How to price a mobile mechanic call-out fee

A call-out fee is the price of turning up. Before you pick a number, work out what a trip to the customer actually costs you. It has three parts: running the vehicle, the time you spend driving instead of working, and a share of the overheads that keep the business going. Add them up for a typical trip and you have a floor. Anything you charge below it comes out of your labour.

The three costs in every trip

1. Vehicle running cost per kilometre

Take a year of real costs for the van or ute and divide by the kilometres it did. Use your own receipts and odometer readings, not a guess. Include fuel, rego and CTP, insurance, servicing and tyres, finance interest and depreciation (what the vehicle loses in value each year).

If you have no figures yet, the ATO’s cents per kilometre rate is a reference point: 88 cents for 2024–25 and 2025–26, and 91 cents for 2026–27. The ATO says that rate covers all running expenses, including depreciation. It is a tax deduction method for cars, capped at 5,000 business kilometres per car per year, not a pricing tool, and a loaded van can cost more to run. Replace it with your own number once you have a few months of receipts.

2. Travel time

An hour behind the wheel is an hour you can’t bill as labour. Value it at your hourly rate. Some operators use a lower travel rate; that’s a choice, but make it on purpose. To convert distance to time, use your real average speed. In suburbs and towns, 50 km/h door to door is a fair starting assumption once you count lights, parking and finding the house.

3. Overhead share

Phone, software, public liability, tools insurance, accounting and advertising don’t change with each job, but every job has to carry a slice. Divide a year of overheads by the jobs you expect to do. For example, $9,600 of overheads over 800 jobs is $12 a job.

Worked example: the true cost of one trip

A mobile mechanic charges $120 an hour labour (ex GST). The van costs $0.80 per km. Overheads are $12 a job. The customer is 25 km away, so the round trip is 50 km. At 50 km/h, that’s one hour of driving.

$172 is what that trip costs you whether or not you charge for it. If you charge a $60 call-out, the other $112 has to come out of the job’s labour, or out of your pocket. Run the same sum for a customer 8 km away: 16 km × $0.80 = $12.80, plus 0.32 h × $120 = $38.40, plus $12, which comes to $63.20. Distance is most of the cost, which is why a single flat fee rarely fits everyone.

Three ways to structure the fee

Flat fee

One price inside your normal area. Simple to state and quote. Set it at the true cost of a trip to the edge of that area, or accept that far jobs subsidise near ones. Using the numbers above, a flat fee covering everyone within 10 km is the cost of a 20 km round trip: $16 + $48 + $12 = $76.

Zones by distance

Price each zone at the cost of its furthest point, so no trip in the zone runs at a loss.

Zone 3 is where you decide if you want the work at all. You can set a maximum distance and only go past it when several jobs line up in the same area on the same day.

Fee waived or credited if the job goes ahead

You charge the call-out up front, then take it off the bill if the customer goes ahead with the repair. The customer who books a diagnosis and then declines the work still pays for your trip. The customer who goes ahead doesn’t feel charged twice.

Worked through: a 15 km job in zone 2. The call-out is $172. You diagnose a failed alternator. If the customer goes ahead (2 h labour = $240, plus the part), the $172 is credited and the invoice shows labour and parts only. If they decline, the invoice is the $172 call-out. When you credit it, the trip still cost you money: this one was 30 km and 0.6 h of driving, or $24 + $72 + $12 = $108, now carried by the repair. That works on a two-hour job. On a 30-minute job it’s a loss ($60 of labour against a $108 trip), so only credit the fee when the repair is over a set size, such as one hour of labour.

Batching changes the maths

The cost above assumes you drive out and back for one job. Book three jobs in the same suburb on the same day and the long drive is shared. For example, 50 km out and back plus 10 km between jobs is 60 km and about 1.2 h of driving for three jobs: ($48 + $144) ÷ 3 = $64 of travel per job, plus overhead. Some operators charge the full zone fee anyway and pocket the saving; others drop it for customers who accept a day when they are already in the area. Either way, know which one you’re doing.

How to state it on the booking and the quote

The fee should never be a surprise on the invoice. Put it in three places, worded the same way each time.

1. On your booking page or price list: “Call-out $76 within 10 km of [suburb], $172 from 10 to 25 km. Credited against the repair if you go ahead on the day.”
2. On the quote, as its own line: “Call-out, zone 2 (10 to 25 km): $172.00. Credited if the quoted work is approved.”
3. On the invoice, as its own line, plus a matching credit line if it’s waived, so the customer sees it was taken off.

Say what the fee covers (travel to you and the first look), and what it doesn’t (diagnostic time beyond that, parts). If you charge for a diagnosis separately, list that as its own line too. If you use GoFolio, the call-out is just a line on the booking’s draft invoice, which you can edit before sending.

GST on the call-out fee

If you’re registered for GST, the call-out is part of the service you sell, so it is taxed like your labour. Add 10% to the ex-GST figures above: $76 becomes $83.60, $172 becomes $189.20. Quote private customers the GST-inclusive number so the price they see is the price they pay. On the tax invoice , the fee is one more taxable line.

Registration is compulsory once your GST turnover reaches $75,000 a year, according to the ATO . If you are not registered, don’t add GST and don’t call your invoice a tax invoice.