Trip charge
A trip charge is a flat fee a contractor charges for traveling to a job, separate from the price of the work itself. It covers drive time, vehicle cost and dispatch, and it's owed whether or not the customer approves a repair, so it must be disclosed before the visit.
Also called: Trip fee, Service-call fee, Truck charge
What it pays for
Every visit costs money before any work happens: the drive, fuel and wear on the truck, the tech's time on the road, and the office time spent booking and dispatching the call. When a visit turns into a paid job, the job can carry that cost. When it doesn't, because the fix was a tripped breaker or the customer decides not to go ahead, the trip charge is the only money that visit brings in.
Example: A tech spends 40 minutes driving each way and 15 minutes on site. At a loaded cost of $90 an hour for the tech and truck, plus $10 of fuel, the visit costs about $152 before any repair. A $49 trip charge loses about $103 every time the customer says no. The numbers are made up for illustration.
Trip charge vs diagnostic fee
The terms get mixed up, so pick one and define it for the customer:
| Fee | What the customer gets |
|---|---|
| Trip charge | The visit itself: you show up and look |
| Diagnostic fee | The visit plus finding the cause and a firm repair price |
| Service-call fee | Used for either; say which one you mean |
In-depth testing, such as a sewer camera inspection or leak detection, is usually priced as its own task rather than folded into either fee.
Decide your policy before the phone rings
Write these down so everyone who books calls gives the same answer:
- The amount, and whether it changes by zone, after hours or on weekends.
- Credited or not. Crediting the fee toward an approved repair helps close the job, but then your repair prices have to carry the visit cost. Keeping it separate keeps repair prices lower. Either works if it's consistent.
- What happens on a missed visit. If nobody's home, the gate is locked or the weather cancels the job, say whether a trip charge applies.
- Who doesn't pay it. Some shops waive it for service agreement members, and a callback to fix your own work shouldn't carry one.
Disclose it twice
Tell the customer the fee when they book, and repeat it in the confirmation text with whether it counts toward the repair. A fee the customer first hears about at the door feels like a trick, even when it's fair, and it's the kind of surprise that ends in a dispute or a bad review. State and local rules on how fees must be disclosed vary, so if you advertise prices, ask your state attorney general's consumer protection office how fees must appear.
Common mistakes
- Setting it from what competitors charge instead of what your visit costs. Price it from your own overhead and drive times, and see how to set your labor rate for whether drive time is billed or built into the rate.
- Waiving it on the spot to win the repair. Once a tech waives it, every customer learns it's optional.
- Leaving it off the invoice. Show the trip charge as its own line, with any credit shown separately, so the bill matches what was said on the phone.
- Charging it on a return visit for missing parts. If the second trip is because your truck wasn't stocked, that's your cost.