Early on I priced a commercial refrigeration job based on vibes and confidence. I was 30% under what I needed to be. That job cost me money. What's worse, I didn't know it until I was already in too deep to walk away. Unfamiliar jobs are a pricing minefield if you don't have a process.
Start With Scope, Not Price
Before you put a number on anything you haven't done before, you need to understand exactly what you're doing. Walk the site with a notepad and write everything down. What's the existing system? What has to come out? What goes in? What access issues exist? What inspections or permits will be required? What materials aren't in your standard stock?
Gaps in scope understanding are how you lose money on unfamiliar jobs. You price what you know and discover on day two that there's a $3,000 item you didn't see coming. Do the detective work upfront.
Talk to Your Supplier
Your equipment and materials supplier sees jobs like yours regularly. They can tell you if your material list is complete, flag things you might have missed, and give you current pricing. A 30-minute call to your rep before you price a big unfamiliar job is worth an hour of your time without question.
If the job requires a subcontractor or specialty equipment, get real quotes before you price. Never estimate a subcontractor's work based on what you think they charge. Call them, describe the job, and get a number. Then add your markup.
Build In More Time Than You Think
Unfamiliar jobs almost always take longer than familiar ones. Your techs are problem-solving in real time instead of executing a known process. Add 20-30% to your labor estimate for any job type you haven't done at least five times. If you come in under budget, great, you look good. If you don't, you're not losing money.
Price It or Pass on It
Not every unfamiliar job is worth taking. If you can't scope it properly, can't get reliable sub quotes, and can't estimate the labor with any confidence, the right answer might be to pass. Recommending a competitor who specializes in that work is better for your reputation than taking the job and doing it badly.
If you do take it, consider a time-and-materials arrangement for the first one. Be transparent: "This type of project is new for us and we want to make sure we price it fairly. I'd suggest T&M with a cap so you have certainty." Many customers respect that honesty more than a wildly padded fixed price or a lowball that falls apart mid-project.
Put this into practice with WerkOps
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Written by
Dina Good
Founder, WerkOps
Dina grew up in the trades. Her father was a contractor, then a building inspector, and the job site was her classroom long before any formal one was. She went on to own her own contracting company, which is where she first felt the pain of running a skilled trade business on bad software and worse spreadsheets. A love of data pulled her into programming, and the two worlds eventually collided into WerkOps - software built by someone who has actually been on the truck.