How to work out what a job costs
Everything a price has to cover, and the sum almost nobody does: commission is not added on, it is divided out.
Setting your own price is something the platforms do not give you, but it is also a responsibility: the fare has to cover everything, not just today’s fill-up. A fare that does not get there is not a keen price, it is a loss you have put off, and you see it at the first tyre you have to change.
What to count
- Fuel or electricity, worked out on the real route and not in a straight line
- Depreciation on the vehicle, the item almost everybody forgets
- Insurance, vehicle tax and the MOT, spread over the year’s miles
- Servicing and tyres
- Your own hours, including waiting and coming back empty
- Commission and fees, where there are any
The quoted consumption is not your consumption
Type-approval figures are measured in a laboratory, on a standard cycle. Real work is traffic, queues, standing with the engine running, air conditioning and luggage: real consumption is higher. Anybody who takes the brochure figure as it stands is building a price on a number that does not exist.
Commission is not added on, it is divided out
It is the commonest mistake and the most expensive. If you want £100 left in your pocket and the deduction is 20%, the fare is not £120: it is £125. The sum is not “cost plus the percentage”, it is “cost divided by what is left to you”. Five pounds a job sounds like nothing, but over a thousand jobs it is five thousand pounds.
If there are two deductions, the platform’s and the operator’s, they do not apply one after the other: they add together, and you divide by what is left.
Do the sum with your own car
Below is the same sum with your numbers. It starts from an example: change the vehicle, your hours and your costs, and see what figure it reaches.
The vehicle
If you know your real consumption, put that in.
Your work
Worked out on an average of 26 km/h.
UrbanGo’s 20% is already in.
The car and the standing costs
A 10 kilometre job costs you £10.90 and has to be sold at £13.62, before the booking charge and any waiting.