Does anyone have a sensible formula for charging drive time to jobs. I’m considering charging a per mile figure for any jobs greater than 5 miles or so.
Not sure about your market, but indicating a “travel charge” would not go over well in mine.
I roll-up any extraordinary travel costs into my quote as part of the entire service.
In most cases, traveling greater than 5 miles is simply the cost of doing business.
I usually consider a distance greater than ~30 miles to be where I add an expense for time and greater overhead.
You need to ask yourself, “What’s my time worth? Do I pass on expenses related to travel over 5 miles to each customer?”
BTW, the IRS reimbursement for employee travel is ~$0.50 per mile.
I also just tack on a little extra if the place is a little out there. Of course I only do this with residential accounts unless I happen to have a request to do commercial work outside of the area I normally cover.
I travel as far as 1.5 hours each way. If I can include enough to cover gas(exactly what Larry mentioned) I am cool w/ that. Gotta go where the work is and the size of those jobs warrant the time on the road. I have a few monsters that take me 8 (11 hour) days. Its all in what your looking to achieve and time spent learning the business.
