Trip charge calculator
The starting numbers are an illustrative example only. Use your own drive times and costs. Nothing you type is sent anywhere unless you choose to send it to us.
The calculator above does the math. Below, each step is explained.
What a trip charge pays for
When a customer calls, your costs start before anyone touches a tool. Someone books the call. A worker loads the truck, drives out, finds parking, carries tools in, and then drives back or on to the next job. If the customer says no to the work, all of that time was still paid.
- Drive time both ways. The worker is on the clock from the moment the truck leaves. Drive time costs the full hourly cost, not just the wage.
- Setup and teardown. Carrying tools in, laying drop cloths, packing it all back up.
- The vehicle. Fuel, tires, repairs, insurance and payments, spread over every km or mile you drive.
A trip charge makes sure that cost gets paid even when the visit does not turn into a job. It is common in trades that come to a home to fix something: HVAC (heating and cooling), plumbing, electrical, appliance repair, garage doors and pest control. Trades that quote a fixed price for a set scope, like pressure washing or cleaning, more often use a job minimum instead.
Trip charge vs service call fee vs diagnostic fee vs minimum charge
These names get mixed up. Pick one, say what it covers, and use it the same way every time.
| Fee | What it covers | Where it is common | Taken off the job price? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trip charge (trip fee) | Getting a worker and truck to the door: drive, setup, vehicle | Repair calls, far-away jobs, return visits | Your choice. Say which before booking. |
| Service call fee | Usually the same as a trip charge, sometimes with a short look at the problem included | HVAC, plumbing, appliance repair | Often taken off if the customer approves the repair on that visit |
| Diagnostic fee | The time spent testing to find out what is wrong, on top of getting there | HVAC, appliance and electrical faults | Often taken off if they approve the work, kept if they do not |
| Minimum charge | The lowest price for any job, with the trip built in | Pressure washing, cleaning, junk removal, handyman | Not a separate line. Small jobs are priced up to the minimum. |
A minimum charge and a trip charge solve the same problem in two ways. A minimum hides the trip inside the price. A trip charge shows it as its own line. If you sell mostly fixed prices, our guide to flat rate vs hourly pricing shows where a minimum fits.
When to charge a trip charge
- Charge one when you go out without knowing the work. Repair calls are the clearest case. You cannot price the fix until you see it.
- Charge one when a visit can end with no sale. Every "we'll think about it" still cost you a trip.
- Charge one for jobs outside your normal area. A set fee for each band of distance is easy to explain.
- Charge one for return trips that are not your fault. No one home, a locked gate, or a part the customer was meant to supply that never showed up.
- Skip a separate charge when you quote a fixed price before you go. Build the trip into the job price and use a job minimum for small work.
- Skip it on estimate visits if free estimates are how your trade wins work. Just know what each estimate visit costs you, and track how many turn into jobs.
Either way, the trip is never free. It is paid by a trip charge, by the job price, or by your profit.
How to set your trip charge from real costs
Do not copy another company's number. Their wages, drive times and trucks are not yours. Work it out in five steps.
- Find the full cost of one person-hour. That is the wage plus payroll taxes, insurance and workers comp (the insurance that covers workers hurt on the job). The labor burden calculator works this out for you.
- Time a typical trip. Take the round-trip drive time to a normal call in your area, then add setup and teardown time on site. Use real times from past calls, not a hope.
- Cost the people. Multiply the hours from step 2 by the number of people going and by the full cost of one person-hour.
- Cost the vehicle. Multiply the round-trip kilometres or miles by what your vehicle costs per km or mile. Count fuel, repairs, tires, insurance and payments, not just gas.
- Price it. Add steps 3 and 4 to get the trip cost. Divide by one minus your margin to get the trip charge.
Why divide instead of adding a percentage? Dividing by 0.50 gives you a 50% margin. Adding 50% on top gives you only a 33% margin. Our guide to profit margin vs markup explains the difference. Overhead, like the person who booked the call, your ads and your own pay, comes out of that margin.
Not sure what your vehicle costs per km or mile? Add up a year of fuel, repair, insurance and payment bills and divide by the distance driven. As a reference point only, the US business standard mileage rate is 76 cents per mile for July to December 2026, according to the IRS standard mileage rates (checked October 2026). In Canada, the reasonable per-km allowance for 2026 is $0.73 per km for the first 5,000 km in a province, according to the Canada Revenue Agency automobile allowance rates (checked October 12, 2026). Those rates are tax rules for ordinary vehicles. A loaded work truck, or a van towing a trailer, may cost more to run, so use your own bills when you can.
A worked example: one technician, a 20-minute drive
These are illustrative numbers, not a price to copy. One technician goes to a repair call 20 minutes away. The full cost of one person-hour is $48. The truck costs $0.90 per km to run. The owner wants a 50% margin.
| Item | How it is worked out | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Trip time | 40 min round-trip drive + 15 min setup and teardown | 55 min (0.92 h) |
| People | 1 person × 55 min × $48 per hour | $44.00 |
| Vehicle | 30 km round trip × $0.90 per km | $27.00 |
| Job costs (the trip cost) | $44.00 + $27.00 | $71.00 |
| Price at 50% margin (the trip charge) | $71.00 ÷ (1 − 0.50) | $142 |
Where the price goes in this example
Every dollar of the price, split into the costs it covers and what is left over.
- People $44 (31%)
- Vehicle $27 (19%)
- Left after job costs $71 (50%)
The whole bar is the price the customer pays: $142. Illustrative numbers, built from the table above.
If the owner charged $71, the trip would cover its own cost and nothing more. The booking, the office, the ads that made the phone ring and the owner's pay would go unpaid on every call that ended without a repair. If the owner added 20% on top of $71 instead, the charge would be about $85, which is a margin of only about 17%.
Send two people instead of one and the people cost doubles to $88. The trip cost becomes $115, and the trip charge at a 50% margin becomes $230.
Trip charges by distance zone
One trip charge works for a tight service area. If you cover a wide area, set zones by drive time so far-away calls pay their own way. This table uses the same illustrative numbers as the example: one technician, $48 full cost per person-hour, 15 minutes of setup, $0.90 per km and a 50% margin.
| Zone | Round-trip drive | Round-trip distance | Trip cost | Trip charge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zone 1: up to 20 min each way | 40 min | 30 km | $71.00 | $142 |
| Zone 2: up to 30 min each way | 60 min | 50 km | $105.00 | $210 |
| Zone 3: up to 45 min each way | 90 min | 80 km | $156.00 | $312 |
Round each charge up to a number that is easy to say on the phone, like $145, $210 and $315. Draw the zones on a map by drive time, not straight-line distance. Bridges, hills and rush-hour traffic matter more than the km.
Credit it to the job, keep it, or waive it
The question customers ask most is "Does the trip charge come off the bill if I go ahead?" Decide your answer before the phone rings.
Crediting it to the job
Crediting means you take the trip charge off the job price when the customer approves the work. It helps turn visits into jobs, but it only works if your job prices already include the trip. If they do not, you give away the cost of the drive on every job you win.
Keeping it as its own line
Keeping it means the trip charge is on every bill, job or no job, and your job prices leave travel out. This is easy to explain on hourly work, where the clock starts once the worker is on site.
When to waive it, and when not to
- Waive it by crediting when the customer approves the work on the same visit and your job price already covers the trip.
- Waive it for maintenance plan customers if the plan price was set to cover their visits.
- Waive it when the return trip is your fault. A missing part, or a callback (going back to fix your own work), is your cost, not the customer's.
- Do not waive it when no one is home, the gate is locked, or the customer cancels after the truck has left. That trip cost you the same.
- Do not waive it to end a price argument. If the price is the problem, talk about the job, not the drive.
Write your rule down so everyone gives the same answer. If you drop the charge for anyone who pushes back, only your easiest customers end up paying it.
How to word a trip charge on a quote or booking
Tell the customer about the charge before the visit is booked, not on the invoice. A surprise fee feels like a trick, even when it is fair. Rules on showing fees differ by province and state, so check yours. Every time, say four things: the amount, what it covers, when it is due, and whether it comes off the job.
Sample wording: "There is a $145 trip charge for this visit. It covers getting a technician and a stocked truck to your home. It is due whether or not you go ahead with the work. If you approve the repair during the visit, we take the $145 off the repair price."
Use the same words on the phone, on the booking confirmation and on the invoice. For more on clear quotes, see how to quote a job professionally. In CrewBrain, each customer's quote, job and invoice sit in one record, so the office can see what was agreed before the bill goes out.
Check your trip charge against real trips
Your trip charge is a guess until you check it. Every few months, look at the real drive and setup time on a handful of calls. If trips run longer than you priced, raise the charge. Wages, insurance and fuel tend to rise, so a charge that never changes slowly gets cheaper.
CrewBrain tracks crew hours by job, so you can compare the time you priced with the time each visit really took. To test the full price of a job once you have seen the work, use the job price calculator.
Keep reading
- Labor burden calculator: the full cost of one person-hour
- How to price plumbing jobs
- Flat rate vs hourly pricing
- Profit margin vs markup
Questions owners ask
What is a trip charge?
A trip charge is a flat fee for sending a worker and a truck to a home or site. It pays for drive time, setup and vehicle costs, and is usually due even if no work is done.
How much should I charge for a trip charge?
Work it out from your own costs. Take the round-trip drive time plus setup time, and multiply by the full hourly cost of the people going. Add what the vehicle costs for those km or miles. Divide the total by one minus your margin. The calculator on this page does the math.
Do you have to pay a trip charge if no work is done?
Usually yes, if the company told you about the charge before the visit. The drive and setup still happened even though the job did not. Ask about it before you book.
Is a trip charge applied to the repair?
It depends on the company. Many take the trip charge off the repair price if you approve the work during the same visit, while others keep it as a separate line. The company should tell you which before the visit is booked.
What is the difference between a trip charge and a diagnostic fee?
A trip charge pays for getting to you. A diagnostic fee pays for the time spent finding out what is wrong. Some companies charge one, some charge both, and some roll them into one service call fee.
Should a cleaning or pressure washing company charge a trip fee?
Most fixed-price trades use a job minimum instead, which builds the trip into the lowest price they will take. A separate trip charge still makes sense for far-away jobs or return visits that are not your fault.