HVAC Pricing Calculator
Price HVAC work from your real costs — tech labor, van & equipment overhead, parts and refrigerant — with your profit margin built in, not diluted away. Every price comes with a full breakdown so you can see exactly where it comes from.
Your Company Setup
Set these once — they reflect your business, not the job.
Price a Job
Enter the job — the price updates as you type.
Instant Rate Card — Common HVAC Jobs
Twelve common residential jobs priced with your company settings above. Change your tech rate or margin and the whole menu reprices instantly. Hours and parts costs are typical starting points — adjust them to your market, your equipment brands, and your climate.
| Job | Typical hours | Typical parts | Your flat rate |
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We really appreciate feedback from working pros like yourself to get these numbers accurate — to help our fellow trades and businesses succeed, now and for the next generations to come.
Worked Examples: Three Real HVAC Jobs
Using the default company settings above ($38/hr loaded tech rate, $32/hr overhead, 40% parts & refrigerant markup, 25% target margin, 3% card fee, 3% warranty reserve):
1. Seasonal tune-up — an hour and a half on site, $20 in consumables
Labor $57 + overhead $48 + parts charged at $28 (your $20 cost with markup) = $133 base → flat rate about $193, netting roughly $48 at your 25% target. This is the number to know cold, because tune-ups are the front door to your maintenance agreements — and a maintenance agreement priced below this number is a subscription to losing money twice a year.
2. Refrigerant leak search and recharge — two and a half hours, $260 in refrigerant
Labor $95 + overhead $80 + refrigerant charged at $364 = $539 base → flat rate about $781, netting roughly $195. Refrigerant is the classic underpriced line item: it's expensive, prices move, and recovering, weighing, and charging it correctly requires certification and equipment your overhead is already paying for. Charge it like the regulated specialty material it is.
3. Blower motor replacement — two and a half hours, $320 part
Labor $95 + overhead $80 + the motor charged at $448 = $623 base → flat rate about $903, netting roughly $226. A customer can find the motor online for less — but they're paying you to know it's actually the motor, match the ECM programming, install it right, and stand behind it. That's what the parts markup funds: your warranty on the work.
What Does HVAC Overhead Actually Cost?
Overhead is every cost of being in business that isn't a specific job: van payment and fuel, general liability insurance, workers' comp, EPA 608 certifications and continuing training, refrigerant recovery machine and tanks, gauges and probes that need calibration and replacement, vacuum pumps, torch sets, dispatch software, phone, and marketing. HVAC carries more equipment overhead than most trades — a properly outfitted service van has thousands of dollars of test and recovery gear in it before the first part goes on the shelf. For a small one-truck operation, a typical year lands in the range of $40,000–$65,000 before anyone earns a wage.
The number that matters is overhead per wrench hour — the hours a tech is actually working on equipment, not driving, quoting, or waiting on a homeowner. A busy solo operator bills maybe 1,400–1,600 wrench hours a year, and demand swings hard with the seasons: slammed in July and January, quiet in the shoulder months. Divide annual overhead by those wrench hours: roughly $50,000 ÷ 1,550 hours ≈ $32 per wrench hour — the default this calculator starts with. Shops that divide by 2,080 payroll hours underprice every job, and the shoulder months are when they find out.
Common HVAC Pricing Mistakes
Recommended Profit Margins for HVAC
These are working benchmarks, not laws. Replacements run thinner margins because customers collect multiple bids on a big number; service and repair carries more because it's skilled, urgent, warrantied work. What matters is that the margin is a decision you made, visible in your price — not whatever the refrigerant market left behind.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much should I charge for an HVAC service call?
Build it from your numbers: your loaded tech rate for the hour, plus overhead per wrench hour (van, fuel, insurance, EPA certs, recovery equipment — spread across billable hours only), plus small parts with markup, divided by one minus your target margin. The diagnostic fee should stand on its own as a profitable visit — a tech, a stocked van, and an hour of skilled labor at someone's house is never free to deliver.
Should the diagnostic fee be waived if the customer approves the repair?
Only if the repair price already carries it. Crediting the diagnostic toward an accurately priced repair is a sales tool; waiving it against an underpriced repair is a donation. Price the repair from full costs first, then decide what the credit is worth as a closing incentive.
What profit margin should an HVAC company target?
Common working targets: 25–40% true net margin on service and repair work, and 10–20% on full system replacements, after all costs, card fees, and a warranty reserve. Parts and refrigerant are typically marked up 40–100% over cost on top of that, with small parts carrying the higher end.
What's the difference between markup and margin?
Markup is added on top of cost; margin is the share of the final price that's profit. A 25% markup on $400 gives $500 — but only a 20% margin. To earn a true 25% margin you divide by 0.75, giving $533. Confusing the two is one of the most common reasons HVAC shops underprice.
Is flat-rate pricing better than time and materials for HVAC?
Flat rate wins for repeatable residential work: customers approve a known number, fast techs are rewarded instead of penalized, and nobody watches the clock. The catch is the flat rate must be engineered from real costs — a flat rate copied from a competitor's book just standardizes their mistake. Time and materials still fits genuinely unpredictable work like duct modifications or diagnosing intermittent faults.
Is this calculator really free?
Yes. No account, no email, no ads. The calculator runs in your browser and the numbers you enter are never sent to us. We use basic traffic analytics, described in our privacy policy.