How to price your services?

21

I don’t go looking for them… you just throw it out there (for anyone paying attention) to see!

Such as… didn’t you just post a week or two ago about your fee for a Condo unit being around $288 USD… ($450 CAD including taxes)…

And NOW you are posting these numbers??

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22

Oh you mean worthless! :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

23

It’s like talking to an idiot. I live in Canada.
OP!!!..Please avoid this unusual fellow.

24

You’re absolutely correct!!
Mirror Man 2

25

Thanks for the feedback Ryan, much appreciated.

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26

Thanks Jeff, I started on this job mostly to have something to do that would give me time to be with my family, retired military with 25 years of service trying to make up for the time away on deployments and working contracts overseas. I ask this because I don’t want to under cut the other inspectors around. I wouldn’t consider myself a competitor since I woulld be more than happy with 1 or 2 inspections in a week. I have heard that some companies wanting thier inspectors to do 2 or 3 a day.

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27

Thanks Sergio, much appreciated. Good luck to you too brother.

28

Thanks Thomas, Earl Schieb, haven’t heard that in a while, lol. Definitely not inspecting your house for $99.99, lol.

29

Not my intention at all. Undercutting hurts everyone.

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30

I always just soak them for as much as I can get

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31

Thanks Michael, I will check it out.

32

Thanks Robert. I appreciate your suggestion.

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33

Its kind of a hobby, I needed something to do that would allow me maximum family time, if charging what others in the area is bad business I am ok with that, I will not be giving my time for free but over charging is not the way to get started either. Thanks for the feedback Jeffrey.

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34

Thanks Bert. Will take a look at your suggestions closely.

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35

When I first started out, I used a website called Thumbtack to get experience. You pay something like $5 to send a quote for your service to an interested person. You were competing against 4 other people so the person looking for the quote would get 5 quotes in total. I would price low to win jobs and get experience.

Once I had enough experience, I stopped using Thumbtack. My strategy is to avoid price sensitive customers. I try to work with people that value my services and I work hard to get repeat referrals. Overall, I try to price higher than the competition and I don’t advertise my fees online.

My advice is:

  1. Use a service like Thumbtack and get experience. Low pricing here is ok.
  2. Build a business model for yourself based on what you need to make. (There were lots of good recommendations above that explained this.)
  3. Pick a pricing strategy that makes sense to you (high, medium, low) and stick with it for a while and get feedback from the market.
  4. Starting a Home Inspection business is difficult and grit is key. Try to have supplemental income (if you need it) and understand that the money probably won’t be consistent at first.
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36

That changes the whole dynamic on how to approach pricing. Everything I said above is worthless.

I too would like to see how semi-retired part time home inspectors come up with their pricing.

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37

As a semi-retired home inspector, I bid based on the hourly rate of residential building contractors. I’m selling knowledge and experience, not price. If I’m too expensive for a price driven client, I’ll go skiing or motorcycling instead. The advantage of being semi-retired is that I don’t have to get that next inspection in order to put food on the table. I let the new-bees take the low ball work.

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38

I think I mentioned my approach somewhere in the thread.

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39

Thanks William, I will look into thumbtack.

40

Love this!! Good on you sir!