Repeat jobs are common in auto repair work. How often does a customer walk in and ask for something common like an oil change or a tune-up? Or does your shop specialize in one type of vehicle, and you're constantly handling the same repairs?
What if we told you we could help you build those most common repair orders in a matter of seconds? That way your service writers can focus on providing amazing customer service every time.
Because let’s face it, regardless of the job, your customers are relying on your team to provide the same quality experience they're used to in so many other industries. And if you own multiple shops, then your customers are expecting you to provide the same quality of service at each location.
Canned jobs make it easy for your shop to not only save time when building estimates and serving customers but also make it easy to provide a consistent and smooth customer experience -- in the end making your shop even more money by boosting your shop's average repair order.
What Canned Jobs Do Shops Need?
How many repeat repair orders does your team do each week? Chances are you can think of at least three jobs that are created over and over.
If you’re able to create canned jobs for just a fraction of those general repairs, you’ll come in clutch for yourself and your team by getting lost time back.
The repairs your shop creates canned jobs for is entirely up to you, but they should be based on the common repairs you provide.
Whether your shop specializes in exotic cars, performs total transmission rebuilds, or just general repair work, oil changes, and brake jobs, you’ll want to create a list of canned jobs that are both frequent and replicable at your shop.
Common canned jobs used by auto repair shops include:
Diagnosis
State Inspection
Emissions Test
Oil or Diesel Change
Tire Replacement
Tire Rotation
Alignment
A/C System Inspection
Battery Core
Brake Repair
Four Major Benefits of Canned Jobs for Auto Repair Shops
The goal is to make your shop's experience so simple, pleasant, and transparent that customers will feel comfortable coming back the next time their vehicle needs a repair.
1. Streamline Workflow to Boost Productivity
Investing in a shop management system with a full suite of easy-to-use features to create a simple workflow for repair orders.
With Tekmetric, you can tie canned jobs to Digital Vehicle Inspection findings to save time when building estimates for common work, enabling your team to focus on other tasks.
For example, your shop can create an inspection where any cooling system findings are linked to a “cooling system repair” canned job. If the inspection finds an issue, the service advisor can just click the canned job icon next to the finding to automatically populate the estimate.
2. Sell More Work
Canned jobs don’t just save you time, they help your shop sell even more work as well. For example, because we partner with BG Products, Inc., shops can easily include BG products with canned jobs.
And BG Products cover a lot of work.
Each time your shop creates a canned job, you’ll have the option to use high-quality maintenance products for fuel systems, engines, transmissions, brakes, power steering, cooling, battery, and climate control systems.
We saw that when shops started using BG Products in their canned jobs, they had a 55.93% increase in sales!
3. Provide a Seamless, Consistent Customer Experience
The canned jobs you create at one shop can be saved and transferred across your other shops.
So if you choose to expand beyond owning one shop, or if you already own multiple shops, you can create a consistent customer experience.
Especially when you add features like default inspections to ensure all of your locations provide the same level of care, or even using shared customer history across all your locations to provide a personalized experience.
4. Optimize Your Shop With Data
Since hop management systems touch every single part of running your shop, they’re also keeping track of everything you need to know to run your shop even better.
More specifically, shops can track all sales data to gain accurate insights into what’s working – what leads to closed repairs – and what isn’t working – what leaves money on the table.
Get More Out of The Work You Already Do
Canned jobs are a secret weapon to maximize your shop’s profitability. Your team will save time during the parts ordering stage and the estimate building stage to keep cars moving through your shop's workflow.
And as a shop owner, you know any time spent on tedious tasks can add up fast. Shaving off time here and there will ultimately make your team more productive and efficient so that they can focus on bringing in more money and satisfying more customers!
As a shop owner, you aren't just selling a car repair; you are selling expertise, specialized equipment, and peace of mind. If your rates are too low, you’ll struggle to keep the lights on. If they’re too high without the value to back them up, customers may opt for a competitor.
In this guide, we’ll walk through exactly how to find that "sweet spot" for your labor rate so you can build a sustainable, profitable shop.
How much should a mechanic charge per hour?
Mechanic shops should charge a labor rate that is competitive in their area, covers their overhead costs (rent, utilities, employees, etc.), and allows them to maintain a healthy profit margin (40-70%) to run the shop. Whether you are an independent shop or a large dealership, your labor rate and parts markup are your primary vehicles for maintaining profitability.
Key terms to know
Before we dive into the math, we need to understand these concepts.
Loaded labor rate: is the true cost of an employee, including their hourly wage, taxes, benefits, and insurance.
Hourly labor rate pricing: is the "posted" rate—the number your customers see on the repair estimate. It is the flat dollar amount you charge per billable hour.
Flat-Rate pricing: is a system where a specific repair is assigned a predetermined amount of time (e.g., a water pump replacement is "booked" at 3.4 hours). The customer pays for 3.4 hours regardless of whether the auto mechanic finishes in two hours or five.
Effective labor rate (ELR): is the real-world number that matters. It’s calculated by taking your total labor sales and dividing them by the actual hours your technicians worked.
How to set your automotive shop labor rate (step by step)
Setting your rate shouldn't be a guessing game based on what the guy down the street is charging. It should be a data-driven decision. Here is a step-by-step approach to finding your labor rate.
Step 1: Calculate your "loaded" labor cost
First, determine exactly what it costs you to pay an employee. This isn't just their hourly wage. You should include:
Wages and overtime.
Payroll taxes.
Benefits (Health insurance, 401k).
Workers' comp and liability insurance.
Training and certifications.
Any other benefits you provide employees.
Divide this total annual cost by the number of billable hours that the employee produces in a year. This is your "loaded" cost and does not include any profit margin.
Step 2: Account for overhead
Your labor revenue needs to cover more than just the employee. It must also cover the overhead costs of running an auto repair business:
In the automotive industry, labor profit margins vary greatly, but most shops aim for 40-70%. If your loaded cost for a technician is $45 per hour and you want a 65% profit margin, your base mechanic labor rate should be at least $128 per hour.
Step 4: Benchmark against your competition
While your internal numbers should be your primary focus, you shouldn’t ignore the local market. If your labor rate is $128 per hour but every other independent shop in your town is at $100, you need to either justify your value through superior service or find ways to reduce your overhead. Make sure you benchmark against competitors of similar size, services offered, and geographically nearby.
Step 5: Implement a labor matrix
Not every repair order is the same. Many successful shops use a labor guide combined with a labor matrix that slightly increases the rate for more complex jobs or diagnostic work. Shops that perform more specialized repairs or focus on specialty vehicles should heavily consider implementing a labor matrix.
Which factors impact labor rates?
Your rate shouldn't be static. Several external and internal factors will influence how much you can—and should—charge for car repair services.
Location: A higher cost of living in cities like California or New York necessitates higher labor rates compared to rural towns. Your technicians need to earn enough to live nearby.
Shop type: A general auto repair shop usually has lower rates than a specialty Euro shop or a heavy-duty diesel facility. Specialization requires more expensive tools and higher-paid talent.
Certifications: If your team holds advanced ASE certifications or factory training, you provide more value. Customers are often willing to pay more for a repair estimate from a shop they trust to do it right the first time.
Warranty: If you offer a service warranty, you are taking on more risk and can charge more for the peace of mind.
5 Ways Tekmetric can help your shop be more profitable
Tekmetric can help you be more profitable by providing the features and reporting you need to make better business decisions. Tekmetric shops average a 65% labor profit margin by utilizing modern features that help you build trust with your customers and keep them coming back year after year.
Custom labor matrix: Tekmetric allows you to set up labor matrices that automatically adjust your mechanic labor rate. This ensures you don’t undercharge for difficult work.
Real-Time reports: Stop waiting until the end of the month to see if you made money. Tekmetric gives shop owners a real-time look at their gross profit, plus many other helpful metrics.
Measuring effective labor rate: As we discussed, your posted rate isn't always what you take home. Tekmetric tracks your ELR automatically, showing you exactly where "leaks" (like excessive discounting or slow techs) are happening.
Digital Vehicle Inspections (DVI): Higher rates are easier to justify when you can show the customer exactly why they need the work. Tekmetric’s DVIs build trust and increase customer satisfaction, making the price conversation much smoother.
Technician efficiency: By tracking technician efficiency and productivity within the platform, you can see which members of your team are hitting their goals and which employees might need more coaching.
Final thoughts
Setting your labor rate requires constant attention to your local market, your internal costs, and the evolving complexity of car repair. By following these steps, you’ll ensure that your shop doesn't just keep cars running—it keeps your business thriving. If you have questions about Tekmetric or how we can help your shop be more profitable, book your free demo today.
If you take away anything this month, it's that the Tekmetric Mobile app is now yours! We’re thrilled to have launched this across iOS and Android to make your techs’ lives easier, cutting their inspection time in half. As well, it delivers increased customer trust, ultimately driving up your bottom line.
Other top release highlights include improving the efficiency of Smart Jobs, adding fresh permission settings for increased financial control, speeding up the process of finding parts across your inventory, and making the 10DLC registration process simpler.
If you’re using Tekmessage, please complete your 10DLC registration ASAP.
Starting December 1st, this requirement will be enforced.
Save Time and Drive More Revenue With The Tekmetric Mobile App
Perform inspections from any mobile device, complete with photos and videos, building customer trust and increasing job approval. Tekmetric customers using it today have seen their inspection times cut in half. As well, shops that share digital vehicle inspections (DVIs) with their customers, see an average increase of $15k in revenue per month. With real-time synchronization your team stays coordinated, whether they're under a vehicle or discussing repairs with customers at the front desk.
Minimize the impact of time consuming tasks with these enhancements to our Smart Jobs feature.
Have you ever built a job using Smart Jobs, only to realize you accidentally selected the wrong part? Now you can instantly search PartsTech again without leaving your current job screen - ensuring you always quote the right part at the right price for your customer.
Oil changes are a necessary maintenance to keep any car running. So, it’s no wonder that repair shops offer oil change promotions to get new customers in the door. These promotions are usually for the standard 5 quarts, but what happens when a customer’s car requires extra oil? Smart Jobs will automatically calculate the adjusted price for the extra oil and add it to the estimate. This means no more hassling with a calculator to calculate the additional price tag. Smart jobs will simply provide clear and accurate estimates every time.
Starting December 1st, 10DLC registration will be required for all businesses using 10 digit phone numbers for application-to-person (A2P) messaging. This requirement will impact all customers using Tekmessage. So, we’ve made it easy for you to complete this registration in-platform. This process should take no more than 10 minutes and can be done from the Tekmessage Integration Card on the integrations page.
To ensure your service is not interrupted, please be sure to check your status and complete your enrollment ASAP. The approval process typically takes 2 to 3 weeks. Learn more about 10DLC and how to do this here.
Ensuring shop fees are consistent across all of your locations is critical, especially for maintaining customer trust. This process is now easier than ever to manage using the Multi-Shop dashboard. You can create new fees, edit existing fees, and delete fees across all of your locations. Need to maintain shop-specific pricing? No problem. Individual shops can manage their unique pricing details without impacting universal pricing.
Who’s this for?: All customers with the Multi-Shop add-on.
We heard you when it comes to wanting more control over your finances in Tekmetric, especially for those with lots of employees accessing the platform. Within the payments permission, there’s a new sub-permission for engaging with accounts receivable. By checking this box, the employee will have the ability to send repair orders to accounts receivable.
Tip: This will default to “on” for newly created shop owners and shop admins. If you had employees with the payments permission “on” at the time of the release (10/28/24), this sub-permission was defaulted to “on”.
View Inventory Across All Your Locations From One Place
Locating parts across your network can be extremely cumbersome, especially if you have to hop in and out of shop views. Your Multi-Shop account now brings inventory from all your locations into a single view, saving you time & getting your team back to work quickly. Filter by shop, status, and part type to find what you need in a snap.
Who’s this for?: All customers who have the Multi-Shop add on.
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