How to Charge for Travel Time Without Losing Jobs
Travel time is real work that costs you real money. Most contractors either eat it or price inconsistently. Here is a clear policy that's fair, defensible, and rarely drives customers away.
The cost you're absorbing silently
A plumber takes a service call 40 minutes away. The job itself takes 90 minutes. The customer is billed for 90 minutes of labour.
The actual time invested: 40 + 90 + 40 = 170 minutes. The billed time: 90 minutes. The unbilled 80 minutes — at the plumber's effective rate — represents a meaningful percentage of the job's revenue that was given away.
Multiply this by three or four calls per day, across the jobs that require longer drives, and the annual cost of unrecognised travel time is significant. For some solo contractors it's tens of thousands of dollars in effective income they're providing for free.
The contractors who address this are not gouging customers. They're recognising a real cost and pricing it appropriately.
Why most contractors don't charge for travel
The resistance is almost always the same concern: "If I charge for travel, customers will choose the contractor who doesn't."
This is a real concern but it's overstated. Here's why:
Customers don't always choose the lowest price. They choose the contractor they trust. A professional who clearly explains their pricing, including a reasonable travel charge, comes across as transparent rather than expensive.
Your competitors are absorbing travel too. If every contractor in your market is eating travel time, the one who prices it clearly isn't at a disadvantage — they're just making their cost structure visible. Customers who understand why travel is charged almost always accept it.
The customers who walk over a reasonable travel charge are the wrong customers. A homeowner who refuses to pay for travel time is optimising on price above everything else. Those customers drive more disputes, more renegotiation, and more late payments.
Options for charging travel
Option 1: Minimum callout fee The cleanest approach for most trades. A minimum charge covers the first [X] miles and [Y] minutes of travel. Anything beyond that is billed.
"Our standard service call includes travel within 20 miles of [town]. Jobs beyond 20 miles carry a travel supplement of $[amount] per additional 10 miles."
Simple, transparent, easy to communicate.
Option 2: Travel billed at a reduced rate Some contractors charge their full labour rate for time on site and a reduced rate (typically 50–75% of the on-site rate) for travel time. This is common in trades where travel time is genuinely variable and significant.
"Labour on site: $[rate]/hour. Travel time billed at $[reduced rate]/hour each way."
Option 3: Baked into minimum call The simplest option for smaller jobs: a minimum charge that implicitly covers a reasonable travel radius. "Minimum service call: $[amount], covers up to [time] on site within [radius]." Everything is included in a single number — no separate travel line.
How to communicate it without awkwardness
The key is to state it as policy, not as a negotiation:
"My service area is [zone]. For jobs within that area, there's no travel charge — it's included in the minimum call fee. For anything beyond [boundary], I add a travel supplement of $[amount]. Happy to confirm which applies to your location."
Delivered matter-of-factly, this is information. It's not a pitch and it doesn't require a defence. Most customers say "okay, that makes sense."
The customers who push back on a reasonable, clearly explained travel charge are telling you something about how they'll respond to every other line item on your invoice.
Factor travel into your overhead calculation
If you haven't done the overhead calculation yet, travel is one of the items that makes the biggest difference. Vehicle costs, fuel, and time spent driving are real overhead items. They need to be recovered somewhere — either in a travel charge, in a higher effective rate, or in a minimum call fee that's large enough to make shorter drives worth taking.
The contractors with the tightest businesses know exactly what it costs them to get to a job. Pricing travel clearly is a downstream outcome of knowing your numbers.
Win the job. Lock the deposit. Move on.
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