How do I build a price book my whole team uses?
Short answer
Put your standard services into a shared catalog with names, descriptions, and prices, then build quotes by selecting items instead of typing. Pricing stops varying by who answered the phone, and updating a price once updates it everywhere.
Before you start
- Your twenty most common jobs.
- Real costs including labor and materials.
- Your target margin.
- Who is allowed to discount and by how much.
Step by step
- 1
Start with your top twenty jobs
The work that makes most of your revenue, priced properly, beats a complete catalog nobody finishes.
Perfectionism is why most price books never launch.
- 2
Price from cost and margin
Labor hours, materials, overhead, then the margin you actually need.
Matching a competitor's price without knowing your cost is how busy years lose money.
- 3
Write customer-facing descriptions
Each item explains what is included in language a homeowner understands.
The description is what justifies the number.
- 4
Offer good, better, best
Three options on bigger jobs so the decision is which, not whether.
Options raise average ticket more reliably than discounts raise close rate.
- 5
Control discounting
Set who can discount, by how much, and require a reason on the record.
Undocumented discounts quietly become your real price list.
- 6
Review prices quarterly
Recheck material costs and margins on a schedule instead of after a bad month.
Cost creep is invisible until it is expensive.
What good looks like
- Every quote uses the same prices.
- Quotes take minutes instead of an evening.
- Average ticket rises with good-better-best options.
- Price changes propagate from one place.
Common mistakes
The ways this goes wrong in money, and what to do instead.
Prices set by feel›
Margin varies wildly by job and nobody can explain why.
Do this instead: Build every price from labor, materials, overhead, and a target margin.
Letting anyone discount freely›
The catalog becomes a suggestion within a month.
Do this instead: Set discount limits by role and require a documented reason.
Never updating it›
Last year's material costs quietly eat this year's profit.
Do this instead: Put a quarterly price review on the calendar with an owner.
Frequently asked
5 questions about build a price bookRelated guides
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