Most callers ask the price before they tell you the address. If the answer sounds made up, they hang up and call the next shop on the list. If it sounds firm and then doubles on site, you get the bad review instead. A price book fixes both, but only if it's written for the phone and not just copied from your invoices.
Here's how to build one from the jobs you already do, in an afternoon, with nothing more than your last few months of invoices.
1. Start from the jobs you get
Pull your invoices or job notes from the last three months and sort them into piles. Don't start from a list of every service a locksmith could offer. Start from what your phone rings for. For most mobile shops the piles look something like this:
- Car lockouts
- House and apartment lockouts
- Business lockouts
- Rekeys (per cylinder) and lock changes
- Car keys: duplicates, programming, all keys lost
- Safe openings and anything commercial, like panic bars or door closers
If a pile has only one or two jobs in it, leave it out of the phone book for now. Those calls are better handled with "a tech will look at it and confirm the price" than with a number you guessed once.
2. Price each job as a range, and know what moves it
On the phone you can't see the lock. A single number is either padded to cover the hard cases or too low for them. A range with an honest low end and an honest high end lets you quote with confidence and still be right when you get there.
For every line, write down what pushes a job from the low end to the high end. That list becomes the questions you ask on the call.
| Job | What moves the price inside the range | Ask on the call |
|---|---|---|
| Car lockout | Vehicle type, newer models with side airbags or shielded locks, keys locked in the trunk | Year, make and model. Where are the keys? |
| House lockout | Knob only or deadbolt too, high security cylinders, smart locks | Which door? Is the deadbolt locked? Any keypad or app lock? |
| Rekey | Number of cylinders, brand, whether locks need to match one key | How many locks, inside and out? One key for all? |
| Car key | Blade only, transponder, remote head, push to start, all keys lost | Year, make and model. Do you have a working key now? |
Keep ranges tight enough to mean something. If a range is so wide that the top is three times the bottom, it's probably two jobs hiding in one line. Split it. "All keys lost, push to start" and "spare key, you have one that works" should never share a price.
3. Keep surcharges separate from the base price
Night, weekend and holiday work costs more, and callers expect that. What they don't like is finding out at the door. Write your surcharges as their own lines that sit on top of the base range:
- After hours. Set exact hours. "Evenings" means different things to different people; "after 7 p.m. and before 7 a.m." doesn't.
- Trip or distance. If you charge more past a certain distance, say where that line is.
- Trip charge when no work is done. If you charge for a wasted trip, for example when the caller can't show proof of ownership, decide the amount now and say it on the call.
Keeping these apart means you change one number when your night rate changes, instead of editing every line in the book.
4. Write down what isn't included
Most on-site price arguments are about parts. A rekey quote that covers labor but not a replacement cylinder is fine, as long as the caller heard that. For each line, note what costs extra: new hardware, extra keys past the first two, high security key blanks, a second programmed fob. Then say it in one short sentence on the call.
5. Practice how the quote sounds
The words matter as much as the numbers. A quote that holds up on site has four parts: the job, the range, what moves it, and who confirms it.
"A car lockout tonight runs between [low] and [high], depending on the car. The tech confirms the exact price before starting any work. What's the year, make and model?"
Then ask the questions from your table. They do two jobs at once: they help you land on the right part of the range, and they tell the caller you know what you're doing. A caller who has just been asked whether the deadbolt is locked trusts the quote more than one who was given a number straight away.
6. Have an answer for jobs that aren't in the book
Someone will always ask about something you didn't price: an antique safe, a commercial door with hardware you've never seen, a car you've never worked on. Don't guess. The honest answer is the one that keeps the job: "I don't want to give you a number that's wrong. The tech will look at it and confirm the price before doing anything." Then get the address and book the visit. If you charge a diagnostic or trip fee, say so here.
7. Check quotes against invoices every month
A price book is a guess until you test it. Once a month, put the quoted range next to the final invoice for each job. You are looking for three things:
- Jobs that keep finishing above the top of the range. Raise the top or split the line.
- Jobs that always finish at the bottom. You may be scaring callers off with a high end you never use.
- Calls that ended with no booking after a quote. If one job type loses most callers at the price, look at the range and at how it's worded.
Mistakes that cost you calls
- The "starting at" trap. Quoting only the low end wins the call and loses the customer at the door. It also draws complaints, and in some places attention from regulators.
- Hiding the surcharge. Say it on the call, every time, even when it feels awkward at 2 a.m.
- Different answers from different people. If you, your dispatcher and your techs all quote from memory, the same caller can hear three prices. One written book fixes that.
- Never updating it. Parts prices and your costs change. A book from two years ago quotes like it.
How LockCommand uses your price book
In LockCommand, the price book is what the AI receptionist quotes from. Each line has a low price, a high price and its own after-hours surcharge. The AI only gives those ranges, adds the surcharge at night and on Sundays, and says the tech confirms the final price on site. If a job isn't in your book, it tells the caller the tech will give a price on arrival instead of inventing one. New shops start with eight common jobs to edit, so you aren't starting from a blank page.
If night calls are the ones that hurt, read our guide to after-hours locksmith calls. If you're still deciding how calls should be answered at all, the locksmith answering service guide compares voicemail, a human service and an AI receptionist.