Solo mobile welders: price the whole call portal to portal, not just the arc time. Free, no signup. All defaults are editable starting points, not market rates.
The clock starts when the truck rolls. Drive, setup, and waiting are billable time on a service call, even when the weld itself takes ten minutes.
Mobile welding calls get underpriced the same way every time: the welder prices the arc time and forgets the hour of driving, the setup, and the consumables that made the weld possible. A ten-minute crack repair forty minutes away is not a ten-minute job. This calculator prices the whole call portal to portal, from the moment the truck rolls to the moment it is back.
Enter your target rig rate and margin, then pick the call preset closest to the job. Each preset loads starting-point weld time, setup, drive, miles, and consumables. Adjust the drive and miles to the real location, add any waiting time if the customer or the machine is not ready, and price the rod, gas, steel, and generator fuel you will actually burn. The tool adds it into a true call cost, a recommended quote with your minimum charge as a floor, and your effective hourly rate across all portal hours. Run your usual flat call price through the gut check before you quote it again.
Example only, not typical pricing. An implement crack at an $85 rig rate: 60 minutes welding, 20 setup, 35 minutes drive each way, 48 round-trip miles at $0.85, $12 rod, $6 gas, $25 steel, and $8 generator fuel. Portal time is 2.5 hours, labor is $212.50, the truck is $40.80, and consumables and steel are $51.00, for a true cost of $304.30 and a recommended quote of $375. A $150 gut price pays $23.28 an hour across the portal hours and sits $154.30 below true cost.
Yes, one way or another. Either bill portal to portal at your rig rate or set a trip charge and minimum that cover the drive. What does not work is pricing only the weld: on rural calls the drive is often longer than the repair.
Enough to cover rolling the truck: drive both ways, setup, and the first chunk of weld time. Many solo operators use a minimum that buys the first two or three hours. Set yours from your own numbers with this calculator, not from what the shop down the road charges.
Rod, wire, gas, grinding discs, and generator fuel run $30 to $60 on a typical call. Skip them on every call and you give back a full day of profit most weeks. Price them as a line, even a rough one.
The shop does not come to the field. Your price includes the truck, the rig, and the machine running again today instead of after a tow and a waiting list. Quote the portal-to-portal number and let the minimum charge do the talking on small jobs.
After-hours and breakdown-in-the-field calls carry real opportunity cost. The emergency toggle adds 25 percent to the quote so the premium is a policy, not a number you invent under pressure.