Call-out charge
A call-out charge is a fixed fee a tradesperson adds to a job to cover the cost of attending site, separate from the labour and materials once they are there. It pays for the travel, the vehicle and the unbillable time getting to and from the job.
In practice for trades
The time spent driving to a job, parking and getting set up is not billed as labour, but it still costs you. Fuel, wear on the van, and an hour or two you cannot sell to anyone else. A call-out charge recovers that, so a 30-minute repair an hour's drive away does not lose money.
It is most common on reactive and emergency work: plumbing leaks, electrical faults, breakdowns. Out-of-hours rates are usually higher.
Set it by covering the round-trip travel time at your labour cost, a share of vehicle and overhead cost, and a small margin. Then decide whether it is absorbed into the first hour or shown as a separate line on the invoice. Either is fine, but say which on the quote, because an unexplained fee on a bill is one of the most common causes of a payment dispute.
Worked example
Your true labour cost is £35 an hour and a typical job is a 45-minute round trip. Travel time alone costs £26.25, plus roughly £8 of fuel and vehicle wear. That is £34 before a single minute of work is billed, so a £40 to £50 call-out charge covers attending with a little margin.
Related terms
- Day rate: pricing a whole day rather than a visit
- Charge-out rate: the hourly rate an employee's travel time is valued at
Work it out in FieldHive
Set a call-out charge that actually covers travel and overhead with the Trade Call-Out Charge Calculator.
Trade Call-Out Charge Calculator→
