How to price car key replacement jobs without guessing

By Gabriel, founder of Nyrano · 26 September 2026 · 6 min read

A lot of car key pricing is built backwards. A locksmith hears what the shop across town charges, takes a little off, and calls it a price list. That is not pricing. That is copying someone else's guess, and you do not know whether they are making money either.

A price you can defend is built from four numbers you already have: what an hour of your time really costs, what the parts cost you, what it costs to show up, and how often the job goes wrong. This post walks through each one with a worked example. The currency does not matter; the method does.

What does one billable hour really cost you?

Start here, because every other number leans on it. Add up what the business costs per month whether or not the phone rings:

Now the number people get wrong: billable hours. You may work 200 hours a month, but driving, quoting, ordering parts and waiting do not get billed. For a mobile automotive locksmith working alone, I would plan on 70 to 90 billable hours a month. Take 80.

1,620 divided by 80 is about 20. Every hour you bill must carry 20 in overhead before you have paid yourself anything. If you want to take home 3,000 a month before tax, that is another 37.50 per billable hour. Your floor is 57.50 an hour, and that is break-even on your own salary, with no profit for the business and nothing for a bad month.

I would add at least 25 percent on top for profit and slow weeks. That puts this example at roughly 72 per billable hour. Your numbers will differ. Do the division once with your own costs; it takes fifteen minutes, and it is the step most people skip.

How much should you mark up the parts?

Parts are where car key jobs differ from most trades: on a smart key job the part can cost more than the labor. Three rules I would hold to:

1. Mark up on a sliding scale, not a flat percentage. A blank that costs 3 can carry 300 percent and nobody blinks. A smart key that costs 90 cannot. A scale that works: under 10 in cost, multiply by 3 or 4; from 10 to 50, multiply by 2; above 50, add 40 to 60 percent.
2. The markup pays for the parts you throw away. Chips that fail to program, remotes that arrive dead, the wrong frequency ordered at midnight. If one part in fifteen ends up in the bin, a markup under 8 percent means you are losing money on parts.
3. Use your real cost, not the catalog price. That means the price you paid on the last order, including shipping. If your stock list does not know that number, your price list is fiction.

What should the call-out fee cover?

The call-out fee exists so that a customer who cancels at the door has still paid for your trip. Price it from your own numbers: average drive time per job, at your hourly floor, plus fuel. With 40 minutes of average round-trip driving at 57.50 an hour, that is about 38 before fuel. If you charge 20 because "that is what everyone charges", every job starts 18 in the hole.

Two things I feel strongly about. First, say the call-out fee on the phone, before you leave. Surprise fees at the car are what the fake listing operators do, and you do not want to be mistaken for them. Second, do not waive it as a favor. Discount the job if you must, but keep the fee as a line on the invoice so the customer sees what showing up costs.

How do you price the risk?

Some jobs go wrong, and the ones that go wrong are predictable: all keys lost on certain makes, vehicles that need a PIN you may not be able to pull, used modules, water-damaged ignitions. You have two honest options:

• Price the risk in. If one job in five of a type takes double the time, the standard price for that type has to include 20 percent extra time. The four easy jobs pay for the hard one.
• Quote a range and say why. "Between 180 and 260, depending on whether the car lets me read the PIN. I will know in the first ten minutes." Customers accept a range when you explain it before you start. They do not accept it afterwards.

What you should not do is quote the easy price and hope.

A worked example

All keys lost, a common European hatchback, remote head key, customer 20 minutes away.

Now compare that with the number in your head for this job. If yours is lower, find out which line you are giving away. My bet is the call-out or the risk.

What about the competitor who charges half?

There are two kinds. The first is a lead seller with a bait price, and the customer will pay double on arrival; you cannot and should not match that. The second is a real locksmith who has never done the division above, and they will be out of business or exhausted in two years. Neither one is a reason to cut your price.

The customers you want are the ones who ask "can you come, and what will it cost?" in that order. Give them a clear number, quickly, in writing. I am convinced that a quote sent as a link, which the customer can approve from their phone, wins jobs over a cheaper price mumbled on a call, because it looks like a business. That is the reason quotes in Nyrano work that way.

Keep score, then adjust

A price list is a guess until you check it against finished jobs. Once a quarter, take your twenty most common job types and look at three numbers for each: what you charged, what the parts really cost, and how long it really took. Any job type where parts plus time at your hourly rate comes within 10 percent of the price is a job you are doing for free.

This is tedious with paper and takes a few minutes if your jobs, parts and payments live in one system. It is the main reason to keep them in one system, and it matters more than any feature on a vendor's website, mine included.

Gabriel is the founder of Nyrano. He designs and builds the product, runs the live demos, and answers the support inbox himself. More about who writes here.