How to price a job you have never done before

The two classic failures

Faced with an unfamiliar job, tradespeople fail in one of two directions: guessing low to not lose the client (and financing the learning curve from their own pocket), or padding wildly "to be safe" (and losing the job to someone who did the homework). Both are the same mistake: pricing a feeling instead of a decomposition.

Step 1 — decompose until the pieces look familiar

You have never installed this brand of heat pump — but you have run refrigerant lines, mounted wall units, wired a disconnect, poured a pad. An unfamiliar job is mostly familiar tasks in a new order. Write them down; price each from your history. What remains is the genuinely unknown core — usually 10–20 % of the job, not 100 %.

Step 2 — bracket the unknown

For the unknown core, estimate a best case and a worst case in hours. Price the midpoint plus a third of the spread: you're covered beyond the average without pricing pure fear. Four to eight hours of uncertainty → price six and a half.

Step 3 — make the risk explicit, not hidden

Don't bury risk in inflated line prices — clients smell it. Name it:

Note: existing wiring condition unknown until panel opening. Estimate assumes standard condition; any remediation quoted separately before proceeding.

This sentence protects the price and positions you as the professional who saw the risk coming.

Step 4 — cap the discovery

Agree in writing what happens if the worst case materializes: work pauses, you present a change order. No silent hour-burning.

Your history is the raw material

The method runs on your own past numbers. Pro Speak Artisan builds that automatically: a personal catalog of every task you have ever quoted, with your typical prices — and flags any line drifting below your average (see the margin-killer guide).