Overview
It is ninety-six degrees in the second week of July, the phone has not stopped since six, and you are standing at a condenser with a bad capacitor knowing this customer is desperate and everybody in the county is booked solid. Whatever you decide to charge in that moment, you will decide something different in March at the same job.
This book removes that decision. 190 HVAC services with Good / Better / Best on every line, seasonal peak adjustments applied consistently instead of by mood, and emergency multipliers built in.
Sample line items
Real entries at Philadelphia metro calibration for 2026.
- Diagnostic and dispatch: $99
- Run capacitor replacement: $200. Dual-run: $210. Hard start kit: $320
- Hot surface ignitor: $320
- Condenser fan motor: $730. TXV replacement: $1,070
- 3-ton system replacement, full changeout: $6,090
- Condenser only, where the coil is sound: $3,930
Which makes the most common call in the trade, a summer no-cool that turns out to be a capacitor, exactly $299 every time. We took that $200 line apart down to the truck stock and the overhead.
What's inside
- 190 HVAC services across service, repair, maintenance, and installation
- Good / Better / Best tier pricing throughout
- Seasonal rate adjustments for summer and winter peak
- Emergency and after-hours multipliers
- IMC-aligned service categories
- Maintenance agreement pricing as its own lines, not a discount scheme
- Editable Excel workbook, formula-driven, opens in Google Sheets
The repair-or-replace conversation, priced honestly
A sixteen-year-old system that just took a $730 fan motor and now wants a $1,070 TXV is the hardest conversation in residential HVAC, and it is the one that has given the trade its reputation.
With both the repair and the changeout priced in front of you, the recommendation stops being a sales pitch. Good is the repair. Better is the repair plus what buys another season. Best is replacement. Putting the repair on the page as a real option, at a real price, is how you visibly are not the guy who tried to sell a $9,000 system to somebody who needed a $200 capacitor. It also means that when you do recommend replacement, you have already demonstrated you were willing not to.
Who it's for
Residential HVAC contractors running service, repair, and changeout work who want the July number and the March number to match. Especially useful if you have never formalised what peak season and after-hours should actually cost.
Who it isn't for
Commercial rooftop work, large process systems, and full duct design are estimated jobs. This book covers residential service and standard replacement, and it does not include load calculations.
Works best with
The book is the pricing layer. These three are what sit either side of it.
- Break-Even Labor Rate Calculator, The loaded hourly rate every one of the 190 lines is calculated against
- Flat Rate Options Presentation Template, A tiered options sheet for the repair-or-replace conversation
- Contractor Forms Bundle, Agreement, change order and invoice for the changeout jobs
See the full system on our How It All Works page.
Why buy this one
Built by a working tradesman rather than a pricing data company, which is why the book goes deep on the forty failures that repeat every week instead of padding the count with work nobody performs twice a decade. Depth on capacitors, contactors, ignitors, motors and charge beats breadth you will never open.
- One payment. No per-technician monthly cost, no renewal, no losing access.
- Every formula visible. Disagree with a labor hour? Change it.
- Use it anywhere. Excel, Google Sheets, tablet in the truck.
- Support from the builder. Etsy message, answered directly.