Wow...I guess I must be getting some bad calls.
I do 90% residential service, and my AVERAGE call is usually in the $150.00 range. That's because I do a lot of fixture changes, receptacle replacements, etc. I only charge $65.00 for a ceiling fan replacement or single fixture replacement because I'm competing with Lowe's and Home Depot. I have found that this usually gets me repeat customers, though, so it is worth it. My most recent call was replacing two outdoor wall lanterns with customer-supplied lanterns. I charged $115.00 total and it only took me about 40 minutes and a little caulk.
These small jobs are my bread and butter, and the larger jobs of rewiring or building new services probably only account for about 20-30% of my total job volume (not sales volume). In other words, I do 8 small jobs for every 2 larger jobs. But I usually make more relative profit off of the small jobs than I do the big jobs.
Kevin
P.S. This is in Western Tennessee where the "average" electrician only charges between $35 and $65 an hour. My target hourly rate is $100.00. I do flat-rate, so it varies slightly from job-to-job.
