Priced the way Irrigation / Sprinklers work is billed
A service call / diagnostic and a sprinkler head replace don't get quoted the same way, so why would every trade? SideWRK prices Irrigation / Sprinklers the way the work is really billed: off a flat service-call menu — an $89 diagnostic, then per-zone add-ons. Tap the work, put in the numbers, and the line prices itself — no napkin math, no undercharging a job because you rushed the quote.
What Irrigation / Sprinklers jobs actually run
These are the starting numbers SideWRK loads for common Irrigation / Sprinklers work — researched to be realistic, so you can send an estimate that isn't a guess. Adjust any of them to your market in a tap.
Typical starting prices in the app — your area, your materials, and your reputation move them. You set your own; these just keep you from undercharging on the first quote.
Controller / timer install, priced out
Numbers only mean something on a real job, so here's how SideWRK builds the ticket on a common one:
SideWRK puts the parts on at what you actually paid — so the $122 of labor is what you clear, not a marked-up parts total dressed up as profit.
What moves a Irrigation / Sprinklers price
Two Irrigation / Sprinklers jobs that look the same on paper can be a hundred dollars apart once you're on site. Here's what actually changes the number — the things to size up before you quote:
- Zones — the system prices by the number of zones, and a leak in one is a diagnostic before it's a repair.
- Winterization vs repair — a blow-out is a set service; a broken valve or head is priced per part.
- Buried lines — digging to find a mainline break is time you should charge for, not eat.
What a Irrigation / Sprinklers job puts on the record
Every trade documents something different, and Irrigation / Sprinklers is no exception. SideWRK captures the number of zones and the rest of what your work needs on the record — the details that protect you and make the invoice stand up:
- the number of zones
- the controller brand — Rain Bird, Hunter, Rachio
- the backflow type — PVB, DCVA, RPZ
- the water source — well or municipal
- blowout-pressure and backflow-cert notes
Example note on a job: "Blew out all zones at 50 psi; one cracked head on zone 3 replaced — advised backflow test due next spring."
How to price a Irrigation / Sprinklers job in SideWRK
- 1
Start the job and add your work
Open a Irrigation / Sprinklers job and tap a suggestion like "Service call / diagnostic" or "Spring startup" — the common work is already loaded, so you tap instead of type.
- 2
Price it off a flat service-call menu
Enter the numbers and the line prices itself, off a flat service-call menu — an $89 diagnostic, then per-zone add-ons. Put parts on at your cost so what you clear is real profit, not just the Irrigation / Sprinklers ticket total.
- 3
Note the details
Add a plain-English note — for example, "Blew out all zones at 50 psi; one cracked head on zone 3 replaced — advised backflow test due next spring." — and a photo of the work.
- 4
Log what the job needs
Capture the Irrigation / Sprinklers-specific records: the number of zones, and the controller brand — Rain Bird, Hunter, Rachio.
- 5
Send it and get paid
Send the Irrigation / Sprinklers estimate for approval. Your customer approves from their phone, the invoice goes out, and you get paid — card or Apple Pay, on the spot.
Staying on the right side of the rules
SideWRK documents your Irrigation / Sprinklers work — it doesn't make you licensed, and it says so plainly. What to know: a certified tester or plumber for backflow testing, and a licensed contractor or plumber for potable-side and install work over the local threshold. The app flags the permit and license triggers so they never surprise you mid-job.
Irrigation / Sprinklers pricing — common questions
How do I price a Irrigation / Sprinklers job in SideWRK?
You bill off a flat service-call menu — an $89 diagnostic, then per-zone add-ons. Add the work — Service call / diagnostic, Spring startup, Winterization / blowout — enter the numbers, and each line prices itself. Parts go on at your cost, so you see real profit and not just the total.
What does a typical Irrigation / Sprinklers job cost?
It depends on the work, but as a realistic starting point a common job like controller / timer install runs about $175 in the app — roughly $122 of that is your labor and about $53 is parts at your cost. Common Irrigation / Sprinklers work ranges from about $85 to $175. Those are defaults you can change — you always set your own prices.
What does SideWRK document on a Irrigation / Sprinklers job?
The records Irrigation / Sprinklers work actually needs: the number of zones; the controller brand — Rain Bird, Hunter, Rachio; the backflow type — PVB, DCVA, RPZ. They stay on the job as you work, so the paper trail is built instead of reconstructed later, and the disclosures this trade needs print on the estimate and invoice themselves.
Do I need a license to do Irrigation / Sprinklers work?
That depends on your state and the job, but here's the shape of it: a certified tester or plumber for backflow testing, and a licensed contractor or plumber for potable-side and install work over the local threshold. SideWRK documents the work; it doesn't certify you. It flags the permit and license triggers so nothing sneaks up on you.
Does SideWRK work for trades other than Irrigation / Sprinklers?
Yes — it runs all 42 trades, each priced and documented its own way. If you run more than one, the Multi-Trade plan unlocks them all and switches between them in a tap.
Your first jobs
The six prices up top say what the work is worth. The first calls are harder than that, because "my sprinklers aren't working" covers a five-minute head swap and a backflow rebuild and everything in between, and the homeowner on the phone genuinely cannot tell you which one they have. Quote a flat number blind and you find out in the yard whether you guessed high or low. Nobody wins that game twice.
- Two moves, not one. The first number is the one that gets you there: a service call that pays for the drive, the walk-through, and finding the actual problem, said out loud before you load up. The second number is the repair, written once you can see it. That's not a hedge, it's the shape of the trade — and it's why the menu leads with a diagnostic instead of a price for "sprinkler repair."
- Say the fee, then honor it in writing. "Service call is $89, and it comes off the repair if you have me do the work today" is an easy sentence right up until the invoice, where most people just quietly drop the line and hope nobody counts. SideWRK does it the other way. Tap − Credit service call and the app finds the service-call line you already billed, prefills its amount, and adds a credit as its own negative line on the same document — the fee charged, then the fee credited, both visible. It caps itself at the job's total, so a credit can never take an invoice below zero.
- Writing it up is tapping, not typing. Open an irrigation job and the whole service menu deals as chips under the description box, each one carrying its own price: Service call / diagnostic · $89, Winterization / blowout (up to 8 zones) · $90, Zone valve repair / replace · $145. Tap one and the description, the quantity and the price fill themselves in, all still editable. Every piece of work goes on as its own group — the labor line, the part, a plain-English note, a photo — and the note rides onto the estimate and then the invoice with it.
- They approve it from the driveway. Your business name, your logo, and your license number if you've entered one are already on the estimate. The customer types their name to approve and that name lands on the document with the date beside it. Estimates are good for fourteen days and the page says so on its face. If you want money before you dig, set a deposit — 10, 25, 33 or 50 percent as the shop default, or per estimate including waived — and once card payments are connected they can pay it right after they approve.
Repeat business — sell the next visit, not the year
Most advice for this trade says sign them to an annual maintenance agreement on the first visit. Try that on a homeowner who just found out zone 3 has been watering the driveway since June, and watch the room go quiet. They called about a leak. They did not call to commit a year to somebody they met twenty minutes ago.
You don't need the year. Irrigation already has the rhythm built into the pipe: a startup when the system wakes up, a blowout before the ground freezes. Sell the second one while you're standing at the controller for the first, on a repair call the customer is already paying for. That's a five-second ask on a job you're doing anyway — "every zone needs to be blown out before the freeze, or that cracked line you just paid me to fix turns into a burst main. Want me to put you on the fall list while I'm here?" A repair call has the one thing a cold pitch never does: they just watched something break.
- August is when the list gets built. Not October, when every irrigation tech in the county is running the same ad and the first freeze is already on the ten-day. SideWRK carries two reminders written for this trade specifically — Spring sprinkler startup and Fall blowout — and from September through November the fall one is tagged in season. In August it's already the next one queued. The wording is there in English and Spanish, and you edit it before it goes anywhere. SideWRK does not mail your customers; you send it from your own address, which is how the seasonal reminder works and why.
- Or put the visit on a plan and stop remembering. A recurring plan holds the work, the price and the cadence, and files a pre-filled job each cycle — sitting in your jobs, dated, ready to do and get paid. Cadence is weekly, every two weeks, monthly, or every N days, so a spring-and-fall system is an every-N-days plan or two dated ones. It seeds itself from the menu, so a plan starts as a real priced line, not a blank.
- "Do this again." Last fall's blowout duplicates onto a fresh estimate with every line at the same price — same property, same zone count, new date. Edit the two things that changed and send it. Credits and any negative line get left behind on purpose, so a break you gave somebody once doesn't ride along into next season.
- The record is what makes the fall visit cheap. Log it the day you're there: the zone count, the controller brand, the backflow type, well or municipal, and where the mainline shutoff is hiding. Come October you already know it's a twelve-zone system on a Rain Bird with a pressure vacuum breaker, so the blowout is a scheduled visit instead of a cold re-diagnosis with the compressor idling in the street.
- One message, one person. When you do reach out yourself, write it to the house: what you fixed in July, what's due before the freeze. From your own phone, to one customer, under a minute. A note written for one yard reads like it. A blast reads like a blast.
How an irrigation ticket adds up
Here's the stance, and plenty of techs will bristle at it: hourly billing is where this trade's margin goes to die. Irrigation repeats a short list of jobs constantly — startup, blowout, head, valve, controller — and every one of them should carry a menu price. A customer who hears "zone valve is $145" trusts you more than one who hears "well, it depends," and the menu pays you for being quick. Swap a head in twenty minutes at an hourly rate and you just billed yourself out of your own speed.
So open an irrigation estimate and the form deals this nine-line menu. Three of these live only here and not in the starting numbers at the top of the page — the per-zone add-on, the per-head line, and the backflow test:
Tap a service and the line fills in; the price stays editable. Keep that last row for the genuinely open-ended work — hunting a slow leak with no wet spot to follow, re-laying a zone somebody designed badly in 1998 — and tell the customer which bucket their job is in before you start, not after.
One number to reconcile before it confuses you. The $95 for a head replace up the page is a whole visit — the service call plus the head, which is how the calculator further down prices it. The $18 here is the head line on its own, added to whatever else is already on the ticket. Same trade, two different questions: what does the trip cost, and what does this one head cost while I'm already standing here.
Which is exactly what a fall visit looks like. The blowout is booked. The heads and the valve are what the air finds:
Four taps off the menu, four lines, one estimate — and no service call on it, because you were already scheduled. The blowout and the zones are $122 of that; the $181 of repair work is the part that would have been a shrug and a "there's a couple things wrong" if it weren't written down. That split is the whole argument for writing each fix as its own line, which the trade page makes in full.
Two settings do the quiet work underneath. Your hourly rate lives in the shop, and on a menu trade like this one it waits for the custom line rather than prefilling the priced ones. So does a job minimum: set it and any ticket that lands under it gets a flagged shortfall you can add as a visible "Shop minimum" line in one tap, instead of quietly fattening the blowout to cover the drive. And the head, the valve, the solenoid each carry a private cost box the customer never sees — put in what you actually paid at the supply house and the job screen shows Est. profit beside the total. Real profit, not just revenue. The irrigation app runs the three beats every trade shares: tap the work, send it, get paid.
Multiplying jobs
Nothing audits a system like blowing it out. Zone by zone, with the air on, you see every head that mists sideways, every rotor stuck at ninety degrees, every valve that takes a second too long to close. The blowout is the quick money. What you spot while doing it is the rest of the year:
- Photograph it in the box, not in a text thread. The photo attaches to that piece of work and goes out with the estimate. One plain sentence in the note travels with it onto the invoice — "Zone 3 valve seeping at the bonnet, holds pressure but won't fully close." The customer looks at a picture of their own valve box instead of taking your word for it, and next spring you look at the same picture instead of trying to remember.
- Let them pick. Tick "optional add-on" when you add a line and the customer checks or unchecks it themselves on the approval page, with the total moving live as they do. The backflow test, the controller nobody has reset since 2019, the two marginal rotors — offer them, and let the person paying decide which ones happen this year. That's the good-better-best close without a sales conversation.
- The number can't quietly grow. When a job's total passes what the customer already approved, a caution comes up on the job carrying both figures and offers two ways forward: log the authorization you got standing in the yard, or re-send the estimate. Nothing is blocked. It just won't let the change be invisible.
- Stock the truck for what the season actually breaks. Irrigation comes with its own starting list — spray heads, rotor heads, assorted PVC fittings, funny pipe and barbs, valves and solenoids, cement and primer — each with its own reorder point. Pull a part from stock onto a job and the count drops itself, and if that was the last one the app says so right then, while you're still near a supply house. Scan a barcode to find an item or drop it onto a line; the full picture is on truck stock and scanning.
- Build the price book as you go. Tick "save as one of my services" on a line and it comes back as a starred chip on every job after that — name, quantity, rate and note reloaded in one tap. By the fourth blowout of the week you're typing almost nothing, and the number you quoted in September is the number you quote in November.
- Then the follow-through, which the app runs. You get pinged the moment a customer opens the estimate — a push if you have notifications on, an email if you don't, one or the other and never both, at most once every six hours per job. An estimate nobody answered gets a plain follow-up email at 3 and 7 days, two at most. A finished job with money owed reminds itself at 3, 7 and 14 days with a pay link that settles by card or Apple Pay. Want to be paid into an app you already use? Send a payment request and it goes customer-to-you — the app tells you each one's rules for taking money for work first. A wrapped job asks for the review on its own, once, with a single nudge a few days later — and the ask is capped there on purpose.
The live irrigation demo boots a sample business priced this trade's way — the tap-to-fill menu, seeded jobs and paperwork, the saved-service chips, a standing blowout plan, and the work gallery, already on it. Free, no signup.
Price it now
Pick the service, set the zone band, add the backflow test if it's due — and put your own hard costs in, so what comes back is a price you'd actually send. The same free calculator the irrigation page runs, right here:
It scales by system size the way the work does — 5 to 8 zones at 1.3×, 9 or more at 1.7× — where the app's menu asks you to add the extra zones as their own line at $8 apiece. Two roads to the same place; use whichever one you'd rather explain to the customer. Inside SideWRK the same calculator opens right in the estimate and drops its lines onto the job.
The paper worth keeping
The records list up the page says what an irrigation job captures. This is why each one earns its keep — and what it saves you from reconstructing in March:
- The property, on the record. The label and the service address, the zone count, the controller brand, the backflow type, and whether it's running off city water or a well — plus notes for the shutoff location, the dead zones, and anything already leaking when you got there. That lives on the property in the app, and it's what turns a "same as last spring" phone call into a quote sent the same day. Of that record, the part that prints on the estimate and the invoice is the property label plus the work lines and the note you wrote on each one — so what the customer reads is what you actually did, in your words. The zone count, the controller and the backflow type stay in the app, where the next quote needs them.
- Three notices that print themselves. Every irrigation estimate and invoice carries the same three lines whether or not you remember them. First, that a blowout uses compressed air and over-pressurizing a system cracks fittings, valves and heads — so you work inside the system's rated pressure and note the damage that was already there — and that a winterization skipped, rushed or left half-done leaves water in the lines, where freeze damage to pipe, valves and the backflow assembly is a real risk the customer should hear about before the first hard freeze. Second, that backflow-preventer testing and work on the potable-water side of the system commonly calls for a licensed or certified backflow tester or plumber, that repairs past heads, valves and controllers can cross into licensed contractor or plumbing work, and that well and municipal-water rules and the licensing line are set locally — so confirm what applies at that address. Third, the quiet part out loud: SideWRK is a documentation tool, not legal advice, and doesn't determine or guarantee compliance with any licensing, backflow-certification, plumbing-code or water-authority requirement.
- Put the backflow test result on paper when you do one. Some water authorities want a test report on file, on a schedule they set, and a customer scrambling for one in front of a deadline remembers who had it. Write the reading and the date into the job note and it rides onto the document. That's your record and theirs, made once, at the valve, instead of rebuilt from memory in a parking lot.
- One caution raised on the job, not buried in a help page. When a ticket reaches the total where most states start wanting a contractor license and no license number is on file, the app says so — and says the part that catches people, which is that splitting one project across two estimates or two invoices doesn't get you under the limit. It doesn't block anything and it doesn't guess at your status. Where your state actually draws the line stays yours to check; your license number goes in Settings, after which it prints on every document you send.
- April, already done. Numbered invoices, payments, and the receipts for heads and valves and compressor fuel all roll into a year-end wrap-up: rows, category totals, CSVs, and a printable summary your preparer can actually use. The whole paper trail gets built while you work instead of reconstructed in March.
SideWRK helps you keep the records. The rules stay your state's and your water authority's, and meeting them stays yours.