Daywork rate - TilersForums.com

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

Hi guys n gals, I am pricing a job and need to submit a daywork rate. When I first joined this forum I was charging £200.00 per day and was always busy. My problem now is I understand times have changed, and wonder what other pro's would charge? I have worked for these people in the past so they know my work, and are more than happy with it.

Do I go in at £170.00 or £150 per day? or stick to my £200.00? This game gets harder by the day, sorry to put anyone on the spot, but my usual confidence has been rocked by this new influx of cheap labour.

Any input would be much appreciated.

Thanks, Phil.

 

[Stef]

Phil i always work at £20 per hour, day works, normally 10 hours per day, so 200 bangers!!

I know what you mean with cheap labour but dont cheap yourself.

Clients are paying for a quality tradesman!!

 

[White Room]

I'm charging £150 a day but it is day work on a job at the moment, with your background Phil you should be at least £170 or more for daywork....pricing should be your £200 IMO

 

[peteablard]

I always prefer to work on price however if it has to be day work then I charge £20 per hour so I'm the same as Stef, £200 for a 10 hour day. When not on price I pay my subbies £15 per hour.

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

Phil i always work at £20 per hour, day works, normally 10 hours per day, so 200 bangers!!

I know what you mean with cheap labour but dont cheap yourself.

Clients are paying for a quality tradesman!!

Thanks Stef, I don't want to lose this job, but I want to give a fair price. Maybe £170.00 per day, they can always knock me down.

 

[John Benton]

You're right Phil times have changed and we've read on here of stupid prices per metre and you could easily formulate that to a day rate. It's well under £200 a day!!!

I have been charging one of my customers on a day rate for the last 4 years, did a job that was difficult to quantify how long it would take and he kept moving the goalposts almost daily.

From that point I've always charged day rate and he's never questioned it, just paid up straightaway.

If you are going in on your own i.e. no-one else quoting then I see no reason why you can't charge the same rate as before, but you need to find this out prior to giving your dayrate.

Otherwise, if you are up against 1 or more others then do you think you are selling yourself short at £150 a day. £750 a week for labour only is not to be sniffed at, but then again you don't want to be put in a position where you have no room to negotiate.

 

[Stef]

As John says Phil, go in higher then if they want to try & knock you down a bit then haggle a small discount.

 

[John Benton]

Don't forget Phil - With negotiating, it's not the figure you start with, but the figure you end up with that matters!!

 

[Peter]

No right or wrong really,.just whatever you need to live on vs staying within market values.

I'm losing quite a bit of work lately with an average dayrate/price per day around 150. Another lad in my area who I often price directly against is going in at 80 a day so not standing a chance. His tiling is of a reasonable standard and he could charge 120 all day long, so not sure why he does it to himself and others.

 

[Dougs Third Go]

I don't do a day rate per se unless I know how long the days are Phil, but like others I charge at £20 per hour and don't get too many grumblers.

 

[Ian]

As most others have mentioned Phil, I also charge £20 per hour but I base that on an 8 hour day so, £160 per day. I've charged that price for 4.5 years now and to be honest, if I went any higher I'd lose too much work. In most situations the customers will ask me to supply adhesive/grout/trims/hardie etc so it's quite easy to sneak another £20 per day onto the materials. There are some cases where I've has to price at £130 or even £120 per day just to get the work, my view on that is, it's better to earn £600 per week than be sat at home watching homes under the hammer

 

[jonnyc]

phil.
i would try and get them to accept a fixed price saying that then they know exactly where they are.
this way im sure you can earn your usual day rate.
if you have to give a day rate then i guess you charge whatever you need to, to get the work in if you really want this work.
it does not matter how much the rate is.
if this is a repeat domestic client then there really wont be any knock on in future but if it is for a contractor who will use you again in future then you will be setting yourself up to only able to charge as much as your last job.then word could get around and this is not good.
times are really tough , i had a terrible jan/feb this year .
the only way i survived was by writing to over a hundred old clients and offering cut price cleaning and resealing jobs.
it brought in 55k of work but many times the wages of my employees were not even covered and they cost me £ 200.00 pp per day.
still it saved me but what will happen in couple of years time when the client is ready for another cleaan/seal is that they will expect to pay the 40 % reduced price they had this year over previous times.
so that will cost me dear in future but it was only way to help cover wages.
sometimes we just have to bury our pride and do work at less than what we should be paid.
best of luck

 

[Andy Allen]

same as Bri, if I charged £200 a day round here I would never work, too many tilers , and good tilers at that, charging silly day rates at the mo, I try and supply as much as poss inc tiles to bump my money up to as near to £200 a day as poss.......Good luck phil, charge what you think your worth. don't be greedy im sure your worth every penny...

 

[Protilers]

I aim for £200 per day (8 hrs) plus expenses..
But if I wanted the job like BRI says.....I would go as low as £120......I can't stand Jeremy kyle!!!

 

[Colour Republic]

I very rarely work on day rate as it's almost always on price. I charge for jobs what I think it is worth to the customer and how hard it is and the value of tools needed, this means my day rate can range anything from £100 - £500. Sometimes my rate can vary by this much on the same job, whereby I only earn £100 for a task that takes me a day and yet the next day I could earn £400 for a different task.

I can fit a kitchen with the most basic of tools, however seeing as i've spent thousands and thousands of pounds on tools to make kitchen fitting a lot easier and far quicker I'll be buggered if i'm going to work it on the same rate as before the investment of those tools.

Very recently on another forum I put forward a simple job that i'd done earlier this year and asked people to price it to see what they would have charged. It was a nice easy one to price from pictures and I gave them full details of the spec.

Now all these tradesmen work on similar rates of £140-£180 per day and i'm sure most think they earn similar amounts each week. However the differences in price was huge and a real eye opener. They ranged from £550 to £1,200, estimated time to do the job ranged from 2 hard days up to others saying it would take 5 days.

Same job, same day rates, massive difference in price!

If you've worked for these people before at £200 per day, surely they knew this before asking you again to undertake this work? I wouldn't worry about what others charge and just charge what you are worth, if you do drop you're rate then make sure they know it is for repeat business reasons and not because you're trying to compete with others

JMO