$ Repair Quote Check

How to use it

Small engine repair dies on the $99 flat quote. It sounds right until the quote creeps toward the new-unit price and the customer buys new while your diagnostic time goes unbilled. Start with your bar (60), profit margin percent (20), minimum job fee ($60), and weekly take-home goal ($800). Pick an equipment preset: String trimmer, Chainsaw, Push mower, Riding mower, or Generator, each filling diagnostic minutes, repair minutes, parts cost, and the new replacement price as editable starting points. The diagnostic-fee-up-front checkbox protects you when a repair is not worth doing; uncheck it and the abandoned-unit leak gets priced into every job. The parts card adds parts markup and a shop supplies flat. The leaks card prices pickup and delivery minutes, round-trip miles, vehicle cost, and the callback rate as expected free warranty labor. Results show the line-item breakdown, parts billed with markup, true cost, the recommended quote (never below the minimum, rounded up to $10), your effective rate, and a repair-vs-replace warning when the quote crosses 65 percent of a new unit. The gut check grades your instinct quote; the week planner turns your goal into jobs. No signup; runs on your phone.

Worked example

Example only, not typical pricing. String trimmer preset at a $60 bar with 20 percent margin: 20 diagnostic plus 50 repair minutes equals 70 minutes, or 1.17 hours at $60, which is $70 of labor. Parts are $28, shop supplies $8, vehicle is 20 miles at $0.67 equals $13.40, pickup and delivery is 30 minutes at $60 equals $30, expected callback labor is 5 percent of 50 minutes at $60 equals $2.50. True cost is $70 plus $28 plus $8 plus $13.40 plus $30 plus $2.50 equals $151.90. Recommended quote is max(60, ceil(151.90 x 1.20 / 10) x 10) equals $190. Effective rate is (190 minus 28 minus 8 minus 13.40 minus 2.50) divided by 1.17 equals $118.37 per hour, which clears the bar, so the verdict is PRICED RIGHT. The quote is 95 percent of a $199 new unit, so the replace-line warning fires: past 65 percent most customers buy new, so charge the diagnostic fee up front. A $99 gut quote would pay $40.37 per hour, sit $52.90 below true cost, and leave $91 on the table. The week planner turns $38.10 of profit per job into 21 jobs and 35 hours for an $800 week.

FAQs

Why is 65 percent the repair-vs-replace line?

Past about two thirds of the new price, most customers buy a new unit instead of repairing. The warning keeps you from quoting a repair nobody will approve.

What does the up-front diagnostic fee protect?

Jobs that are not worth repairing. When the customer abandons the unit, the fee you collected up front covers the diagnostic time you already spent.

What is the abandoned-unit leak?

The chance the repair is not worth it, times the diagnostic fee, priced into every job when the fee is not collected up front. It is the cost of free estimates.

Why does the callback card price every job?

A small share of repairs come back free. Pricing expected callback labor into every quote spreads the cost instead of letting one rework eat a whole job.

What does WORKING TOO CHEAP mean here?

Your effective rate sits under 75 percent of your bar. The quote may cover true cost, but your time is not paid. Raise the quote or walk away.