Competitive Pricing

[Prime Design]

Hi guys,

For most of my electrical career I've worked under somebody as a mate or subcontractor. I'm now with Napit and in a position to venture out alone. One thing about the electrical industry is there is always someone willing to lend support if I'm having trouble navigating through the regs and osg, all of you guys on here have been a great help. I never panic when it comes to knowledge because its all in the green book.
However, there's no definitive guide on pricing!! Everybody prices differently. I've been told to take my expenses into account, but I may price myself out of a job if the next electricians expenses are less than mine. Recently I was going to charge a client £150 for a 9 circuit CCU upgrade. The person I got advice from said I should be charging £25 a circuit, so I did and got the job!!!! That's £75 I could have missed out on.
I get my bread and butter from a subcontracting firm who do council maintenance and we have a schedule of rates so pricing is easy. Can we not get together on here and come up with our own rates that we can refer to?
Eg:
CCU upgrade £25 per circuit
Gas/Water bond £10 per metre
Install socket £50 (£75 with fused spur for appliance isolation)
Now I know its common for one man to undercut another man to win the job but at least they'll be some sort of guidelines for beginners like myself.

If the above is not a good idea can any of you suggest a method of pricing that has been successful for yourselves?

Thanks for taking time to read this, all advice and contributions will be appreciated.

 

[Guest77]

Sorry, but now you've gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. £500 is nearer the mark, £600 with bonding if you're lucky.

lol

 

[Prime Design]

...And here was me thinking I was getting it right!!! I'm glad I decided to write this post now

 

[Prime Design]

Still £500 is more than double (angry face)
Well I have certainly learnt a 'valuable' lesson. Thanks for that

 

[R G]

Its amazing how we have all trimmed our prices to be competitive , In Norfolk you would have trouble getting £200 for a board change here , with London economy now kicking off the rate would be twice that I should imagine , all my work used to be in London area and was o/k until 5 years or so ago , but some places its quite hard and you have to compete as well. I would charge what you are happy with taking into account all you're expenses and allowing for holiday , sickness etc so I would charge 30 per cent on top of what you see as a profit making margin ..

 

[Guest77]

400-500 for a split board with a test and 12 month warrenty is the going rate for a distribution board change by an competant electrican around here, you can add 150-200 on that in london, so joe.ninety saying 600 ish is probably correct, I would agree with him with his comment to be honest.

 

[joe.ninety]

That's £500 including an mini EICR before hand mind, otherwise you might as well roll the dice.

 

[Knobhead]

I always find these threads amusing.

 

[amlu]

london land of cowboys and no sheriff in sight. good luck.

 

[1stfix2ndfix]

Not bad not bad

 

[IzzyS]

A bit of advice from cobwebinfo.com

"Unless you’re an exception, and have a significant cost advantage that is impossible for your rivals to match, never, ever try to compete solely on price."

Low prices lower the perceived quality. Customers who chose solely on price e.g. those who think an extra socket should cost less than £20, because "electricians earn £10 per hour and the socket and cable only costs a fiver" are not worth having. And they take ages to pay.

If your pricing strategy means you end up working for minimum wage, you may as well work for Tesco or Aldi. At least you'd get staff discount on your "big shop"...

 

[UNG]

Hi guys,

For most of my electrical career I've worked under somebody as a mate or subcontractor. I'm now with Napit and in a position to venture out alone. One thing about the electrical industry is there is always someone willing to lend support if I'm having trouble navigating through the regs and osg, all of you guys on here have been a great help. I never panic when it comes to knowledge because its all in the green book.
However, there's no definitive guide on pricing!! Everybody prices differently. I've been told to take my expenses into account, but I may price myself out of a job if the next electricians expenses are less than mine. Recently I was going to charge a client £150 for a 9 circuit CCU upgrade. The person I got advice from said I should be charging £25 a circuit, so I did and got the job!!!! That's £75 I could have missed out on.
I get my bread and butter from a subcontracting firm who do council maintenance and we have a schedule of rates so pricing is easy. Can we not get together on here and come up with our own rates that we can refer to?
Eg:
CCU upgrade £25 per circuit
Gas/Water bond £10 per metre
Install socket £50 (£75 with fused spur for appliance isolation)
Now I know its common for one man to undercut another man to win the job but at least they'll be some sort of guidelines for beginners like myself.

If the above is not a good idea can any of you suggest a method of pricing that has been successful for yourselves?

Thanks for taking time to read this, all advice and contributions will be appreciated.

If your expenses are higher than the competition then you need to trim your expenses what is the point of winning a job that you are going to take a hit on just to get the work, this did happen many years ago where contractors would go in low to keep staff on their books for the next big job

With regard to the open pricing you are suggesting I think you may find it could be seen as price fixing and would therefore be illegal

 

[Welchyboy1]

MDJ is pretty much there with the pricing, im in essex and do a standard board change for £350 + vat local to me, supply and fit

if i was even thinking about going into London i would want at LEAST £350 per day clear or wouldnt even bother

I dont ever really work on day rate either, always a fixed price for every job if i can help it, you severely limit your earning potential if committing yourself to a day rate, if your quite quick at your job, if your a plodder then a day rate may be best

i would have no problems posting my pricing on a public forum as i feel I'm totally upfront with anyone i work with about costs and can justify exactly what i charge


i would think most tradesmen undersell their selves when starting out, mostly to get the work rolling in, but they soon start to realise they are working like a dog and still skint then re-evaluate their pricing

theres no harm in doing a job a bit cheaper to begin with to get yourself started but by no means should it be an ongoing policy and will be something that will become more easier with confidence

you mention electricians undercut each other to get work, but any decent established electrician will have his price for a job and thats it, he will have enough work coming in to not even get involved with haggling over silly things, he leaves that to domestic installers

if you want an A1 job, professional service and ongoing aftercare afterwards thats me!

if you want a cheap cut price job, deal for cash, you get the bits and ill do the rest..........get someone else!!

this should be your policy when your starting to get established if you want to do well, it will also attract decent customers whilst getting rid of the idiots who dont appreciate value and expect to pay peanuts

but in the same note you must also project a professional image, decent written van, embroidered workwear, prof. Printed bus cards, decent website, decent certificate and invoicing program etc.

dont turn up in a ford fiesta with your steps sticking out the back window and expect to charge £250 a day!!

good luck!

 

[IzzyS]

Welchyboy1 is spot on - it's what the marketing people call "differentiating your product or service".

Don't forget that customers purchase electrical services (and virtually everything else) out of need. Not because of a low cost. What price would the OP's CU swap need to reduce to before a group of students sharing a rented house made the purchase?

On the other hand, new home owners with a clause in their mortgage telling them that they must have their electrics sorted out just need convincing to use you, rather than someone else. There at lots of ways of doing this, and price is only a small part of it.

 

[D Skelton]

Welchyboy hit the nail on the head!

What I would add for clarity is that if you're looking at carrying out mainly domestic work, you need to accept that you will never be competitive. The market is completely saturated with idiots who will undercut each other at every turn.

Ok I don't do much domestic now, but when I do, I never really struggle to win the work as it is normally my work of mouth reputation that has got me noticed in the first place. I am very expensive compared to a lot of the pond life in my town, but you won't get a better job done anywhere else!

I did a small flat rewire a month or so ago for a word of mouth customer, she'd already had two quotes, both cheap, and I was almost double the cheapest. Still got the work though!

 

[Octopus]

We've just had some builder quotes for an extension. One was half the price of the others. I didn't take it seriously. Yes saving £40k sounds good but how many corners would they cut??