Every trade business answers this question, usually by accident, usually at nine at night with dinner going cold. It is worth deciding it once, sober, in advance.
Why after hours is worth something
The economics are genuinely different. Somebody ringing a plumber at nine on a Sunday is not shopping around on price. They have water somewhere it shouldn’t be, and the thing they want is for it to stop. Conversion on those calls is far higher than a Tuesday-morning quote enquiry, and they are the jobs that carry an after-hours rate.
They are also the calls most likely to go unanswered, which means the business that picks up wins them by default rather than by being better.
Why it costs more than the invoice says
The cost isn’t the hour on site. It’s that you were on call all evening, that you answered three calls to get the one job, that you were tired on Monday, and that your family watched you take the phone outside again. Trades don’t burn out on work. They burn out on availability.
A rule that only works when you’re feeling generous is not a rule.
The rule worth having
Separate the two decisions. Whether the call gets answered and whether you get in the ute are different questions, and conflating them is what makes after-hours miserable.
Every call should be answered. Not every call should be a callout. If someone answers, takes the details properly and tells the caller when they’ll be rung back, you have kept the job without leaving the house. Most after-hours callers will accept first thing tomorrow if a human being has actually engaged with their problem. What they won’t accept is a voicemail beep.
Write down what’s genuinely urgent
For most trades the list is short, and writing it down is most of the work.
- Plumbing. Burst pipe or mains leak, no water at all, sewage inside, water near electrical, no hot water in winter with kids or elderly in the house.
- Electrical. Burning smell, sparking, exposed live wiring, total loss of power when the street has it, a tripping circuit that won’t reset.
- Roofing. Active water entry during rain. Almost nothing else, and nobody goes up in the dark or the wet.
- HVAC. No heating or no cooling in extreme weather with someone vulnerable in the house. Uncomfortable is not urgent.
Everything else is tomorrow, and tomorrow is fine if somebody said so out loud.
Say the price before you go
The single biggest source of after-hours disputes is a callout fee the customer says they were never told about. Say the number on the phone, every time, and confirm they’ve accepted it before anyone gets in the ute. Written into the process, not left to whoever’s answering to remember at eleven at night.
Then take the phone out of your hand
The reason most trades don’t run this properly is that running it means being the one who answers. That’s the part that can be handed over — the triage, the questions, the callout fee, the “the plumber will ring you at seven”. What can’t be handed over is the decision about what counts as urgent. That has to come from you, once, in writing.
Get that list right and the after-hours phone stops being a tax on your evenings and starts being the part of the business with the best margin in it.