Property managers do not hire the shop with the cleverest ad. They hire the shop that hits the window, tells the tenant someone is coming, and sends an invoice that matches the work order they already approved. A small HVAC, plumbing, or electrical shop can win that work. The question is whether the rate card still leaves a margin after the drive and after the callback they expect you to eat.
This is the shop-owner version of that account. The arrival message itself is covered in on-my-way and ETA texts. The wasted roll, when the tenant is not home, is the no-show policy. Neither of those pages prices the rate card. This one does.
Rates in every table here. Labor is $45 an hour unless a table says otherwise, the truck is $0.65 a mile, and overhead is $12 an hour. That $12 is a $1,920 monthly shop cost spread across 160 hours. These are the public calculator's starter numbers. On the phone, overhead is the monthly shop cost split across the hours you actually log that month, and the open month stays a draft until it closes. One labor rate covers the job. A helper's pay goes in other direct costs.
Where the text actually goes out. The costing log can store an optional phone number on a job. It does not send a text, and it has no schedule, so it cannot send an arrival note or a review ask. Send those from the phone in your pocket, or from the field-service tool that already holds the appointment. The invoice stays in the tool that already bills. The log records what was paid, the time, the miles, and the parts.
What they actually check
A property manager is forwarding your work to an owner who is not on site, and to a tenant who did not choose you. They care about four things they can defend in an email.
- You showed up inside the window they gave the tenant. A missed window becomes their problem, then yours.
- Someone texted before the knock. The tenant is at work. The manager is in a different building. The text is how both of them know the truck is real. Send it from your phone or from the tool that holds the schedule. Name the company, the window, and which unit.
- The invoice matches the work order. If they approved a drain clearing, the bill should not arrive as a water-heater story. Line up the words with what you were sent to do.
- The next visit feels like the same company. They do not need the identical person every time. They need notes the next tech can use, and a phone number that reaches a person who already knows the building.
Price is on the list. It is not first if the last vendor missed two windows. It becomes first again the moment your invoices are sloppy, because then you are only a rate.
The street price and the rate card are different tickets
A repeat drain for a homeowner, on these rates, is a strong ticket. One hour on site, half an hour and 18 miles, parts at your cost $18, invoice $225.
The same drain at a street price
| Line | Math | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| What they paid | $225.00 | |
| Onsite labor | 1 h × $45.00 | $45.00 |
| Travel labor | 0.5 h × $45.00 | $22.50 |
| Vehicle | 18 mi × $0.65 | $11.70 |
| Materials, your cost | $18.00 | |
| Overhead | 1.5 h × $12.00 | $18.00 |
| Total job cost | $115.20 | |
| Net profit | $225.00 − $115.20 | $109.80 |
| Net margin | $109.80 ÷ $225.00 | 48.8% |
| Profit per hour | $109.80 ÷ 1.5 h | $73.20 / h |
Open this ticket in the calculator. Change the price or the miles and the account looks different.
The verdict is solid — 35%+ net. Do more of this work. This invoice is $47.77 over the 35% price. Profit is $109.80. That is the job you are used to defending. A property manager's rate card often takes the same hour and pays less, because they are promising you the next ten units.
The same drain on a $165 rate card
| Line | Math | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| What they paid | $165.00 | |
| Onsite labor | 1 h × $45.00 | $45.00 |
| Travel labor | 0.5 h × $45.00 | $22.50 |
| Vehicle | 18 mi × $0.65 | $11.70 |
| Materials, your cost | $18.00 | |
| Overhead | 1.5 h × $12.00 | $18.00 |
| Total job cost | $115.20 | |
| Net profit | $165.00 − $115.20 | $49.80 |
| Net margin | $49.80 ÷ $165.00 | 30.2% |
| Profit per hour | $49.80 ÷ 1.5 h | $33.20 / h |
Open this ticket in the calculator. Change the price or the miles and the account looks different.
The verdict is OK, not a winner. Fine if this is filler between high-margin installs. To hit 35% net with this cost stack, the invoice needed to be $177.23 (you charged $165.00). Profit falls from $109.80 to $49.80. The work did not get easier. The invoice got smaller. 30.2% net is a ticket you can accept on purpose, as filler between better work. It is not the ticket you should describe to yourself as "basically the same drain."
On the phone, tap Drain, Leak, Water heater, or whatever you actually did. What they paid is the rate-card amount you will collect, even if the check arrives later. Do not enter the street price you wish they had paid. The result is only useful if the invoice number is the real one.
Their buildings are not all next door
The first unit is 18 miles. The portfolio is not. Forty-five minutes and 28 miles, still one hour on site, still $18 of material, still $165.
$165 rate card, longer drive
| Line | Math | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| What they paid | $165.00 | |
| Onsite labor | 1 h × $45.00 | $45.00 |
| Travel labor | 0.75 h × $45.00 | $33.75 |
| Vehicle | 28 mi × $0.65 | $18.20 |
| Materials, your cost | $18.00 | |
| Overhead | 1.75 h × $12.00 | $21.00 |
| Total job cost | $135.95 | |
| Net profit | $165.00 − $135.95 | $29.05 |
| Net margin | $29.05 ÷ $165.00 | 17.6% |
| Profit per hour | $29.05 ÷ 1.75 h | $16.60 / h |
Open this ticket in the calculator. Change the price or the miles and the account looks different.
The verdict is thin — under 20% net. Travel, burdened labor, or the lead fee is eating this. A busy week of these still feels broke. To hit 35% net with this cost stack, the invoice needed to be $209.15 (you charged $165.00). A rate card without a radius is a coupon for your whole county. Write the miles into the agreement, or write a trip adder for units outside it. "We'll cover your buildings" is fine when you have seen the list. It is a loss when the list is a spreadsheet of every property they might buy.
The callback they expect you to eat
Four rate-card drains look acceptable if you only remember the 30.2% on each one. Then the first unit calls back. Forty-five minutes, half an hour and 16 miles, $12 of parts, and the manager says this one is on you because the tenant says it was never right.
Return visit, nothing collected
| Line | Math | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| What they paid | $0.00 | |
| Onsite labor | 0.75 h × $45.00 | $33.75 |
| Travel labor | 0.5 h × $45.00 | $22.50 |
| Vehicle | 16 mi × $0.65 | $10.40 |
| Materials, your cost | $12.00 | |
| Overhead | 1.25 h × $12.00 | $15.00 |
| Total job cost | $93.65 | |
| Net profit | $0.00 − $93.65 | -$93.65 |
| Net margin | No invoice | — |
| Profit per hour | -$93.65 ÷ 1.25 h | -$74.92 / h |
Open this ticket in the calculator. Change the price or the miles and the account looks different.
The screen asks you to enter what the customer paid. Without revenue this is just a cost pile — useful for callbacks, not for pricing. Cost is $93.65. Four paid drains produced $199.20 of profit on $660.00 invoiced. Subtract this return and the week is $105.55 of profit, 16.0% of that revenue. The four tickets were in the OK band. The week is thin, because the free return had a row. If you skip the row, the week still looks like 30.2% and you will sign the next portfolio on a lie.
Log the callback with revenue at zero. The chip exists so it does not get typed in as another paid drain. If the agreement says you warrant the repair for 30 days, that warranty is a cost you can see. If the agreement says every complaint is free forever, that is not a rate card. That is an open tab.
After hours is a different price
Managers call at 7 p.m. because a tenant has no heat or a leak they will not wait on. Your burdened hour is no longer $45 if you are paying overtime or giving up the evening. This ticket uses $67.50, an hour and a quarter on site, 45 minutes and 22 miles, parts at your cost $64, and a $340 after-hours invoice you agreed in advance.
After-hours unit, rate agreed ahead of time
| Line | Math | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| What they paid | $340.00 | |
| Onsite labor | 1.25 h × $67.50 | $84.38 |
| Travel labor | 0.75 h × $67.50 | $50.63 |
| Vehicle | 22 mi × $0.65 | $14.30 |
| Materials, your cost | $64.00 | |
| Overhead | 2 h × $12.00 | $24.00 |
| Total job cost | $237.30 | |
| Net profit | $340.00 − $237.30 | $102.70 |
| Net margin | $102.70 ÷ $340.00 | 30.2% |
| Profit per hour | $102.70 ÷ 2 h | $51.35 / h |
Open this ticket in the calculator. Change the price or the miles and the account looks different.
The verdict is OK, not a winner. Fine if this is filler between high-margin installs. To hit 35% net with this cost stack, the invoice needed to be $365.08 (you charged $340.00). Profit per hour is $51.35. The daytime rate card does not cover this visit. Say the after-hours number when you take the account, not when you are in the parking lot. A manager can approve a number they have heard before. They will dispute a number they meet for the first time on a Sunday invoice.
The text and the invoice, kept in the tools that already do them
Send the arrival text from the phone or from the field-service board that has the unit and the window. Include the company name, the window, and the unit number. A manager will paste that text to the tenant. If the window moves, send the new one before the tenant is standing at the door. The confirmation habit is the same one in the confirmation sequence, with the unit number added.
The invoice stays where you already bill: Jobber, Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan, QuickBooks, or a PDF you send yourself. The costing log does not create that bill and does not sync it. When you know what the manager will pay, enter that amount as what they paid, plus the hours, the miles, and the parts at your cost. Net 30 is a cash fact. It does not change the job's margin unless you have a real financing cost, and then that cost goes in other direct, not in a made-up line. QuickBooks versus job costing is why the monthly books still will not show this unit's drive.
How a small shop keeps the account
- One person answers the manager. Not a rotation of voicemails. The costing app is one phone and one operator. A second tech is an office promise you keep with notes, not a dispatch board the log does not have.
- Write the unit, the symptom, and what you did in words the next person can use. "Cleared the trap, tenant said the other bath was fine." That sentence is worth more than a logo on the invoice.
- Do not upsell the tenant. The manager hired you. A tenant who feels sold-to will complain to the manager, and the manager will hear a different job than the one you invoiced.
- Price the rate card, the radius, the warranty, and after hours before the first unit. Changing them after the third complaint feels like a penalty. Stating them at the start feels like a vendor.
- Review the last ten of their tickets once a month. If the mix is all far drives and free returns, the account is not "steady work." It is a discount you forgot to measure.
When to walk away
Walk away when they will not name a radius, will not pay a callback that was a new problem, and will not put after hours in writing. Also walk away when the first month looks like the thin week above and they want more buildings on the same card. Volume multiplies the ticket you already ran. It does not repair it.
A small shop can be the preferred vendor for a handful of managers and still make money. The ones to keep are the ones whose units sit inside your normal drive, whose invoices match the work order, and whose callbacks are rare enough that four paid drains can carry one return. Cost the card before you print it on a proposal. The street drain and the rate-card drain are not the same job.
Frequently asked questions
What do property managers look for in a trade contractor?
A window you actually hit, a text the tenant can read before you arrive, an invoice that matches the work order, and the same company voice the next time. The lowest coupon is how you get the first call. The next call depends on whether the unit was handled cleanly.
Should a small shop discount its street price for a property manager?
Only after you cost the rate card with the real drive. On these starter rates, a $165 drain that would have been $225 on the street is in the OK band, under 35% net. Stretch the miles and the same $165 is thin. A free callback on top of four of those tickets pulls the week under 20% net.
Who sends the arrival text?
You do, from your phone or from the field-service tool that has the appointment. The costing log stores an optional phone number and does not send messages. It also does not create the invoice. Keep billing where you already bill, and log what was paid.
When should you turn down the account?
When the rate card cannot clear the cost of the drive plus one callback you are expected to eat, and they will not move the price or the radius. Volume does not fix a ticket that loses money every time you return.
Cost the rate-card drain
Same hour, same parts, lower invoice. See what the account pays before you sign the rate card.