Stop guessing what to charge. Enter your costs, the income you want, and the hours you can actually bill — this shows your break-even rate and the hourly rate you should charge to hit your target.
To find your hourly rate, add your yearly business overhead to the take-home pay you want, add a profit buffer, and divide by the hours you can actually bill in a year. Most mobile mechanics undercharge because they price off what shops charge instead of their own numbers — and because they forget that driving, quoting, and admin aren't billable. This does the math for you.
Join Mechanics Alliance to save your numbers, and—as the State of Mobile Mechanics survey fills in—see how your rate compares to real mobile mechanics in your region and years in business.
Join free More toolsYour target rate is (overhead + take-home pay) × (1 + buffer) ÷ billable hours per year. The trap most mechanics fall into is dividing by hours worked instead of hours billed. If you work 50 hours but only bill 25, half your time is unpaid drive-and-admin — and your rate has to carry that. That's why a mobile mechanic billing 25 hours a week often needs a higher rate than a shop tech who's wrenching most of the day.
Your break-even rate only covers overhead — it's the floor. Never quote near it. The gap between break-even and your target rate is your actual pay.
Add up insurance, your van payment and fuel, tool and equipment costs, phone, software/subscriptions, and marketing. Most solo mobile mechanics land between $1,200 and $2,600 a month. When in doubt, estimate high — undercounting overhead is how you accidentally work for free.
Not automatically. You save the customer a tow and come to them, which is worth a premium — but you also bill fewer hours per day because you drive between jobs. Price off your own numbers first, then sanity-check against the local market.
No — this is your labor rate only. Parts are billed on top, usually at cost plus a markup. Use the Job Profit Calculator to price a full job with parts.