The $500 Customer vs. the $5,000 Customer

Which job is more profitable? Not all jobs are created equal. And we’re not just talking about the size of the invoice.

A $500 job might sound like easy money. A $5,000 job might sound like the obvious winner. But before you decide which jobs are worth chasing, take a closer look at what each one actually costs your business and learn how to price your contracting jobs for profitability.

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What’s the real cost of getting the job?

Think about everything that happens before you ever get paid:

• How many phone calls, emails, and texts did it take?
• How long did you spend putting together the cost estimate?
• How far did you drive to look at the project?
• How much time will your crew spend traveling?
• Does the job require special materials or equipment?
• How much scheduling and administrative time does it take?
• Is there a high likelihood of callbacks or extra communication?
• Could that time have been spent on a larger, more profitable project?

That’s the part that’s easy to overlook. Look beyond the invoice. Knowing the real cost of being in business and what you need to charge to actually thrive and grow is fundamental to profitable pricing. 

Let’s say you land a $500 job. Sounds good. But if it takes two hours to drive there and back, an hour to inspect and estimate it, several calls and emails to get it scheduled, and most of a day to complete, that $500 may not be nearly as attractive as it looked on paper.

Now consider a $5,000 project. It may require more labor and materials, but if the customer is a good fit, the work is nearby, the scope is clear and your crew can complete it efficiently, the project could deliver significantly more profit for the time your business invests.

Revenue isn’t the same thing as profitability.

There’s another piece. What else can the job be worth? One of the smartest ways to increase the value of a customer isn’t necessarily to sell them a bigger project. It’s to look for legitimate ways you can solve more of the problems. That doesn’t mean adding services just to increase the invoice. It means asking, “What else does the customer need that we are qualified to provide?” 

So, should you stop taking smaller jobs? Not necessarily.

Smaller projects can be valuable. They can lead to referrals, create relationships with great customers, fill gaps in your schedule, provide maintenance opportunities, and open doors to larger projects. The point isn’t to automatically say no to the $500 customer.

It’s to know what a job is actually worth to your business before you say yes.

Put This Into Practice

You don’t need a fancy spreadsheet or complicated accounting system to start thinking this way. Try these four simple exercises:

1. Figure out your minimum worthwhile job.

• Look at your last 10 jobs.
• For each one, write down: Job price – materials – labor costs– travel – other direct costs = approximate profit.

Then ask, “Which jobs gave us the best return for the time we invested?” You’ll probably start seeing a pattern.

Use that information to establish a minimum project size (or at least a minimum price for smaller jobs).

2. Start charging for your time before the job starts.

Track how much time you spend on:

• Site visits
• Estimates
• Driving
• Customer communication
• Ordering materials
• Scheduling

If you’re consistently spending two or three hours selling a $500 job, that’s part of the cost of acquiring that customer. And if you aren’t accounting for it, you’re absorbing the cost.

3. Create a “good-fit customer” checklist.

Before you say yes, ask:

• Is the project within our ideal service area?
• Does the scope fit what we do well?
• Is the customer realistic about price and timeline?
• Is the project large enough to make financial sense?
• Does the schedule work for our crew?
• Is there a reasonable opportunity for additional work or referrals?

You don’t have to check every box. But if you’re consistently saying yes to projects that check almost none of them, that’s a problem.

4. Look at your calendar differently.

At the end of each month, don’t just ask, “How busy were we?” Ask, “Which jobs made us the most money for the time and resources we invested?” Then do more of those.

That’s one of the principles behind Sashco’s Zero Failures Business Focus Seminar. Improving the business isn’t just about getting more work. It’s about bidding and pricing better, improving processes, reducing waste, and building a business that works better, not harder. 

The goal isn’t necessarily to land the biggest jobs. It’s to understand which jobs make the most sense for your business and become intentional about pursuing more of them.

Don’t just chase more work, chase better work. 

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