, PLI, gas safe reg plus any costs with running a van like mot and tax etc.
 
The things is with this post is we are all talking about different business' within the same industry.

Some of us work alone doing only contracting like me, where out goings will be next to nothing and so the amount needed to be earned before profit is small.

Others are one man bands doing private work where there are another set of costs including parts etc and extra fuel costs with driving to merchants all the time, therefore outgoings are more and more has to be earned before you are in profit.

Then we have blokes who employ blokes, have numerous vans and wages to pay. The outlay on this type of business will inevitably be massive compared a bloke just doing contracting in the local area.
 
Nail on head. My annual diesel bill is more than that. Accountant is about half that again. Add insurances, GSR registration etc etc.

I do my accounts myself, it the best thing I ever decided to do, it takes me about half and hour to process and I don't know why I ever used an accountant in the first place
 
I still live at home while I'm doing my house up yeah, but why would who I live with have any bearings on how much it costs me to work??

My outgoings are diesel, van insurance, PLI, gas safe reg plus any costs with running a van like mot and tax etc.
I didnt mean in the context of costs to work I meant how £190 a day is a lot more appealing to someone living with their mum than someone who has mortgage, bills and hungry mouths to feed. Weren't a dig though mate if It came across that way.
 
I do my accounts myself, it the best thing I ever decided to do, it takes me about half and hour to process and I don't know why I ever used an accountant in the first place
I will always employ an accountant as they know all the loopholes etc that's what I'm happy to pay for
 
I didnt mean in the context of costs to work I meant how £190 a day is a lot more appealing to someone living with their mum than someone who has mortgage, bills and hungry mouths to feed. Weren't a dig though mate if It came across that way.

£190 a day is still over £950 a week, so about £700 take home after expense and tax.

I can live on that quite easily once I'm in my new house.
 
I didnt mean in the context of costs to work I meant how £190 a day is a lot more appealing to someone living with their mum than someone who has mortgage, bills and hungry mouths to feed. Weren't a dig though mate if It came across that way.

I didn't take it as a dig mate 🙂
 

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