# How to Price Mobile RV Repair Jobs
Mobile RV service has a pricing problem baked into the job: your customer is parked at a campground or in a driveway, you drive to them, and half your day can vanish in windshield time between calls. The techs who make good money are not the ones with the highest hourly rate; they are the ones who price the trip, the diagnosis, and the multi-system work correctly and never leave a completed repair unbilled. Here is how to build prices that actually pay for the drive.
Why Mobile RV Pricing Is Different
An RV is four trades in one coach: 120V and 12V electrical, fresh and waste plumbing, LP gas, and appliances and mechanicals like slide-outs, awnings, and leveling. A single service call can touch all four. That is a pricing opportunity most new techs waste by quoting one problem, fixing it, and driving off while three other billable issues sit undiagnosed.
The other structural fact is travel. You cannot bill a full day of wrench hours when two hours went to driving. Your pricing has to recover that time explicitly through a trip charge and zone mileage, or it silently comes out of your labor margin.
The Trip Charge: Non-Negotiable
The trip charge (also called a service call or dispatch fee) is the single most important line on a mobile RV invoice. It covers your drive, your fuel, and the diagnostic time to figure out what is wrong before any repair labor starts. Never waive it to win a job; a waived trip charge is an unpaid two hours.
Realistic 2026 structure:
- Base trip / service call charge (includes initial diagnosis, home zone): $95 to $175
- Zone mileage beyond the home radius: $1.50 to $2.50 per mile round trip, or tiered zones ($40 to $120 by distance band)
- After-hours, weekend, or holiday call-out premium: 1.5x the base trip charge, or a flat $75 to $150 add-on
- Campground / emergency same-day dispatch: premium trip rate
The base trip charge should include the first block of diagnostic time (say, 30 minutes). If the diagnosis runs long, the meter starts on your hourly rate after that. Spell this out when you book the call so there is no argument at the coach.
Setting Your Hourly Labor Rate
Mobile RV labor commonly bills at $120 to $175 per hour in 2026. Certified techs (RVIA/RVTI credentials) and those handling LP gas and slide-out work sit at the higher end because the liability is real and the skill is scarce.
Build your rate from the bottom: your service van, tools and diagnostic gear, insurance, certification upkeep, and the fact that a realistic mobile day yields five to six billable hours, not eight, once you subtract driving. If you need to net a target income and you only bill six hours a day, your rate has to carry the other two. Do not benchmark against a stationary dealership rate; you have costs they do not.
Pricing the Four Systems
Quote each system as its own line so a multi-system call bills for everything you actually did.
LP gas / propane. This is safety-critical and should command a premium. An LP leak-down and pressure test with manometer readings is both a diagnostic and a liability-documenting service. Charge for the test itself ($75 to $150) on top of any repair labor, and log the manometer readings; that record protects you if a propane incident is ever investigated. Never bury a gas test inside a general labor charge.
Electrical (12V and 120V). Converter, inverter, battery, shore power, and wiring faults. Diagnostic-heavy, so protect your diagnostic time explicitly. Parts markup on converters, breakers, and batteries is standard margin.
Plumbing. Water pumps, water heaters, fittings, tank and valve work. Straightforward labor plus parts, but factor the messy-access reality of RV plumbing into your time estimate.
Slide-outs, awnings, leveling. Mechanically involved and often the highest single-repair ticket. Slide-out motor, gear, or seal work can run several hours of labor plus significant parts. Quote a range after diagnosis, not a firm number over the phone.
Across all four, mark up parts 25 to 40 percent and add a shop-supply fee ($15 to $40) per visit for sealants, connectors, and consumables. Use a serial and part-number lookup so you quote the correct component the first time and do not eat a return trip for the wrong part.
Warranty Work: Know the Reimbursement Rate Before You Say Yes
Manufacturer warranty work is a trap for new mobile techs. The manufacturer sets both the labor time (flat-rate hours) and often the reimbursement rate, and both can sit below your retail number. Warranty claims also take time to file and weeks to pay, and they get denied for documentation gaps.
Before you accept warranty work, know three things: the approved labor rate, the flat-rate time allowed for the job, and the exact documentation the manufacturer requires to approve the claim. If the reimbursement rate is below your cost, either decline, negotiate, or bill the customer the difference where the manufacturer allows it. Track every submitted claim to reimbursement so you are not financing the manufacturer for free.
This is where paperwork discipline directly protects margin. The Mobile RV Technician Service Kit is built around exactly these pain points: an LP gas leak-down and pressure-test log with manometer readings, a multi-system estimate builder that lines out electrical, plumbing, propane, appliance, and slide-out work, a warranty-claim submission and reimbursement tracker, and a call-out pricing sheet with trip charge, zone mileage, and after-hours rates.
Common Pricing Mistakes
- Waiving the trip charge to land the job. That is your drive time given away. If the price objection is real, discount repair labor slightly, never the trip charge.
- Quoting a firm slide-out or electrical price over the phone. You cannot see the failure. Quote the trip charge and diagnostic block firmly, then a repair range after you look.
- Fixing one issue and leaving the other three undiagnosed. You already paid for the drive. Walk the whole coach, note every issue, and quote the additional work while you are standing there. A single call should often produce a multi-line estimate.
- Burying the propane test in general labor. The LP leak-down is a safety and liability service worth its own line and its own documented reading. Charging for it separately is correct, not greedy.
- Accepting warranty work blind. Know the reimbursement rate and flat-rate time first, or you will work an afternoon for less than your cost and wait six weeks to be paid.
- No after-hours premium. Campground emergencies at 8 p.m. on a Saturday are worth a premium. If you answer, charge for it.
A Sample Multi-System Call, Priced Right
A customer at a campground 22 miles out reports the water heater will not light and mentions the slide is sticking. Your build:
- Base trip charge (22 miles, includes 30-min diagnosis): $135
- LP pressure test and leak-down (water heater is gas): $95, readings logged
- Water heater repair labor: 1.0 hr at $145 = $145
- Slide-out inspection and seal service: 1.5 hr at $145 = $218
- Parts (igniter, seal) plus 35% markup and $25 shop supply: as used
- Invoice before parts: roughly $593 across four billable lines from one drive
That is the mobile model working correctly: one trip, every issue caught, every line billed, and the propane safety test documented. The tech who fixes only the water heater and leaves bills a third of that for the same two-hour round trip.
Next Steps
Standardize your trip-charge zones and your per-system rate card so every quote is consistent, and set up your LP test and warranty documentation so the safety-critical and reimbursement-critical records are never missing. The free starter guide covers building your first zone map and estimate template, and the Mobile RV Technician Service Kit gives you the LP pressure-test log, the multi-system estimate builder, the warranty reimbursement tracker, and the call-out pricing sheet so you bill for every mile and every repair you actually do.