Fixed pricing schedules, in practice
What to put in a priced catalogue, how to agree it, and what it does to your contractor panel.
A fixed pricing schedule is an agreed rate card for standard work, held centrally and applied automatically. It is the mechanism behind our third RFQ model, and it is the single change that most reliably shortens repair cycles.
What belongs in the catalogue
Start with frequency, not value. The tasks that recur — filter changes, belt replacements, standard callouts, routine servicing by asset class — are where the quotation cycle wastes the most time relative to the money at stake.
- Labour rates by trade and by response class (routine, urgent, after-hours).
- Standard tasks by asset class, priced as a unit.
- Callout and travel, priced by zone rather than negotiated per job.
- Common parts, where supply is stable enough to hold a price.
Agreeing it without a tender marathon
The catalogue does not have to be exhaustive to be useful. Customers who launched with thirty items and extended quarterly got value in the first month. Customers who tried to price everything before launching are, in some cases, still trying.
What it does to your panel
Contractors who compete on price dislike it. Contractors who compete on competence prefer it, because bidding becomes cheap and winning becomes about diagnosis and turnaround rather than about undercutting. The composition of your panel will shift, and in our experience it shifts in a useful direction.
Review, or it decays
A rate card that is not reviewed becomes either a gift to your contractors or an insult to them, depending on which way input costs moved. Quarterly review with an agreed index is enough. Annual review is not, in most of the markets we operate in.
Related reading
See it against your own workflows
Book a live demo and we will start with your overdue work orders, not our feature list.