How to create a service price list in one afternoon (and quote faster)
It’s Wednesday afternoon and three quote requests are waiting. For the first, you dig out a similar job from last year to see what you charged. For the second, you can’t remember whether travel was included. For the third, you work it out in your head and round up to be safe. All three quotes go out, each built on a different logic.
You know your trade. Your prices, though, are scattered across old quotes, spreadsheets and your memory. This article shows how to turn them into one organised service price list, a service catalogue, in a single afternoon, and why every quote after that gets faster.
What is a service price list, and what makes it more than a list of prices?
A service price list (or service catalogue) lists every service you sell with its name, unit, unit rate, what the price includes, which surcharges apply and the minimum job value you will take on. With it, anyone on your team arrives at the same price for the same job.
A basic price list says “painting: €10 per m²”. A service price list also tells you whether filling is included, what the surcharge is for high ceilings, and the smallest job worth the trip. If the pricing logic itself is your question, we covered it in our framework for predictable pricing. This article is the practical side: writing down what you already know.
Why every quote is slow without one
- Every quote starts from scratch. With no single place for your prices, you search, calculate and decide all over again each time.
- The same job gets different prices. When two clients compare notes, or a colleague quotes too, you are the one explaining the gap.
- Forgotten items come out of your margin. Travel, waste removal and clean-up are easy to leave off when nothing says they belong on every quote.
Build your service price list in one afternoon: 6 steps
Block out a quiet afternoon, roughly three to four hours. It doesn’t need to be perfect. A first version you actually use beats a perfect one you never finish.
1. Pull together your last 10–20 quotes
Open your recent quotes and copy every line item into one spreadsheet, with the price you charged at the time. You will see what you really sell, and where you priced the same work differently.
2. Name each item and give it a unit
Merge the duplicates and name items the way a client would understand them: “interior wall painting, two coats” beats “P2”. Give each item a unit that is easy to measure on site: square metres, linear metres, each, hours or visits.
3. Set the unit rate, and say what it includes
For each item, decide whether the rate covers labour only or labour and materials, and write that next to it in one sentence. Most pricing disputes start when the client assumed something different was included.
4. Turn surcharges into rules
Surcharges shouldn’t depend on your mood. Write down when they apply and how much they are: upper floors with no lift, an urgent start, weekend work, travel outside your usual area. As rules, they appear the same way on every quote and are easier to explain.
5. Set a minimum job value
A dripping tap still means driving out, unloading and accounting for your time. Set an amount below which you won’t take a job, or a call-out fee that appears on every quote. It stops small jobs from quietly losing you money.
6. Add the questions you need before you can price
For each item, note what you ask on the first phone call: how many square metres, what condition the surface is in, who supplies materials. Those become your screening questions, and they are what make the next quote fast. Our quote template guide shows how these items should then appear on the quote itself.
Example: part of a service price list
A few lines from a made-up painting and decorating business. The figures only illustrate the structure; work out your own rates from your own costs.
| Item | Unit | Unit rate | What it includes | Pricing question |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Interior wall painting, two coats | m² | €10 | Labour and masking, no primer | How many m² need painting? |
| Filling and skimming | m² | €7 | Labour and materials | How much of the wall is damaged? |
| Ceilings above 3 m | m² | +20% | Surcharge on the painting rate | How high are the ceilings? |
| Travel beyond 30 km | km | €0.40 | Return journey | Where is the job? |
| Minimum job value | visit | €150 | No jobs below this | – |
Common mistakes when you create a price list
- Too many items. If you have to hunt through 200 rows, the list slows you down. Start with your 15–30 most common items.
- A bare number with no explanation. If you don’t note what the price includes, in six months you won’t know either.
- Hidden surcharges. Anything that surprises the client erodes trust, even when it is fair.
- Treating it as a one-off. A price list is only useful if you keep it current.
How to keep your price list up to date
Set aside half an hour every quarter, and review it whenever material or labour costs move noticeably. Put the date at the top so everyone knows which version is current. If you keep adjusting the same item by hand on your quotes, that is a sign the catalogue needs fixing.
How EstiWise helps
With EstiWise you don’t start from a blank spreadsheet. You enter your website address and EstiWise processes it: it pulls out your services and the prices listed on your site, and builds the questions that go with each service. You can upload an existing price list too. Where a price is missing, it starts from a market estimate that you then fine-tune item by item to your own numbers.
Once the catalogue is in place, the Internal estimate feature lets you start from a single sentence, such as “repaint a 60 m² flat, no filling”. The AI asks for the missing details and prices the job from your service catalogue. We wrote more about this in our article on seeing what a lead is worth.
FAQ
How many items should a service price list have?
Start with the 15–30 items you sell most often. They cover most of your quotes, and you can add the rare jobs later.
What’s the difference between a price list and a service catalogue?
A price list names items and prices. A service catalogue adds the unit, what each price includes, the surcharge rules, a minimum job value and the questions you need to price the job.
Should I publish my price list on my website?
You don’t have to. The catalogue mainly helps you and your team price faster and more consistently. What to show visitors is covered in our article on instant quotes on your website.
See it with your own services
Book a free demo and we’ll show you how your service catalogue would be built from your website, and how EstiWise prices from it. Prefer to look around yourself? Try EstiWise free for 7 days, no credit card needed.
Author: Vivien Hazuga
