Price book, not per-customer prices
Most residential HVAC companies charge flat rates by task — a diagnostic fee, then a price for each repair — rather than a custom price per customer. That means the right increase is usually one percentage applied across the price book, plus a separate look at your service-call or trip fee and your maintenance agreements.
What moved
- Technician labor. Skilled technicians are expensive and hard to keep; loaded labor cost is usually the largest driver.
- Parts and equipment. Motors, capacitors, coils and full systems have all repriced.
- Refrigerant. Under the U.S. AIM Act phase-down of HFCs, R-410A supply is shrinking and new systems are moving to lower-GWP refrigerants such as R-454B and R-32. Both affect what you pay for refrigerant and equipment.
- Fuel and drive time. Service vans travel farther per call than most trades, and every hour on the road is a paid technician hour.
A worked example
A typical call is 25 miles round trip in a van that gets 14 mpg (1.79 gallons). With gasoline up $1.25 a gallon, fuel adds about $2.23 per call. Two hours on site plus 0.83 hours driving is 2.83 technician hours; a $2-an-hour increase in loaded labor adds $5.67. Parts up from $37 to $40 add $3.00. That’s about $10.90 more cost on a $250 call — about 4.4% — and slightly more to keep the same margin, so a round 5% price-book increase would be in the right range for this example.
Service-call and diagnostic fees
Your trip or diagnostic fee should cover the cost of getting a technician to the door: drive time and fuel at today’s rates. Recalculate it on its own — it often falls further behind than the price book because it’s rarely revisited.
Maintenance agreements
Agreements are effectively recurring customers: a fixed annual price for one or two tune-ups. Reprice them at renewal using the same cost-since-it-was-set approach, and send members a short letter. Members are often your most loyal customers; a clear explanation goes a long way.
How to tell customers
For one-off repairs, customers see your current prices when they book, so no letter is needed. For agreement members, give notice before renewal, name the reasons (technician pay, parts, refrigerant changes, fuel) and keep the member benefits front and center.
Fuel figures are U.S. Energy Information Administration monthly averages (regular gasoline $3.06 → $4.31 and on-highway diesel $3.68 → $6.25 a gallon, October 2025 → October 2026). Inflation is BLS CPI-U, up about 4.0% over the same year. Worked examples use illustrative costs — use your own.