Handyman Price List: Template and How to Price Your Jobs
Every handyman gets the same first question on the phone: what do you charge? Answering it with “it depends” loses the job to whoever answers with a number. A handyman price list gives you that number for the forty jobs that make up most of your week, and a defensible process for everything else. This is for solo operators and small crews setting prices for the first time or correcting rates that have not moved in years.
Hourly, Half-Day or Flat Rate: How Handymen Price
Three structures, and most established handymen run two of them.
Hourly suits diagnostic work, older homes where nothing is standard, open-ended punch lists, and anything where you cannot see the problem until you open the wall. HomeGuide’s cost guide by Tom Grupa puts self-employed handyman rates at $50 to $80 an hour and corporate or franchise rates at $75 to $125, with uninsured or rural operators at $35 to $65. Housecall Pro’s pricing guide by Jorge Jimenez, published June 2026 and updated October 2026, gives an overall band of $50 to $150 an hour and suggests tiering by work type, such as a lower rate for drywall and painting and a higher one for light plumbing or electrical.
Flat rate suits repeatable jobs with a known scope: ceiling fans, TV mounting, faucet swaps, furniture assembly. Housecall Pro recommends building flat rates for your top 10 to 15 jobs and keeping the rest hourly, which is the right sequence because those jobs are also the ones customers call about most.
Half-day and day rates suit punch lists and property management work. HomeGuide puts a full day at $320 to $600. Housecall Pro cites Thumbtack data showing typical customer totals of $178 to $220 for jobs under two hours, $316 to $428 for two to five hours, and $701 to $1,105 for a full day or complex project.
The flat-rate formula worth memorizing, from Housecall Pro: estimated labor hours times your hourly wage, plus overhead, plus materials, plus material markup, plus profit. Their worked example prices a ceiling fan at $212.50 from two labor hours at $55, $20 an hour of overhead, $25 in materials, a 30 percent material markup and profit at 20 percent of labor plus overhead.
Handyman Price List Template: 40 Common Jobs With Rate Ranges
The ranges below are published cost-guide figures from HomeGuide’s handyman price guide by Tom Grupa. They are national customer-facing benchmarks, not your costs, so treat them as a sanity check against prices you build from your own hourly rate.
| Job | Published range | Job | Published range |
| TV mounting | $100 to $300 | Art hanging | $40 to $200 |
| Furniture assembly | $85 to $200 | Shelf installation | $150 to $500 |
| Ceiling fan installation | $75 to $150 | Mirror installation | $140 to $430 |
| Light fixture replacement | $65 to $175 | Curtain rod hanging | $100 to $250 |
| Faucet installation | $120 to $300 | Blind installation, each | $30 to $80 |
| Leaky faucet repair | $65 to $150 | Window screen replacement, each | $15 to $50 |
| Toilet installation | $120 to $230 | Window glass pane replacement | $150 to $500 |
| Toilet repair | $130 to $310 | Window frame repair | $150 to $600 |
| Garbage disposal installation | $80 to $200 | Door installation | $225 to $825 |
| Dishwasher installation | $120 to $250 | Door frame repair | $75 to $220 |
| Appliance installation | $100 to $250 | Sliding glass door installation | $300 to $600 |
| Washer and dryer installation | $50 to $175 | Pet door installation | $200 to $450 |
| Microwave installation | $100 to $580 | Lock replacement | $75 to $200 |
| Thermostat installation | $80 to $200 | Drywall repair | $200 to $800 |
| Security camera installation | $80 to $200 | Ceiling repair | $200 to $1,000 |
| Dryer vent cleaning | $80 to $185 | Caulking repair | $150 to $300 |
| Gutter cleaning | $100 to $225 | Re-grouting | $250 to $1,000 |
| Gutter repair | $150 to $500 | Paint a room | $350 to $850 |
| Pressure washing | $150 to $300 | Weather stripping installation | $150 to $400 |
| Fence or gate repair | $200 to $800 | Deck or porch repair | $500 to $2,600 |
Two cautions on using this as a handyman price list template. The wide ranges reflect scope more than market: a $200 drywall repair is a patch, and an $800 one is a ceiling section with texture matching. And HomeGuide notes that jobs above roughly $500 commonly require a contractor’s license depending on the state, so check your own licensing thresholds before quoting the larger items.
Build your own list by taking your hourly rate, estimating honest labor time for each job including setup and cleanup, adding materials with markup, then checking the result against the column above. Where your number lands far outside the published range, the usual cause is a time estimate rather than a pricing error.
Minimum Charges, Trip Fees and Materials
These three line items determine whether small jobs are worth taking.
Minimum charge. HomeGuide puts handyman minimums at $75 to $200, and Housecall Pro at $125 to $200, covering travel, setup and admin. An alternative structure is a two-hour minimum billed at your hourly rate. Whichever you use, apply it every time: a $60 job twenty minutes away costs you more than it earns once you count the drive.
Trip and mileage fees. HomeGuide puts a trip charge for materials runs at $30 to $80, with mileage at $0.30 to $0.60 per mile or a flat $10 to $50 for jobs outside your service area. Publish your service radius and what happens beyond it, rather than deciding case by case on the phone.
Materials and markup. Published markup guidance differs: HomeGuide cites 20 to 50 percent or more, while Housecall Pro puts a typical range at 10 to 30 percent, covering sourcing, transport, returns and warranty handling. Pick one, state it on the estimate, and apply it consistently. Customer-supplied materials need a line making clear you do not warrant parts you did not buy.
One structural decision worth making early: whether your price list includes materials or labor only. Most published ranges blend the two, which is why a customer quoting your own list back at you can be comparing something different from what you meant. Say which on the list itself.
When to Quote Instead of Using the List
The list prices jobs you have done a hundred times. Everything else gets a quote.
Quote rather than list when:
- You have not seen it. Photos help and they hide water damage, rot and whatever the last person did badly.
- Age or access complicates it. Older homes have non-standard sizes, previous repairs and surprises behind every panel.
- The scope is open-ended. A punch list of fourteen items is a day rate, not fourteen list prices.
- Multiple trades are involved. Anything touching plumbing, electrical or structure where the line between handyman work and licensed work matters.
- The customer describes the solution rather than the problem. When someone asks for a specific fix, the underlying issue is often something else.
- It is above your licensing threshold. Several states cap unlicensed handyman work at a dollar figure per job, and the figure varies, so confirm yours.
The practical answer to how to price handyman jobs you cannot see is a two-stage approach: give a range on the phone with a clear statement of what would move it, then confirm a fixed price on arrival before starting. Customers accept that readily when it is framed up front, and it protects you from the quote you regret.
For a deeper treatment of choosing between fixed and hourly pricing, see flat rate vs time and materials.
Raising Your Rates Without Losing Regulars
Rates should move every year, by a little. Operators who hold prices for four years and then jump 25 percent lose the regulars who would have absorbed five percent annually without comment.
How to do it:
- Recalculate first. Fuel, insurance, vehicle costs and material prices all move. Work out your real cost per billable hour, remembering that drive time, quoting and admin are unbillable hours your rate has to cover.
- Raise new customers first. Quote the new rate on new work immediately and give existing regulars 30 to 60 days notice.
- Tell them directly. One short message naming the new rate and the date. No apology, no essay.
- Keep property managers and repeat accounts separate. Volume accounts can hold the old rate for a defined period in exchange for committed work, which is a trade rather than a concession.
- Expect a few to leave. If nobody objects, the previous rate was too low.
The quieter lever is your minimum charge. Raising it from $100 to $150 changes which jobs you take without changing the headline rate customers compare, and it often improves your effective hourly more than a rate increase does.
Showing Prices Online and on the Invoice
Publishing prices filters your calls. Customers who find your rates and still call are not price shopping, and the ones who would have wasted twenty minutes on the phone never dial.
What to publish: your hourly rate or rate tiers, your minimum charge, your service area and any travel fee, flat prices for your most common jobs, and a plain statement of what is included and what is extra. A downloadable handyman price list pdf works well here, since customers save it and forward it to neighbors.
What to keep off the page: anything where the scope varies so widely that a number misleads. Listing “drywall repair from $200” invites an argument when the job is a ceiling.
On the invoice, carry the same prices through. A customer who was quoted a list price and receives an invoice with different wording calls to ask why, and that call costs more than the clarity would have. Itemize labor, materials and any trip or minimum charge separately, and attach photos of completed work. The handyman invoice template covers that layout for both hourly and flat-rate jobs.
Keeping the list in one place matters more than where you publish it. Rates saved on your phone, in a notebook and in a quoting app drift apart within a season. The handyman business software page covers running the price list, estimates and invoices from one record, and you can set up your rate card in the free job management software so every quote starts from the same numbers.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much do handymen charge per hour?
HomeGuide’s handyman price guide by Tom Grupa puts self-employed handymen at $50 to $80 an hour, corporate and franchise operations at $75 to $125, and uninsured or rural operators at $35 to $65. Housecall Pro’s October 2026 update gives an overall band of $50 to $150. City rates vary widely, with HomeGuide citing New York at $60 to $125 and Miami at $35 to $85.
Should a handyman publish a price list?
Publishing your hourly rate, minimum charge, service area and flat prices for common jobs filters out price shoppers before they call and shortens every conversation that does happen. Leave off jobs where scope varies so much that a number misleads, such as drywall or deck repair, and describe those as quoted after a look.
How do you price a handyman job you haven’t seen?
Give a range on the phone with a clear statement of what would move it, request photos, then confirm a fixed price on arrival before starting work. Customers accept that readily when you frame it up front. Avoid committing to a firm number sight unseen on older properties, where hidden damage and non-standard sizes are common.
What is a fair minimum charge for a handyman?
Published figures put minimums at $75 to $200 per HomeGuide and $125 to $200 per Housecall Pro, covering travel, setup and admin. An alternative is a two-hour minimum at your hourly rate. Set yours so that the smallest job you accept still covers the drive, and apply it consistently rather than waiving it for pleasant customers.
Do handymen charge for estimates?
Most do not charge for a straightforward quote, since the friction costs more work than the fee recovers. Charging a diagnostic fee is normal when the visit involves real troubleshooting, and many operators credit it against the job if the customer proceeds. Say which applies when the appointment is booked rather than on arrival.