I’m a plumber with 15 years experience. My boss took me under his wing and taught me nearly every aspect of the trade to the degree including customer service and scheduling. I feel confident in my ability to operate as a sole prop (no employees) however one thing they never taught me was how to estimate a job. I have done a lot of side work over the years and just charged an hourly rate, which I don’t think would fly once I have all the overhead that comes with operating a legit business (van payments, insurance, taxes, licensing fees etc) I’ve tried fishing with other plumbing businesses about how they price and quote jobs however everyone is extremely tight lipped and not enthusiastic about sharing business advice with potential competitors in the future. Where on earth do I get this info? Do I need to literally just decide on the amount I want to make, say 100k, divide it by how many labor hours I work in a day (not including travel between jobs) say 5 hours, then add my projected overhead for the year (say 50k), that would work out to about $115 an hour. All those numbers are just for ease of math for my example, but is this how I would work out what I need to charge? I’ve tried the method of cold calling plumbing companies for quotes however nobody gives a number without coming to look at the job so I have no idea what other guys are even charging.