Should I put my minimum job size on my website?

Yes, if you have one. A minimum you only mention on the phone costs you the call, the drive and sometimes the estimate before the customer hears it. Said plainly on the website, next to the quote form and on the services page, it lets people who need a smaller job self-select out, and the ones who do reach out already know it fits.

What is the difference between a minimum charge, a trip charge and a service-call fee?

A minimum charge is the least you bill for any job, no matter how small, so a ten-minute fix is billed as the minimum. A trip charge covers getting to the job, and is often tied to distance or to jobs outside your normal service area. A service-call or diagnostic fee pays for coming out to find the problem, and many trades credit it toward the repair if the customer goes ahead. Pick the one that matches what actually costs you money, and name it the same way everywhere.

Won't a minimum scare customers away?

It will turn away some small jobs, which is the point. The customers it scares off are mostly the ones you would have turned down or lost money on after the drive. Pair the minimum with a way to meet it, such as bundling several small repairs into one visit, and with a referral for jobs that are too small, and it reads as a fair policy instead of a brush-off.

Do I have to list the exact dollar amount of my minimum?

No. You can state the minimum as time (a half-day, two hours on site), as scope (one full room, the whole fence line) or as a dollar figure. Time and scope minimums age better because they do not need changing every time your rates move. If you do list a dollar figure, keep it current, because an old number on the site becomes the number customers hold you to.

RunCabin Blog · For working contractors

Should I put a minimum job size or trip charge on my website?

November 9, 2026 · 7 min read

Short answer: yes. If you have a minimum, a trip charge or a service-call fee, say it on your website, in plain words, before anyone calls. A minimum you only reveal on the phone has already cost you the call. A minimum you reveal at the estimate has cost you the drive too. The website is the one place that can tell a customer "this is how we work" before either of you has spent any time.

Most owners already have a minimum in their head. They just have not written it down anywhere a customer can see it, usually because it feels rude, or because they are worried it will chase off work. Both worries are worth taking seriously. Then there is the practical part: what to call it, how to word it, and where on the site it goes.

Why small jobs cost more than they look

If you have been in a trade for more than a season you know this already, but it is worth spelling out, because it is the reason the minimum exists and the reason you can say it without apologizing.

A small job is never just the time you spend doing it. It is:

The drive there and back. Same truck, same fuel, same hour on the road whether the job is ten minutes or a full day.
Loading and setup. A painter still lays drop cloths and opens cans for one wall. A landscaper still unloads the mower for one small yard.
Cleanup and the paperwork. The invoice, the follow-up, the payment chase take the same time on a small ticket as a big one.
The slot it blocks. A small job in the middle of the morning can kill the rest of the morning, because nothing else fits around it.

Put those together and a quick job can lose money even when the hourly rate looks fine. A minimum is not greed. It is just the honest price of showing up.

Minimum, trip charge or service-call fee: which one do you have?

These three get mixed up, and customers get confused when one owner uses all three words for the same thing. Pick the one that matches what actually costs you money, and use that name everywhere: website, Google profile, estimates, invoices.

A minimum job size or minimum charge. The least you will bill for any job. A ten-minute fix is billed as the minimum. Common for painters, handymen, cleaners, pressure washers and lawn crews. It can be stated as money, as time ("a half-day minimum") or as scope ("one full room").
A trip charge. A fee for getting to the job. Often only applies past a certain distance or outside your normal service area, which makes it a fair way to take farther jobs without losing money on them.
A service-call or diagnostic fee. A fee for coming out and finding the problem. Common for plumbers, electricians, HVAC and appliance repair, and often credited toward the repair if the customer goes ahead. Customers tend to accept it more easily when the credit is spelled out.

Some owners use two of these, for example a service-call fee plus a trip charge for jobs far outside town. That is fine. Just keep each one doing a different job, and do not stack three fees on a single small visit.

Why it belongs on the website, not just on the phone

The usual habit is to mention the minimum when someone calls. That feels polite. In practice it is the most expensive moment to say it.

By the time you mention it on the phone, you have stopped what you were doing, picked up, listened to the job, and maybe driven out for a look. If the customer only needed one outlet swapped or one door touched up, the call ends there, and the time you gave it is gone. Do that a few times a week in peak season and it adds up to real hours.

Owners who buy leads from the big platforms know a sharper version of this. The pain they describe is the same over and over: "price-shoppers," leads that never reply, and paying for leads that go nowhere. A minimum on your own site will not fix a lead platform, but it does mean the people who find you directly have already seen how you work. The ones who need a smaller job move on without either of you losing an afternoon. The ones who reach out have already decided your minimum is fine.

There is a quieter benefit too. Customers do not like surprises at the door. A minimum they read on the website is a policy. The same minimum said for the first time on their porch can feel like a bait-and-switch, even when it is not. Saying it early is the more respectful option, not the ruder one.

How to word it so it does not sound like a brush-off

The words matter more than the number. A bare "No small jobs" reads as unfriendly. The same policy with a reason and a way forward reads as a business that knows what it is doing. A good minimum statement has three parts:

The policy, plainly. What the minimum is, in time, scope or money.
A short reason, if it helps. One clause, not a lecture. "So we can give every job a proper setup and cleanup."
A way to meet it, or a way out. Bundling, a waitlist for small jobs, or a referral.

Some examples you can adapt to your trade:

Painter: "Our minimum is a half-day of work. Have a few small touch-ups? Put them on one list and we will do them in a single visit."
Handyman: "We have a two-hour minimum on every visit. Most customers fill it by saving up a short honey-do list, and we will work through as much as fits."
House cleaner: "First-time cleans have a minimum so we can do a proper deep clean. Recurring visits after that are shorter."
Landscaper or lawn crew: "We take on yards in our service area with a seasonal minimum. Smaller one-off jobs? Ask, and we will refer you to someone who does them."
Electrician, plumber or HVAC: "Service calls carry a diagnostic fee, credited toward the repair if you go ahead with us."
Any trade with a wide area: "No trip charge inside our main service area. Farther jobs carry a trip charge, which we tell you before we book."

Notice that none of those require a dollar figure. That is deliberate. Time and scope minimums age well, because they do not need editing every time your rates go up. If you do list a dollar figure, that is fine too, but keep it current. An old number on your site becomes the number customers hold you to.

Where on the site it goes

A minimum hidden in a terms page might as well not exist. Put it where people are deciding whether to contact you:

Right above or beside the quote form. One line is enough. This is the moment that matters most.
On the services page, next to the services it applies to, if it does not apply to everything.
In your FAQ. "Do you take small jobs?" is a question customers really ask, and a plain answer is useful to them and to the AI assistants that now read sites to answer people.
On your Google Business Profile, in the description or your services, worded the same way, so the two never contradict each other.

If you already show prices or ranges on your site, the minimum sits naturally next to them. If you do not, the minimum is often the easiest first number to show, because it is a floor, not a quote. There is more on that in should I put prices on my website?

When not to have a minimum (yet)

A minimum is a tool for a business that has more requests than good hours. If you are brand new, still building reviews, and your calendar has gaps, small jobs can be worth taking: each one is a chance at a review, a photo and a referral. Plenty of established owners say their first year was built on jobs they would turn down today.

The same goes in the slow season. Some owners drop their minimum in winter and bring it back in spring. That is a perfectly good strategy, as long as the website keeps up with it. The worst version is a site that still says "small jobs welcome" in May when you are booked out, or still shows a minimum in January when you would happily take the work.

The real reason most owners never post it

Ask enough owners why the minimum is not on their site and you hear a pattern. It is not that they are against it. It is that changing the site is a hassle. The person who built it is gone, or edits cost money and take a week, or they dread logging into the page builder. So the policy lives on the phone, where it costs the most.

A minimum is one of the things on a local-service site most likely to change. You raise it when you get busy, drop it in the slow season, add a trip charge when you start taking jobs in the next county. A site you can change the day you decide is what makes posting it practical.

Where RunCabin fits

This is the kind of detail a RunCabin website is built to hold. Tell us your minimum, trip charge or service-call fee in our questionnaire, worded the way you would say it on the phone, and we put it where it does its job: by the quote form, on the services it applies to, and in your FAQ. Like the rest of the site, it's built with AI and finished by a web developer, and you see a first version within 24 hours of sending your answers and photos. The site starts at $499 to build, then $39.99 a month for hosting, or $479.88 a year, with no long contract and no lead fees.

When the season turns and the minimum needs to change, it is a quick edit instead of a project, so the website keeps saying what you would say if you picked up the phone.

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