I've struggled with my pricing structure over the last 18 months in two
ways.

One is to ensure I'm getting the hourly rate I want/need and not
undercharging and the other is to ensure the structure is easily understood
by the customer and appears congruent & clear.

If anyone would care to look at http://www.medwayhandyman.co.uk/charges.htm
and comment I'd appreciate it.


--
Dave
The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
01634 717930
07850 597257

The Medway Handyman wrote:
I've struggled with my pricing structure over the last 18 months in two
ways.

One is to ensure I'm getting the hourly rate I want/need and not
undercharging and the other is to ensure the structure is easily understood
by the customer and appears congruent & clear.

If anyone would care to look at http://www.medwayhandyman.co.uk/charges.htm
and comment I'd appreciate it.

Its hard to comment without knowing what typical job times are turning
out to be, and what level of turnover you are seeking to achieve. If
anything though, the pricing seems a little on the low side.

I notice you have simplified it and removed the bits about pre-booked
half days etc. You could go further and simply say:

Minimum charge (includes 30 mins of work): £30
up to 1 hour for £50, and then £20/hour for time over that.

That would give a day rate of £190 with some front end loading for short
jobs.

(pick your own numbers obviously)

Is there a particular reason for the non linearity at four hours? (i.e.
you are adding £15/hour until then, then add £20, then drop to £10).

You perhaps should spell out that this is the labour charge only and
excludes materials.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

One is to ensure I'm getting the hourly rate I want/need and not
undercharging and the other is to ensure the structure is easily
understood by the customer and appears congruent & clear.

If anyone would care to look at
http://www.medwayhandyman.co.uk/charges.htm and comment I'd appreciate it.


No comment on the structure as such but your prices seem very low to me.

When you say "travel included", do you not want to specify that that means
only in your local area?

As with the previous 2 posters, I'd suggest keeping the 20quid/hour
increment right through - and specifying a mileage or time range for
the "included travel". Some people may not be calling because they
think they're out of range - or vice versa.

You could also, on the same charging basis, offer a light removals
service (e.g. just move some boxes from A to B - or move the washing
machine to auntie's house and replumb at new location). That might be
an opportunity for some potential new customers to meet you and gain
confidence in you.

One other thing to think about is how you increase prices when it
becomes necessary. A uniformly incremental structure means you can
just add 5 quid at every price point at sometime in the future.

If it's any consolation, you're going through the classic new own-
business/self-employed price adjustment. I heard all the warnings
about "you'll set your prices too low to start with" - and still did
it myself.

On Sun, 1 Jul 2007 01:22:05 +0100, The Medway Handyman wrote:

http://www.medwayhandyman.co.uk/charges.htm

On my screen the type used is very small, borderline on impossible to read
particulary as it is a serif font. This applies to the whole site. I'd
also look at the colours used in the mouse over and active bits of the LH
menu, active and mouse over use the same (boring) grey, mouse over has a
white drop shadow which looks "odd".

As others have said what does the included travel mean? I have this tap
washer that needs changing I somehow don't think you'll come up to the
North Pennines to do it for £30... Give a radius, time and/or places you
are happy to travel to for that inclusive amount. Possibly give a p/mile
for further distances but bear in mind a realistic figure is likely to put
people off, realistic being around 50p/mile (fuel, servicing, repairs,
insurance, depreciation/replacement). Most people will think only in terms
of fuel which is around 15p/mile or less.

The list of up to x hrs for £n is on the large side and difficult to take
in. Better, IMHO, to break it down to:

£30 first half hour includes travel.
Next 30 mins £15.
Subsequent hours £15 pro rata.

This gives you 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, 105, 120, 135, 150, 165.

More or less what you have now but a much simpler method of arriving at
the figure. Also frees up screen space for your travel info and spread out
or add some other info. You don't mention if parts/materials are included
or not...

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

John Rumm wrote:
The Medway Handyman wrote:
I've struggled with my pricing structure over the last 18 months in
two ways.

One is to ensure I'm getting the hourly rate I want/need and not
undercharging and the other is to ensure the structure is easily
understood by the customer and appears congruent & clear.

If anyone would care to look at
http://www.medwayhandyman.co.uk/charges.htm and comment I'd
appreciate it.

Its hard to comment without knowing what typical job times are turning
out to be, and what level of turnover you are seeking to achieve. If
anything though, the pricing seems a little on the low side.

I'm coming to the conclusion that I could increase prices.

I notice you have simplified it and removed the bits about pre-booked
half days etc. You could go further and simply say:

Minimum charge (includes 30 mins of work): £30
up to 1 hour for £50, and then £20/hour for time over that.

That would give a day rate of £190 with some front end loading for
short jobs.

(pick your own numbers obviously)

Is there a particular reason for the non linearity at four hours?
(i.e. you are adding £15/hour until then, then add £20, then drop to
£10).
Yes - pilot error :-) I've changed it.

I quite like the linear idea because it appears the each extra hour is only
£15 or even £10.


--
Dave
The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
01634 717930
07850 597257

wrote:
As with the previous 2 posters, I'd suggest keeping the 20quid/hour
increment right through - and specifying a mileage or time range for
the "included travel". Some people may not be calling because they
think they're out of range - or vice versa.

Good idea, although it does say on the home page where I operate, I could
repeat/emphasise it.

You could also, on the same charging basis, offer a light removals
service (e.g. just move some boxes from A to B - or move the washing
machine to auntie's house and replumb at new location). That might be
an opportunity for some potential new customers to meet you and gain
confidence in you.

Unforetunately the van isn't big enough (Kangoo) and it's pretty full
anyway.

One other thing to think about is how you increase prices when it
becomes necessary. A uniformly incremental structure means you can
just add 5 quid at every price point at sometime in the future.

Good idea again.

If it's any consolation, you're going through the classic new own-
business/self-employed price adjustment. I heard all the warnings
about "you'll set your prices too low to start with" - and still did
it myself.

At the moment I'm more or less fully booked untill the end of July - I
suppose that should be telling me something.


--
Dave
The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
01634 717930
07850 597257

rrh wrote:
One is to ensure I'm getting the hourly rate I want/need and not
undercharging and the other is to ensure the structure is easily
understood by the customer and appears congruent & clear.

If anyone would care to look at
http://www.medwayhandyman.co.uk/charges.htm and comment I'd
appreciate it.

No comment on the structure as such but your prices seem very low to
me.
Interesting.

When you say "travel included", do you not want to specify that that
means only in your local area?

Yes, I should specify that - thanks.


--
Dave
The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
01634 717930
07850 597257

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Sun, 1 Jul 2007 01:22:05 +0100, The Medway Handyman wrote:

http://www.medwayhandyman.co.uk/charges.htm

On my screen the type used is very small, borderline on impossible to
read particulary as it is a serif font. This applies to the whole
site. I'd also look at the colours used in the mouse over and active
bits of the LH menu, active and mouse over use the same (boring)
grey, mouse over has a white drop shadow which looks "odd".

The font is Verdana 10pt. Mouse over & active are blue on my screen with no
drop shadow. What browser are you using?

Changed the travel & materials bit.


--
Dave
The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
01634 717930
07850 597257

On 2007-07-01 11:24:10 +0100, "The Medway Handyman"
said:
.

I'm coming to the conclusion that I could increase prices.

Absolutely. Certainly on the hourly rates and especially if you are
having days with lots of small jobs.

You can still quote fixed prices for well defined jobs if there is push
back on the price.

On 2007-07-01 11:28:01 +0100, "The Medway Handyman"
said:


At the moment I'm more or less fully booked untill the end of July - I
suppose that should be telling me something.

It depends on what the work mix is and what you are comfortable with as
a pipeline.

I suspect that the short handyman jobs have to be done fairly quickly
or people will go elsewhere whereas the larger projects can be on a
longer timescale.

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2007-07-01 11:28:01 +0100, "The Medway Handyman"
said:


At the moment I'm more or less fully booked untill the end of July -
I suppose that should be telling me something.

It depends on what the work mix is and what you are comfortable with
as a pipeline.

I suspect that the short handyman jobs have to be done fairly quickly
or people will go elsewhere whereas the larger projects can be on a
longer timescale.

Dead right. I have finally got my advertising just about right. The aim is
to keep about two weeks ahead booked up, people will wait two weeks, but not
much more. The van signwriting has buggered this by bringing in loads of
work! I have a few afternoons free to cope with smaller jobs.


--
Dave
The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
01634 717930
07850 597257

The Medway Handyman wrote:
Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Sun, 1 Jul 2007 01:22:05 +0100, The Medway Handyman wrote:

http://www.medwayhandyman.co.uk/charges.htm
On my screen the type used is very small, borderline on impossible to
read particulary as it is a serif font. This applies to the whole
site. I'd also look at the colours used in the mouse over and active
bits of the LH menu, active and mouse over use the same (boring)
grey, mouse over has a white drop shadow which looks "odd".

The font is Verdana 10pt. Mouse over & active are blue on my screen with no
drop shadow. What browser are you using?

Changed the travel & materials bit.

I would leave out the "charged extra at cost price" bit on the
materials. There is no reason why you should not charge reasonable
retails prices for materials and hence give yourself opportunity to
benefit from any bulk price reductions / trade discounts you can
achieve. It is also worth bearing in mind that the time and fuel
required to get and deliver materials is not free and needs to be paid
for somehow.

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Sun, 1 Jul 2007 12:28:54 +0100, The Medway Handyman wrote:

On my screen the type used is very small, borderline on impossible to
read particulary as it is a serif font. This applies to the whole
site. I'd also look at the colours used in the mouse over and active
bits of the LH menu, active and mouse over use the same (boring)
grey, mouse over has a white drop shadow which looks "odd".

The font is Verdana 10pt.

You cannot rely on any given font being available or used even if
available. Font size under HTML is expressed as 7 numbers (1 to 7) with 1
being the smallest, there is no fixed relationship between these numbers
and a size in points (1/72nd of an inch). The generally accepted default
size for body text is 3, your pages set 2 for body text.

Then bear in mind that both font and size can also be overidden by the
browser at the users discretion...

Mouse over & active are blue on my screen with no drop shadow.

Each "button" is outlined with a 1 pixel black box. An "active" box has a
4 pixel wide dark grey section inside this along the base and right side,
the drop shadow. The fill is a light grey. Text is blue/purple. An
inactive box has light grey for the drop shadow and white fill, mouse over
the drop shadow goes white and the fill goes grey. Text colour never
changes.

This is probably down to Frontpage and MS. Different versions of Frontpage
generate pages that only render as expected under some versions of
Internet Explorer. Use a different browser and things can just be
"different" (like the buttons) or a complete and utter mess with images
overlapping text and so on.

What browser are you using?

Mozilla 1.7.12 - Mozilla/5.0 (OS/2; U; Warp 3; en-US; rv:1.7.12)

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

On Sun, 01 Jul 2007 14:44:43 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

Changed the travel & materials bit.

I would leave out the "charged extra at cost price" bit on the
materials. There is no reason why you should not charge reasonable
retails prices for materials

I'd mark everything up at least 10% to help cover the costs of going to
get or having them delivered. Provided you parts/materials prices are not
over those that the punter can get them for from B&Q or WHY they won't
mind.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
ll.com...
On Sun, 1 Jul 2007 01:22:05 +0100, The Medway Handyman wrote:

http://www.medwayhandyman.co.uk/charges.htm

On my screen the type used is very small, borderline on impossible to read
particulary as it is a serif font. This applies to the whole site. I'd
also look at the colours used in the mouse over and active bits of the LH
menu, active and mouse over use the same (boring) grey, mouse over has a
white drop shadow which looks "odd".

As others have said what does the included travel mean? I have this tap
washer that needs changing I somehow don't think you'll come up to the
North Pennines to do it for £30...

North Pennines do not have an ME postcode. It is there in the "our charges"
section that he only covers ME postcodes:-)

Adam

On Sun, 01 Jul 2007 18:32:59 GMT, ARWadsworth wrote:

As others have said what does the included travel mean? I have this tap
washer that needs changing I somehow don't think you'll come up to the
North Pennines to do it for £30...

North Pennines do not have an ME postcode. It is there in the "our
charges" section that he only covers ME postcodes:-)

Keep up at the back. The ME postcode restriction wasn't there when I
commented.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

Dave Liquorice wrote:

The font is Verdana 10pt.

You cannot rely on any given font being available or used even if

Indeed, this is a FP limitation I think, typically you would specify you
font choice as a prioritised list rather than a single font - that way
it degrades more gracefully on odd browser setups.

available. Font size under HTML is expressed as 7 numbers (1 to 7) with 1
being the smallest, there is no fixed relationship between these numbers
and a size in points (1/72nd of an inch). The generally accepted default
size for body text is 3, your pages set 2 for body text.

You can also specify fonts in points, in which case they will look about
right if the screen DPI setting matches the monitor size, or you can
also specify pixel dimensions making the page layout more precise, but
less accessible.

Then bear in mind that both font and size can also be overidden by the
browser at the users discretion...

In most cases yes.

Mouse over & active are blue on my screen with no drop shadow.

Each "button" is outlined with a 1 pixel black box. An "active" box has a
4 pixel wide dark grey section inside this along the base and right side,
the drop shadow. The fill is a light grey. Text is blue/purple. An
inactive box has light grey for the drop shadow and white fill, mouse over
the drop shadow goes white and the fill goes grey. Text colour never
changes.

This is probably down to Frontpage and MS. Different versions of Frontpage
generate pages that only render as expected under some versions of
Internet Explorer. Use a different browser and things can just be
"different" (like the buttons) or a complete and utter mess with images
overlapping text and so on.

Indeed, its not even consistent on successive versions of IE. The other
problem with most FP templates is they scream FP Template at you!


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Sun, 01 Jul 2007 18:32:59 GMT, ARWadsworth wrote:

As others have said what does the included travel mean? I have this
tap washer that needs changing I somehow don't think you'll come up
to the North Pennines to do it for £30...

North Pennines do not have an ME postcode. It is there in the "our
charges" section that he only covers ME postcodes:-)

Keep up at the back. The ME postcode restriction wasn't there when I
commented.

Quite right! I just changed it!


--
Dave
The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
01634 717930
07850 597257

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Sun, 1 Jul 2007 12:28:54 +0100, The Medway Handyman wrote:

On my screen the type used is very small, borderline on impossible
to read particulary as it is a serif font. This applies to the whole
site. I'd also look at the colours used in the mouse over and active
bits of the LH menu, active and mouse over use the same (boring)
grey, mouse over has a white drop shadow which looks "odd".

The font is Verdana 10pt.

You cannot rely on any given font being available or used even if
available. Font size under HTML is expressed as 7 numbers (1 to 7)
with 1 being the smallest, there is no fixed relationship between
these numbers and a size in points (1/72nd of an inch). The generally
accepted default size for body text is 3, your pages set 2 for body
text.

Changed it to 3, I think it looks better, how is it looking from yor=ur
end?
..

This is probably down to Frontpage and MS. Different versions of
Frontpage generate pages that only render as expected under some
versions of Internet Explorer. Use a different browser and things can
just be "different" (like the buttons) or a complete and utter mess
with images overlapping text and so on.


Not much I can do about that only having MS FP. The punters seem to like it
though.

What browser are you using?

Mozilla 1.7.12 - Mozilla/5.0 (OS/2; U; Warp 3; en-US; rv:1.7.12)

Acording to my web stats about 92% of my visitors use MS browsers, so I'll
have to live with it.


--
Dave
The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
01634 717930
07850 597257

On Sun, 1 Jul 2007 23:09:37 +0100, The Medway Handyman wrote:

Changed it to 3, I think it looks better, how is it looking from your
end?

Much better though it's still a serif font. B-)

Not much I can do about that only having MS FP.

You could always dive into crafting the pages yourself, they aren't overly
complicated.

Acording to my web stats about 92% of my visitors use MS browsers, so
I'll have to live with it.

92% of browsers report to be MS. This isn't the same as actually being MS.
Many none MS browsers can be told to lie about what they are to get around
dumb sites that work perfectly well but refuse to play unless lied to...

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Sun, 1 Jul 2007 23:09:37 +0100, The Medway Handyman wrote:

Changed it to 3, I think it looks better, how is it looking from your
end?

Much better though it's still a serif font. B-)

That must just be what you have selected as a default in your browser.

Verdana is sans-serif, but if you have not got that, then the browser is
choosing its own.

How does your browser render my home page? (link in sig)

That should also be Verdana, but it has a preference list in its CSS:

..body { font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:
12px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; color: #000000;
text-align: left}

That should mean a browser will try Verdana, then Arial, then Helvetica,
then anything sans-serif in order of declining preference.

Not much I can do about that only having MS FP.

You could always dive into crafting the pages yourself, they aren't overly
complicated.

The difficulty there is that FP will not leave the code alone - if you
craft it yourself, it starts rewriting stuff for you (badly). That is
why (well one of the reasons why) it is useless for any web development
that has embedded code or tags that you need left alone.

Acording to my web stats about 92% of my visitors use MS browsers, so
I'll have to live with it.

92% of browsers report to be MS. This isn't the same as actually being MS.
Many none MS browsers can be told to lie about what they are to get around
dumb sites that work perfectly well but refuse to play unless lied to...

You can't even guarantee that FP sites look alike on different versions
of MS browsers. Having said that this one is not doing much stuff that
should vary too much between them. If you have a look at the screen shot
I took (http://www.internode.co.uk/temp/browser.gif) you can also see
how the font weights etc vary between Firefox (which renders them
correctly) and IE6 which gets everything too heavy.

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Mon, 02 Jul 2007 00:50:30 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

Changed it to 3, I think it looks better, how is it looking from your
end?

Much better though it's still a serif font. B-)

That must just be what you have selected as a default in your browser.

Verdana is sans-serif, but if you have not got that, then the browser is
choosing its own.

If the page author wants a sans-serif font then they ought to set that, as
you do, by setting sans-serif in the font family. Not just hope that the
browser default is sans. I do get a sans font on your homepage BTW.

You could always dive into crafting the pages yourself, they aren't
overly complicated.

The difficulty there is that FP will not leave the code alone

I was thinking that FP would be dumped in favour of Notepad and a little
PHP or ASP.

If you have a look at the screen shot I took
(http://www.internode.co.uk/temp/browser.gif) you can also see
how the font weights etc vary between Firefox (which renders them
correctly) and IE6 which gets everything too heavy.

My Mozzilla looks just like your Firefox, no surprise there. B-) I'm
confused about the LH buttons though they look the same in Mozilla,
Firefox or IE6.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

Dave Liquorice wrote:

Much better though it's still a serif font. B-)
That must just be what you have selected as a default in your browser.

Verdana is sans-serif, but if you have not got that, then the browser is
choosing its own.

If the page author wants a sans-serif font then they ought to set that, as
you do, by setting sans-serif in the font family. Not just hope that the
browser default is sans. I do get a sans font on your homepage BTW.

The author may not be that bothered ;-) If the reader wants sans-serif
when the page author has not elected to specify, then he knows what to do!

You could always dive into crafting the pages yourself, they aren't
overly complicated.
The difficulty there is that FP will not leave the code alone

I was thinking that FP would be dumped in favour of Notepad and a little
PHP or ASP.

Perhaps a little far in the other direction. Dreamweaver would probably
be a more realistic middle ground.

If you have a look at the screen shot I took
(http://www.internode.co.uk/temp/browser.gif) you can also see
how the font weights etc vary between Firefox (which renders them
correctly) and IE6 which gets everything too heavy.

My Mozzilla looks just like your Firefox, no surprise there. B-) I'm
confused about the LH buttons though they look the same in Mozilla,
Firefox or IE6.

Tis because FP has rendered them all as graphics and stuck em in .gif
files. e.g:

http://www.medwayhandyman.co.uk/_der...010_vbtn_p.gif

(interesting thing is that it gets the font scaling right on the graphic
version)

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Mon, 02 Jul 2007 09:49:03 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

If the page author wants a sans-serif font then they ought to set that,
as you do, by setting sans-serif in the font family. Not just hope that
the browser default is sans.

The author may not be that bothered ;-)

True enough but if they go to the extent of specifying a font they ought
to ensure that the fall back is of the same class (serif, sans-serif,
fixed width, proportional etc).

Personally a web page creation system should only allow the generic
variations of style and size etc rather than lull the unsuspecting into
thinking that their carefully crafted page using font X will look the same
as they see it on all systems.

Perhaps a little far in the other direction. Dreamweaver would probably
be a more realistic middle ground.

Or maybe Mozzilla Composer, until I started doing more PHP stuff I found
that generated decent code with a nice WYSIWYG interface and abilty to
edit the code directly.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail