After-Hours and Emergency Rates: Price Overtime Without Guessing

Emergency work looks lucrative because invoices are bigger. It often is not — overtime wages, fatigue, longer drives, and disrupted next-day capacity eat the premium. After-hours rates should be built from costs and a higher profit target, not copied from a competitor's "1.5×" sticker.

Start with true after-hours labor cost

If a tech's burdened daytime rate is $48/hour and overtime is time-and-a-half on the wage portion (plus burden still applies), your after-hours burdened rate may land near $65–$75/hour depending on how you load taxes and premiums. Use that rate in job costing for evening and weekend tickets — not the daytime number.

Add disruption, not just wage

• Longer average travel when techs leave from home
• On-call stipend or rotating schedule cost
• Next-day productivity loss (late nights, callbacks)
• Higher customer urgency — price should clear a higher net margin band (often 35–50%+ net on emergency lines)

Build the multiplier from a sample job

1. Cost a typical after-hours call in the calculator with overtime labor, travel, vehicle, overhead, and materials.
2. Note what daytime revenue would have been for the same scope.
3. Raise after-hours list price until net margin and profit per hour hit your emergency targets.
4. Express the gap as a multiplier or a flat emergency fee + rate — whichever is clearer for CSRs and customers.

Many shops land between 1.5× and 2× on labor-heavy service, or a higher trip fee plus standard repair rates. The right answer is the one that still wins when you plug real numbers in.

Publish the policy

Define windows (after 5 p.m., weekends, holidays), what counts as emergency vs after-hours convenience, and when the fee is waived for members. Ambiguity creates waived fees and angry reviews.