HVAC Price Checkup: Free Break-Even & Target-Pay Calculator for Solo Residential Techs (Google Sheets + Excel)

Does your diagnostic fee cover the drive and your hour — or just the truck roll?

The HVAC Price Checkup is a free one-tab spreadsheet. Type five numbers into the yellow cells (two more are optional, for card fees). The formulas show you:

- What your current diagnostic fee pays you per hour, counting drive and diagnose time — not just time at the unit.

- Your break-even fee per call: covers costs and pays you $0. Below it, every call loses money.

- The fee that covers your target pay: costs, card fees, and your full hourly wage, with $0 left for the business.

- Owner pay and business profit, shown separately.

- A plain verdict, colored red, amber, or green.

It opens with EXAMPLE numbers for a solo tech’s daytime diagnostic: $3,200 a month in costs over 45 calls, a $55/hr target, 1.5 hours all-in, a $125 current diagnostic fee (inside commonly published ~$75–$200 bands — OBSERVED FACT from 2026 service-call guides, not a promise), and 2.9% + $0.30 card fees. With those example inputs it shows about $33.31/hr, a $73.54 break-even, and $158.51 to cover target pay. These are illustrative numbers, not real customer data. Replace them with yours.

Every formula is visible. Formula cells are locked so a stray tap can’t break them; unlock with no password if you want.

Want the full math? The checkup checks one daytime diagnostic. The $19 HVAC Job Math Sheet (https://payhip.com/b/G85mn) adds a short flat-repair menu + maintenance visit, a trip/diagnostic builder, optional after-hours premium %, a profit goal %, status flags, an Example tab, and a Quick-Start PDF. Parts and refrigerant stay out of v1 so the labor/fee math stays clean.

Free to download. Payhip will ask for your email address to send the file.

What's included:

- HVAC-Price-Checkup.xlsx: one tab, "Price Checkup", prefilled with EXAMPLE numbers.

- HVAC-Price-Checkup-Quick-Start.pdf: a one-page guide with the worked example and the formulas.

Works in Google Sheets (upload to Drive, then File > Save as Google Sheets) and Microsoft Excel. No macros, add-ons or sign-up beyond Payhip's download email.

FAQ

Is it really free? Yes. $0. Payhip asks for your email address so it can deliver the file.

What's the difference between "break-even" and "the fee that covers your target pay"? Break-even covers your costs and pays you nothing. The target-pay fee also pays your full hourly wage. A fee between the two means the call covers its costs but pays you less than your target.

Is covering my target pay the same as profit? No. At that fee the business keeps $0 after paying you. The checkup shows owner pay and business profit as separate lines.

Can it price flat repairs or after-hours? Not this one. It checks one daytime diagnostic. The $19 HVAC Job Math Sheet does the short repair menu and after-hours %.

Is this financial, tax, licensing, or EPA advice? No. It's a spreadsheet that does arithmetic on the numbers you enter. It doesn't promise any result.

Are the EXAMPLE numbers real? No. They're illustrative only — not data from a real business.

Scheduling & invoicing tip: once your price is set, a simple ops tool helps jobs not slip — Jobber is optional (sponsored partner): https://go.getjobber.com/yr7g2b5vbfph

Support? aaronc@theresponsiveway.com

- This is a free spreadsheet template for estimates, not financial, tax, licensing, EPA, or legal advice.

- All EXAMPLE numbers are illustrative, not real customer data.

- AI assistance: AI tools helped draft the spreadsheet, the guide, this listing, and the product images. The formulas were checked with a LibreOffice recalculation against independent calculations.

(This is my own product.)