This calculator vs. a flat rate for every call
“$X for a lockout, day or night” is not a price for a service call — it is a price for one time of day, quietly applied to every call that comes in.
What a flat rate for every call is
A flat rate is the fastest way to quote a service call over the phone: name a number and go. Customers like it because it is simple, and it is the number a customer holding a competitor's quote will ask you to match.
The number behind it was usually set for a daytime, scheduled call — the kind that happens during normal business hours — and then reused for every call afterward, whether or not the next one comes in at 2am, whether or not it is over in five minutes.
What this calculator is
This page keeps no account and sends nothing to a server. You enter labor and travel minutes, whether the call is after-hours or emergency, parts cost and markup, a callback reserve, overhead, target margin, and a minimum service charge floor. It applies the after-hours premium to billed time only — never to parts, since a cylinder costs the same at 2am as at 2pm — and compares the calculated price against the floor, using whichever is higher. You get the price for this call, not a flat number for every call.
| What a flat rate does | What this calculator does instead |
|---|---|
| Charges the same number for a call at 2pm and a call at 2am, even though the after-hours dispatch is the reason you answered the phone at all. | Applies an after-hours premium to billed time (labor + travel), as its own line, so a night call is priced for being available at night. |
| Has no floor — a five-minute lockout with a short drive can price below what the trip itself costs to run. | Compares the calculated price against a minimum service charge and uses the higher of the two, so a quick call is never quoted below the floor. |
| Applies any premium it does have to the whole job, parts included. | Applies the after-hours premium to billed time only — a cylinder or a fob costs the same regardless of the hour. |
| Gives you a number to quote, not a number to check a quote against. | Reports the profit margin and effective hourly rate on the price you are considering, so a shopped price can be scored before you commit to it. |
The same call, two times of day
Using this calculator's own shipped defaults — 30 minutes labor, 20 minutes travel, a $90 hourly rate, a $35 trip fee, $40 in parts at a 40% markup, a 4% callback reserve, 15% overhead, and a 30% target margin:
Quoted during the day, this call costs $198.54 to run and this calculator prices it at $283.62 — the target 30% margin. The identical call — same labor, same travel, same parts — called in as an after-hours emergency dispatch costs $243.39 to run, because the 50% after-hours premium on billed time flows through the callback reserve and overhead too, and this calculator prices it at $347.69, still the target 30% margin. Quote the emergency call at the daytime flat price of $283.62 instead, and it still covers its $243.39 cost — but the margin falls to 14.19%, a $64.07 shortfall against what this calculator prices the same call at once the after-hours premium is counted. Same job, same flat rate, a third of the intended margin gone the moment the sun goes down.
Common questions
Why does a flat rate get an after-hours call wrong?
Because the cost of being available at 2am is not in the labor or the parts -- it is a separate premium on the billed time, and a flat rate has no line for it. Using this calculator's own shipped defaults (30 minutes labor, 20 minutes travel, a $90 hourly rate, a $35 trip fee, $40 in parts at a 40% markup), the identical call quoted in the daytime and quoted as an emergency dispatch cost different amounts to run, because the 50% after-hours premium on billed time flows through the callback reserve and overhead too -- the daytime call costs $198.54 to run and the emergency call costs $243.39, on the same labor, travel, and parts.
What does a flat rate usually leave out entirely?
The after-hours premium and the minimum service charge floor. A flat rate has no line that raises the price when a call comes in outside normal hours, and no floor that stops a very short call -- a five-minute lockout with a ten-minute drive -- from pricing below what the trip itself costs to run. Both protect a specific kind of call: the premium protects being available at 2am, and the floor protects the quick jobs a hard hourly rate would price too low.
How big is the pricing gap in practice?
On this calculator's own shipped defaults: the daytime call prices at $283.62, on a job that costs $198.54 to run, holding the target 30% margin. The identical call as an after-hours emergency dispatch costs $243.39 to run and this calculator prices it at $347.69, still the target 30% margin. Quoting the emergency call at the daytime flat price of $283.62 still covers its $243.39 cost, but the margin falls to 14.19% -- a $64.07 shortfall against what this calculator prices the same call at once the after-hours premium is counted.
Is a flat rate ever the right way to quote?
For calls that only ever happen during normal business hours, a flat rate can land close, because that is probably the job the rate was set on. The risk is quoting a genuine after-hours or emergency dispatch at the same number, because the rate does not know whether the call came in at 2pm or 2am, and by then the flat number has often already been quoted over the phone.
Does this calculator know my local labor rates or parts costs?
No. It has no data on your local labor market, your supplier's parts pricing, or what other locksmiths in your area charge. It takes labor and travel minutes, whether the call is after-hours, your parts cost and markup, a callback reserve, overhead, target margin, and your minimum service charge, and turns that into a price for this call -- the arithmetic a flat rate skips, not a market survey.
Open the Locksmith Bid Calculator to price your own call, or read the pricing walkthrough.