Last updated: October 7, 2026 · Independent buyer’s guide · We do not sell rankings or coverage.
HVAC flat rate pricing software stores a price book of standard repair and maintenance tasks, calculates a fixed customer price for each task from sold labor hours, part cost and your markup, and shows those prices to technicians on a tablet so they can quote before the work starts. The category includes standalone price book services such as The New Flat Rate, Profit Rhino and Aptora’s Flat Rate Plus Online, and price books built into field service platforms such as ServiceTitan (with its Pricebook Pro add-on), Housecall Pro and FieldEdge. The products differ most in who maintains the task content, how part costs stay current and how options are shown to the homeowner.
Key takeaways
- Every flat rate price is sold hours times your billable labor rate, plus part cost times a markup, plus any surcharge. If the labor rate or part costs are wrong, every price in the book is wrong.
- Keeping part costs current is the main ongoing job. ServiceTitan documents pricing feeds from eight distributors; Profit Rhino publishes quarterly parts updates.
- Profit Rhino SmartPrice costs $39 to $59 per tech per month, The New Flat Rate starts at $99 per tech per month, and Aptora Flat Rate Plus Online has a free tier.
- Housecall Pro includes flat-rate pricing from its Essentials plan, published at $149 per month billed annually. ServiceTitan, Pricebook Pro and FieldEdge do not publish prices.
- The New Flat Rate builds five options per task; ServiceTitan offers good-better-best estimates, and FieldEdge limits multi-option quotes to its Premier and Elite plans.
What a flat rate price book is
A flat rate price book is a catalog of tasks your technicians perform, each with a fixed price the customer sees before work begins. A task such as “replace condenser fan motor” carries a description, a photo, the parts it normally consumes, the labor hours you sell for it and a calculated price.
Flat rate pricing replaces time and materials billing, where the customer pays for hours on site plus marked-up parts. The customer pays the same price however long the job takes, which moves the pricing risk from the homeowner to you.
Price books started as printed binders, and Callahan Roach’s printed C.A.P. book is still sold through Profit Rhino. A digital book syncs to the technician’s device and to invoicing, either inside your field service management system or through a pricing app connected to it.
How a task price is built from labor, parts and margin
ServiceTitan’s help documentation, updated July 11, 2026, gives its dynamic pricing formula as billable hours times labor rate, plus material and equipment cost times markup, plus surcharges. Housecall Pro’s help center, updated July 9, 2026, describes the same approach, with a break-even hourly rate based on annual costs and billable hours.
The billable labor rate
The labor rate in a flat rate book is not the technician’s wage. It is what each billable hour must earn to cover wages, payroll taxes, benefits, trucks, office staff, insurance, marketing and profit. You divide annual costs plus target profit by the hours your technicians actually sell, which is far fewer than the hours they are paid because of drive time, callbacks, training and slow days.
Sold hours per task
Each task carries a sold hours figure, the labor time you charge for. Content providers supply these figures in pre-built books; ServiceTitan says Pricebook Pro delivers regular updates to costs, images, descriptions and sold hours. If your crews consistently take longer than the sold hours on a task, that task loses money on every call.
Material markup and margin
Most systems apply a tiered markup table, with higher multipliers on cheap parts and lower ones on expensive parts. A 1.75 multiplier is a 75% markup on cost but only a 42.9% gross margin on the selling price. ServiceTitan lets you set material markup as a flat amount, a percentage or a gross margin target.
Surcharges and price levels
ServiceTitan documents automatic after-hours price increases and price levels, which can be used to show customers on a maintenance plan a member price on every task. If you sell memberships, our guide to HVAC service agreement software covers how member pricing, renewals and deferred revenue are handled.
Keeping prices current with supplier costs
Part and equipment costs change several times a year, and a book that was accurate in January can lose margin by summer. Software handles this in three ways.
Direct supplier feeds. ServiceTitan’s help page on supplier integrations, updated February 4, 2026, lists catalog and pricing integrations with Consolidated Supply, Ferguson, Gensco, Hajoca Brands, Johnstone Supply, R.E. Michel, Trane / American Standard and Winsupply. ServiceTitan says its Pricebook Connect feature, part of the core platform, alerts you to price changes or applies them automatically. This only helps if you buy from a connected distributor.
Managed content updates. Content providers update part costs for you on a schedule. Profit Rhino advertises quarterly updates. ServiceTitan states that with Pricebook Pro its team monitors supplier pricing and updates prices monthly. The limitation is that the provider’s cost reflects industry averages, not your branch pricing or rebates.
Bulk editing by hand. Platforms such as ServiceTitan let you apply a markup or percentage change across a category or the whole book. This depends on someone doing it after each supplier increase.
Good-better-best options on the tablet
Option selling is the second reason contractors buy this software: the technician shows a basic repair, a repair with related parts, and a top option with extra work or a longer warranty, and the customer chooses.
The New Flat Rate builds the menus for you and presents five options on every job. ServiceTitan’s field app supports good-better-best presentations. Profit Rhino positions its SmartPrice Pro tier for contractors who want to present options to homeowners. FieldEdge offers multi-option quotes only on its Premier and Elite plans. Housecall Pro puts its sales proposal tool, which builds side-by-side comparisons, on its Max plan.
The New Flat Rate states that average tickets rise two to three times, and Profit Rhino claims an 80% increase in average ticket. We have not seen independent evidence for either figure, so ask for references from contractors of your size.
Vendor comparison and published pricing
The table compares the products covered in this guide. Prices were checked on October 7, 2026 on each vendor’s own site.
| Product | Type | How costs stay current | Published price (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| The New Flat Rate | Menu pricing app with training; integrates with ServiceTitan and Housecall Pro | Vendor-built menus; update schedule not published | From $99 per tech per month |
| Profit Rhino SmartPrice | Standalone digital price book and sales tool | Quarterly parts updates | $39, $49 or $59 per tech per month, plus required coaching and implementation (fee not published) |
| Profit Rhino Integrate | Price book data for your existing FSM software | Quarterly parts updates | $299 per month data license, or $99 per month plus $55 per tech with the sales tool |
| ServiceTitan with Pricebook Pro | FSM platform with price book; Pricebook Pro is an add-on | Supplier feeds through Pricebook Connect; monthly updates with Pricebook Pro | Not published |
| Housecall Pro | FSM platform; Profit Rhino price book option | Material markups (select accounts only); Profit Rhino price book content | Flat-rate pricing from Essentials, $149 per month billed annually |
| FieldEdge Flat Rate | FSM platform with flat rate database; syncs to QuickBooks | Vendor pricing database; update schedule not published | Not published |
| Aptora Flat Rate Plus Online | Price book builder, QuickBooks integration | You maintain costs; imports supported | Free tier; Premium Plus $50 per user per month or $420 per user per year |
The New Flat Rate
The New Flat Rate puts the most weight on training. It builds the menus for you, includes live implementation classes and optional ride-alongs, and integrates with ServiceTitan and Housecall Pro. Its five-option format suits owners who want to change how technicians present work, and fits less well if you only want accurate single prices. The vendor does not publish how often it updates part costs.
Profit Rhino
Profit Rhino, now powered by Callahan Roach, publishes the most detailed pricing in this group. SmartPrice is a standalone price book: Starter is aimed at contractors new to flat rate, Plus adds full customization of the price book, and Pro is aimed at presenting options to homeowners. Integrate supplies the same content to a field service platform you already use. It also sells a light commercial HVAC add-on at $69 per month per company. Every SmartPrice plan requires success coaching and implementation, Integrate lists it as an addition to both plans, and no fee for it is published.
ServiceTitan and Pricebook Pro
ServiceTitan includes a price book in its core platform; you can upload an existing book, build one or add Pricebook Pro. Pricebook Pro adds pre-built services with images, automatic recalculation when you change your labor rate, and regional price comparisons. ServiceTitan’s strengths are its supplier integrations and dynamic pricing rules. It is a full operating platform, so it makes sense only if you run the business on it, and neither the platform nor Pricebook Pro has a published price.
FieldEdge and Aptora
FieldEdge includes a price book and flat rate pricing on all three plans, with FieldEdge Flat Rate Mobile for technicians and changes syncing to QuickBooks; pricing is by request. Aptora’s Flat Rate Plus Online is a builder rather than a content service: the free tier allows 500 tasks and one book, and you maintain your own costs. Aptora also sells Flat Rate Simple, an Excel-based tool, listed at $499.
For the wider platform decision, our overview of key features of field service management software covers scheduling, dispatch and mobile requirements.
Worked example: what a stale part cost does to margin
Illustration: all figures below are constructed for this example and do not come from any vendor.
A residential contractor has set a billable labor rate of $185 per hour. Its material markup table applies a 3.0 multiplier to parts costing under $25 and a 1.75 multiplier to parts costing $100 to $500. The task “replace condenser fan motor” carries 1.25 sold hours and a motor costing $165.
- Labor: 1.25 hours × $185 = $231.25
- Material: $165 × 1.75 = $288.75
- Flat rate price: $520.00
With a technician loaded cost of $48 per hour over 1.25 hours, direct cost is $225 and gross margin is 56.7%.
The supplier then raises the motor to $195. An updated book prices the task at $572.50. If nobody updates the book, the price stays at $520, direct cost rises to $255 and gross margin falls to 51.0%. At 120 of these jobs a year, that single stale cost loses $3,600 in gross profit. The same loss applies to every other task whose part cost has risen without an update.
The same task can be laid out as a three-option menu. A good option at $520 replaces the motor. A better option adds a new dual run capacitor ($18 part at 3.0, plus 0.25 hours) and contactor ($22 part at 3.0, plus 0.25 hours) for $732.50. A best option adds a one-hour condenser coil cleaning with $12 of chemical for $953.50. All three come from the same labor rate and markup table, so they move together when costs change.
Our independent take
The more important question than menu style is who keeps your costs and sold hours accurate after go-live. If you buy from a distributor connected to ServiceTitan, its supplier feeds are a real advantage. If you are on another platform, a managed content service such as Profit Rhino Integrate gives you scheduled updates at a published price. We would settle how costs will be maintained first and choose the menu style second.
We would also check your billable labor rate before buying anything. A pre-built book loaded with a labor rate that does not cover your overhead will produce consistent prices that still lose money.
Three buyer scenarios
A three-truck residential shop on QuickBooks with no field service platform. Profit Rhino SmartPrice Starter at $39 per tech per month, plus its required coaching and implementation, gives you pre-built tasks quickly, while Aptora’s free tier lets you build your own book if you already know your costs.
A 15-technician contractor already running ServiceTitan. You can build the book yourself with dynamic pricing and supplier feeds, buy Pricebook Pro, or add The New Flat Rate. At The New Flat Rate’s published starting price, 15 technicians cost at least $1,485 per month. Ask ServiceTitan for a Pricebook Pro quote, and check whether your main distributor is on its integration list.
A six-technician company on Housecall Pro Basic. Basic does not include flat-rate pricing with margins built in, so you would move to Essentials (five users included) or Max (eight users included, $299 per month billed annually). Confirm whether your account can use the Profit Rhino price book; if not, The New Flat Rate integrates with Housecall Pro and can supply menu content.
When you do not need dedicated flat rate software
If most of your revenue comes from equipment replacement and new construction, each job is quoted individually and a repair price book adds little. If your commercial work is billed on time and materials or negotiated contract rates, a residential flat rate book does not apply. For complex commercial quoting, a configure-price-quote (CPQ) tool or your FSM estimating module is usually the better fit.
A very small shop with a few dozen common repairs can also run a spreadsheet book, if someone reviews part costs each quarter. Software becomes worth paying for when you have several technicians quoting in the field, more tasks than anyone can remember, and supplier price changes you are not catching.
How we researched this
We reviewed the pages ranking for this topic, from ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, Simpro, Aptora, Smart Service and ServiceWorks; none explained how task prices are calculated or kept current. We then read each vendor’s product pages, published pricing and help documentation, checked on October 7, 2026. We did not test the products, and no vendor paid for inclusion.
Related guides
- HVAC Quoting Software for Replacement and Install Sales (2026)
- Commercial HVAC Service Software: What Mechanical Contractors Need Beyond Residential Tools
- HVAC Inventory Management: Truck Stock, Warehouse Parts and the Software That Tracks Them
Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate a flat rate price for an HVAC repair?
Multiply the sold hours for the task by your billable labor rate, then add the part cost multiplied by your markup, plus any surcharge. ServiceTitan’s documentation uses this formula for its dynamic pricing. Your billable labor rate should cover all overhead and profit divided by the hours your technicians actually sell, not their wage.
How much does HVAC flat rate pricing software cost?
Aptora’s Flat Rate Plus Online has a free tier, Profit Rhino SmartPrice costs $39 to $59 per tech per month and The New Flat Rate starts at $99 per tech per month. Housecall Pro includes flat-rate pricing from $149 per month billed annually. ServiceTitan, Pricebook Pro and FieldEdge do not publish prices.
How often should I update my flat rate price book?
Update part costs whenever your main supplier changes prices, and review labor rates at least once a year. Profit Rhino publishes quarterly parts updates, and ServiceTitan says Pricebook Pro updates prices monthly. If you maintain the book yourself, set a fixed review date rather than waiting for margins to drop.
What is the difference between markup and margin in a price book?
Markup is calculated on cost and margin on the selling price. A part costing $100 sold at $175 has a 75% markup but a 42.9% gross margin. ServiceTitan lets you set material pricing by gross margin target if you prefer to work in margin.
Is good-better-best pricing the same as flat rate pricing?
No. Flat rate pricing means each task has a fixed price; good-better-best is a way of presenting several flat-rate options for the same problem. Several products support both, though FieldEdge limits multi-option quotes to its Premier and Elite plans and Housecall Pro puts its proposal tool on Max.
Sources
- ServiceTitan, HVAC flat-rate software (vendor page; ServiceTitan sells the product), no date shown, checked October 7, 2026. servicetitan.com
- ServiceTitan, Pricebook Pro (vendor page), no date shown, checked October 7, 2026. servicetitan.com
- ServiceTitan Help, Dynamic Pricing Overview, updated July 11, 2026. help.servicetitan.com
- ServiceTitan Help, Available supplier integrations, updated February 4, 2026. help.servicetitan.com
- ServiceTitan, Pricing packages (vendor page), no date shown, checked October 7, 2026. servicetitan.com
- The New Flat Rate, home page and FAQ including pricing (vendor page; sells the product), no date shown, checked October 7, 2026. thenewflatrate.com
- Profit Rhino, home page (vendor page; sells the product), no date shown, checked October 7, 2026. profitrhino.com
- Profit Rhino, SmartPrice plans and pricing, no date shown, checked October 7, 2026. profitrhino.com
- Profit Rhino, Integrate pricing, no date shown, checked October 7, 2026. profitrhino.com
- Housecall Pro, Pricing (vendor page; sells the product), no date shown, checked October 7, 2026. housecallpro.com
- Housecall Pro Help Center, Flat Rate Pricing Overview, updated July 9, 2026. help.housecallpro.com
- Housecall Pro Help Center, How to prepare your Housecall Pro account for your Profit Rhino Price Book, no date shown, checked October 7, 2026. help.housecallpro.com
- FieldEdge, FieldEdge Flat Rate (vendor page; sells the product), no date shown, checked October 7, 2026. fieldedge.com
- FieldEdge, Plans and plan feature comparison, no date shown, checked October 7, 2026. fieldedge.com
- Aptora, Flat Rate Plus Online (vendor page; sells the product), no date shown, checked October 7, 2026. aptora.com
- Aptora, Flat Rate Simple for Excel (store listing), no date shown, checked October 7, 2026. aptora.com
- Simpro, The Best HVAC Flat-Rate Pricing Apps in 2026 (competing article by a vendor that sells FSM software), April 17, 2026. simprogroup.com