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Overheard a guy at Home Depot say he turns down any gig under $200
I was grabbing lumber on Tuesday and heard this older contractor telling his buddy he won't even load a truck for less than two bills now. That stuck with me because I've been taking $40 handyman calls that eat my whole afternoon. How do you know when you're ready to start setting a real floor on what you'll accept?
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wadejenkins3mo ago
Started charging $100 minimum a few years ago and it was rough at first, @sanchez.julia is right that sitting around is part of it but I also learned that the clients who pay more actually respect your time more and call back for bigger jobs. The trick for me was phasing it in - I told my repeat customers first that I was raising my rate, and I started saying "sorry that's too small for me" to random calls, but I'd still take the $40 ones from people I already knew. After about 6 months the $100 minimum stuck and I actually got busier because the cheap folks stopped calling and the serious ones took me seriously.
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noahwood3mo ago
My buddy Greg tried that $200 minimum thing back in 2018. He sat around for three weeks straight with zero jobs because people just called someone else. He ended up taking a $50 faucet swap just to pay his gas bill. The problem with setting a floor is that you have to actually have enough steady work at that rate to make it worth turning down the smaller stuff. Most guys I know who did that either have a killer reputation built over a decade or they have a spouse with a real job covering the bills. Unless you've got a waiting list of clients begging for your time, you're just pricing yourself out of work. That $40 handyman call might feel like a waste but it keeps you busy and builds relationships that lead to the bigger paydays later.
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