what mark-up do you put on travelling to and from jobs?

[James Martin]

I charged £20 quid extra for traveling about 4 miles to a job last week.

It was three graphics going onto a pick up which I had to do in the wind rain, hail and twilight, murder.

She wasn’t to happy about the extra but its the hassle as well, I was working around there working hours so I’m saving them more than 20 quid.

Haven’t got back to me about the other two pickups yet. 😕

[Gary Birch]

I don`t normally charge extra for short distances but just add a little to base price.I find doing it this way it raises less eyebrows.

The job I have is a 160 mile round trip and just wondered how others would deal with it.

Cheers

Gary

[Andy Gorman]

I charge a minimum of 75p a mile, but if someone wants me to drive into London I consider time as well.

[John Childs]

£1.00 per mile.

But maybe, with the recent increase in fuel costs, it is time for a review.

[Ian Bingham]

25p per mile plus hourly rate for over 10 miles, less miles no charge

Ian

[NTC]

I have recently priced a job in Humberside from Northumberland at 50p per mile + £25.00 hour and they excepted it, I run a 3.5 ton van and couldn’t run it for less…..

[Jill Marie Welsh]

It depends on the job (and sometimes the client) if it is more than 20 miles away I charge a trip fee of $25. If it is 19 miles away and I get to work in their heated garage, I don’t charge for travel.
😉
This also keeps away the tire-kickers wanting me to drop everything for a free estimate. If I have to drive 25 miles to their site, take digital pix, do a bunch of measuring, etc. I would charge a site survey fee of $50.
Love…..Jill

[Gary Birch]

Hi all
Thanks for the replies. I have given it some thought and I am going to go with hourly rate + 35p per mile. I don`t think that this is out of the way. Do you ??

Cheers again

Gary

[Martin Pearson]

Gary, it’s always a difficult one as a lot of customers don’t see why they should pay for your traveling. I never used to charge for traveling but then all my work was pretty local and I was never asked to travel that sort of distance to a job, if I had been like you I would have been asking questions. I would expect the customer would be happy to pay a reasonable amount for your traveling as well over that sort of distance.
In hindsight I probably should have charged for traveling because it is taking up my time which should be paid for and as has already been said a site survey fee would put most of the tyre kickers off saving me both time and money.

[Gary Birch]

Martin
Thanks for your response. This customer is already a very good customer but mostly for printed POS etc. They have recently taken over a new site and wanted me to install clip frames and various other things. I spoke to the customer about 30 mins ago and they have agreed on hourly rate + 30p per mile.

I can live with that.

Cheers

Gary

[Warren Beard]

Hi Gary

That is about the minimum I charge as I always find it very difficult to add too much on for traveling even though I agree we must.

If you are doing a job for £300 and is 50 miles away it could be adding as much as £100 to the job and you would never get the work, I guess that is why a lot of the work is always fairly local.

I would charge what you quoted as a minimum though and often more depending on the value of the job and who it is for. If you don’t get it because of your traveling cost then usually it is better not to do it at all and do some other work for more profit.

I don’t charge traveling for jobs within a 5 mile radius either.

Cheers

Warren

[Neil Churchman]

In order to be competitive with local sign companies, we charge a reduced hourly rate of £25 p/hour for traveling time plus fuel at cost when we have to travel over 100 miles to a job.

We often have to go to site to do a job that takes no more than 15 minutes and wondered what other companies charge for a minimum call out fee for jobs working within say a 5 mile radius of a city centre.

[Gary Birch]

Hi Warren
This was my lowest price too…. the total order value was £1300 so I could afford to go in at that rate. But it really is a difficult one to call as travelling 5 miles in a city centre can and quite often does take longer than 30 miles on motorways and some A roads.

Neil
In this case I would charge a minimum of 2 hours inc traveling time, As with most jobs this size they are seldom worthwhile but often lead to bigger and better things. If its for a regular client then you just have to be fair. Parking can also be a problem in city centres especially in multi storeys lol …. as I found out a while back 😳

The majority of my customers are businesses too and they understand that travelling is a necessary evil.

Cheers

Gary