How Much Should a Mobile Mechanic Charge Per Hour?
Most solo mobile mechanics land between $100 and $150 an hour. Your real number comes from your own costs and how many hours you can actually bill, not from what the shop down the street charges.
Get your number in about a minute
Put in your monthly costs, the hours you actually wrench, and what you want to take home. The free labor rate calculator tells you the rate that covers all of it.
Check my rateWhat your rate has to cover
Your take-home pay. Decide what you want to make a year before you pick a rate.
Insurance, phone, software, tool payments, and the truck or van.
Fuel and wear on every drive (or charge a trip fee for that part).
The hours you are not billing: driving, parts runs, quotes, texts, and invoices.
Slow weeks, rain days, and comebacks you fix for free.
The mistake most new techs make
They take their old shop pay, maybe add a little, and call that their rate. Then they find out they only bill 20 or 25 hours a week once you take out driving and paperwork, and every bill that used to belong to the shop owner is now theirs. Start from your costs and your real billable hours, and the rate stops being a guess.
Charge for the drive separately
Keep your hourly rate for the work and add a trip fee for the drive. It keeps your quote honest and stops a 40 minute drive from eating the job. See how to charge a trip fee.
Got your rate? Put it on a real quote the customer signs from their phone.
Repair Rocket saves your rate and builds the quote, invoice and pay link for you. Free to start, no card needed.
Common questions
How much should a mobile mechanic charge per hour?
Most solo mobile mechanics land between $100 and $150 an hour. Your right number depends on your costs, how many hours you can actually bill each week, and what you want to take home. A labor rate calculator works it out from your real numbers.
Should a mobile mechanic charge more than a shop?
Often, yes. You bring the shop to the customer, they skip the drive, the wait and the ride home. You also eat drive time and fuel a shop never pays. Price for the convenience and charge a separate trip fee for the drive.
Why does my hourly rate need to be higher than what I made at a shop?
At a shop the owner paid for the tools, insurance, software, the building and the slow days. On your own you pay all of it, and you will not bill 40 hours a week. Your rate has to cover the hours you are driving, buying parts and doing paperwork too.
Should I charge flat rate or by the hour?
Most techs quote jobs by book time times their hourly rate, so the customer sees one price up front. If you beat book time you keep the difference. If a job runs long because of rust or a broken bolt, tell the customer before you go over.
More free tools: minimum job calculator, travel fee calculator, and all tools for mobile mechanics.