Priced the way Mechanic work is billed
A oil & filter change and a battery replacement don't get quoted the same way, so why would every trade? SideWRK prices Mechanic the way the work is really billed: by the hour + parts (default rate ~$110/hr). 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 Mechanic jobs actually run
These are the starting numbers SideWRK loads for common Mechanic 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.
Front brakes — pads & rotors, 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 $180 of labor is what you clear, not a marked-up parts total dressed up as profit.
What moves a Mechanic price
Two Mechanic 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:
- Parts quality — OEM, aftermarket, or used swings the bill more than labor on most jobs, so log which you put on and the price makes sense a year later.
- Diagnostic time — an intermittent electrical fault can eat two hours before you touch a part; charge the diagnostic, don't bury it in the repair.
- Customer-supplied parts — your labor is the same whether their part is $40 or $400, and a supplied part means no warranty on your work.
What a Mechanic job puts on the record
Every trade documents something different, and Mechanic is no exception. SideWRK captures VIN and year/make/model and the rest of what your work needs on the record — the details that protect you and make the invoice stand up:
- VIN and year/make/model
- the odometer reading in and out
- OEM recall lookup by VIN
- each part by condition — new, used, or aftermarket
- tire specs and pressures
Example note on a job: "Customer chose economy pads — advised they may be noisier."
How to price a Mechanic job in SideWRK
- 1
Start the job and add your work
Open a Mechanic job and tap a suggestion like "Oil & filter change" or "Front brakes — pads & rotors" — the common work is already loaded, so you tap instead of type.
- 2
Price it by the hour + parts
Enter the numbers and the line prices itself, by the hour + parts (default rate ~$110/hr). Put parts on at your cost so what you clear is real profit, not just the Mechanic ticket total.
- 3
Note the details
Add a plain-English note — for example, "Customer chose economy pads — advised they may be noisier." — and a photo of the work.
- 4
Log what the job needs
Capture the Mechanic-specific records: VIN and year/make/model, and the odometer reading in and out.
- 5
Send it and get paid
Send the Mechanic 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 Mechanic work — it doesn't make you licensed, and it says so plainly. What to know: many states require an auto-repair registration (in California, a BAR/ARD number), and a written, authorized estimate before you turn a wrench.
Mechanic pricing — common questions
How do I price a Mechanic job in SideWRK?
You bill by the hour + parts (default rate ~$110/hr). Add the work — Oil & filter change, Front brakes — pads & rotors, Diagnostic / scan — 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 Mechanic job cost?
It depends on the work, but as a realistic starting point a common job like front brakes — pads & rotors runs about $380 in the app — roughly $180 of that is your labor and about $200 is parts at your cost. Common Mechanic work ranges from about $45 to $380. Those are defaults you can change — you always set your own prices.
What does SideWRK document on a Mechanic job?
The records Mechanic work actually needs: VIN and year/make/model; the odometer reading in and out; OEM recall lookup by VIN. 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 Mechanic work?
That depends on your state and the job, but here's the shape of it: many states require an auto-repair registration (in California, a BAR/ARD number), and a written, authorized estimate before you turn a wrench. SideWRK documents the work; it doesn't certify you.
Does SideWRK work for trades other than Mechanic?
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 first job for a stranger is not a pricing problem. Somebody is handing you the keys to the car they need for work tomorrow, and deciding in the first ten minutes whether you still exist next month. Three things settle that, and your number is not one of them:
- The car goes on the record before the quote does. Hold the phone up to the VIN in the door jamb and the app reads it off the plate, then decodes it against the federal NHTSA database — year, make and model come back and fill themselves in. The job opens attached to that car instead of "the silver sedan," which is the whole difference between a record and a memory when the same person calls you in October.
- The number is in writing before you turn a wrench. The estimate goes out as a link. They open it on their phone, see your shop name at the top (and your registration number, if you have put one in Shop), type their name (the page says plainly that typing it is their electronic signature on the approval), and tap Approve. The app stores the dollar figure they approved, and tells them the prices hold for 14 days.
- Nothing gets added quietly. The moment the running total climbs past what was authorized, the job puts a banner in front of you naming both numbers, with a Log authorization button beside it. On the customer's side the button changes from Approve to Authorize at the new total. The "while I was in there" argument, settled before it can start.
The rest is yours alone. Show up when you said, or send the two-minute text when you can't. Then do what you said and nothing else. One line on an invoice nobody agreed to closes the file for good, and no app undoes that for you.
Repeat business — follow the car
Do the brakes, get paid, go hunt another stranger. That is the loop most side mechanics run, and it is the most expensive way there is to turn a wrench, because the customer was never the job. The customer is the car — and cars need things on a schedule you already know by heart.
Run the arithmetic on one. Take the $380 front brake job above as the first call, then follow that car for five years using nothing but this page's own starting prices. No new customers, no advertising, no discounts:
| Year | What the car needed | Billed |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Front brakes $380, oil & filter $75 | $455 |
| 2 | Two oil changes $150, battery $240 | $390 |
| 3 | Two oil changes $150, serpentine belt $180 | $330 |
| 4 | Two oil changes $150, diagnostic $120 | $270 |
| 5 | Two oil changes $150, two rotations $90, front brakes again $380 | $620 |
| Five years | One car, one phone number | $2,065 |
Arithmetic on this page's own starting prices, not a promise — your market and that car's luck move every row. The shape is the point: the first $380 ticket is a decision about the next five years, and almost nobody prices it that way.
Which is why the loyalty coupon is the worst deal in this trade. An oil change bills $75 and costs you $30 in oil and a filter, so the visit carries $45 for your time. Hand back $20 of it and you gave away better than four dollars in ten, to somebody who was already coming back, and taught them your labor is negotiable. Sell the record instead. It is the thing a stranger with a cheaper hourly rate cannot hand them:
- The file lives on the car, not in your head. Open a customer and every vehicle under them carries its own History button with the job count printed on it. Tap it and that car's work unfolds underneath — every job, newest first, dated, each one opening to the whole ticket. The VIN sits on the row. Switching mechanics means starting that file over at zero, and people feel it.
- "Same as last time" is two taps, not a retype. A wrapped job copies itself into a fresh estimate: same customer, same car, same title, every line carried at the same price. You edit from there. Last spring's oil change took nine minutes to write. This spring it takes about fifteen seconds.
Two habits fill that table, and neither is a discount. The first is saying what's coming while the car is still in the air — you can see what the owner can't. Tires at 4/32, a belt starting to crack, pads with a season left. Said as a heads-up rather than a pitch, with a real number on it — "that belt has maybe a year in it, budget around $180 before it lets go on the highway" — it lets someone plan instead of feel sold. Look back at the five-year run: the year-three belt, the year-five brakes, the battery in year two. None of those calls happen by accident. Each one exists because somebody named it early.
The second is asking for the next visit before you shut the hood. "Oil's due in about 3,000 miles — want a text when it's time?" Almost nobody says no, and the yes costs you nothing. A few days later, one short message: how's the car running. Twenty seconds, and hardly anyone does it, which is exactly why it lands — and it is the natural moment for the review ask, while the relief of a fixed car is still fresh.
How mechanic work bills
Forty-two trades in this app, and five of them bill by real hours: mechanic, small engine, handyman, heavy equipment, welding. Everything else prices per square foot, per window, per load, or off a flat menu. Here every line comes down to two numbers you already know — the clock and the parts invoice — and the prices at the top of this page are those two already multiplied out. Split them back apart and they read like this:
| Work | Ticket | Parts at cost | Your labor | Hours at $110 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oil & filter change | $75 | $30 | $45 | 0.4 |
| Front brakes — pads & rotors | $380 | $200 | $180 | 1.6 |
| Diagnostic / scan | $120 | — | $120 | 1.1 |
| Battery replacement | $240 | $180 | $60 | 0.5 |
| Tire rotation | $45 | — | $45 | 0.4 |
| Serpentine belt | $180 | $90 | $90 | 0.8 |
The app's starting numbers, and you can change any of them right on the line. The right two columns are the ticket minus the parts, and that labor divided by the $110 default rate. That last column is the one that decides whether a job is worth the drive.
A menu prices the job you were called for. Most mechanic tickets are not that. They start with a scan and finish somewhere the customer never mentioned on the phone:
The parts cost you $270, and that number stays on your side of the paper. So the ticket is $270 of labor against roughly two and a half hours in the driveway — what you actually made, not what you charged.
Then comes the question every mechanic gets asked at the driver's window: if I let you do the work, does the scan come off? The app will do it. Credit service call drops a negative line on the ticket and prefills the amount from your diagnostic line. Run the number before you offer it. Take the whole $120 off and the customer pays $420, your parts still cost $270, and the $150 left has to cover two and a half hours: $61 an hour, a shade over half your rate. That is the trap in copying the flat-menu trades. Their service call is a trip fee, and their menu price already carries the labor, so handing it back costs them the drive. Yours is an hour you actually worked. The field takes any number you type, so if you want the gesture, take $40 off it: the ticket reads $500, you keep $230 on the same two and a half hours, that is $94 an hour, and the customer still hears you took part of the scan off.
For the work no menu can price, like the intermittent electrical fault the drivers list above warns you about, there is a stopwatch on the job itself. Start it when you open the hood, stop it when you shut it, and the button offers you the hours rounded to the nearest quarter, fifteen minutes minimum, dropped onto the ticket at your saved rate. It is how you bill a two-hour chase you could never have quoted.
Multiplying jobs
Here is what this trade has that none of the others on this site do. The thing you worked on carries a seventeen-character name, that name decodes into a year, make and model, and the federal government keeps public safety records on exactly that. Not paperwork. A reason to call.
- Open recalls, on a button. Any vehicle with a make and model gets a Recalls button — on the car's row under the customer, and on the job. It asks NHTSA and comes back with the open safety campaigns for that vehicle: the component, the campaign number, and the manufacturer's own remedy line. One tap shares or copies the list as a plain message you can send. It is not work you quote. It is two minutes that makes you the person who tells them things.
- Parts, looked up from the car you're standing next to. The Parts button opens with the VIN already copied to your clipboard. Under it sit your own suppliers, starred ones first with the account number on the row, plus a catalog link built from that car's make, year and model and a plain parts search for the same. Open it from inside a job and what you find drops straight onto the ticket: part number, quantity, your price, your cost, and its condition.
- The van keeps its own count. Truck stock starts empty, with one-tap chips for what a mechanic actually carries — engine oil by the gallon, oil filters, air filters, brake cleaner, shop rags, washer fluid — and each one you add gets its own "Warn me when down to" number. Scan a barcode to find one or add one. Use one on a job and the count drops when you save, and the app says so on the spot: "3 each left — getting low," or "That was your last one — reorder it." Anything at or under its number shows up in a running-low bar when you open the app. Better than finding out on a Saturday with the hood already up.
- The follow-ups you would never get around to. An estimate nobody answered gets a nudge at three days and again at seven, two at most. An unpaid invoice gets a reminder at three, seven and fourteen carrying a link to pay the balance by card. (Getting paid into an app you already use rides a payment request you send yourself, not the automatic reminder.) A finished job goes and asks for the review by itself, once, then nudges once more a few days on. Email only, never text, and every one of them a checkbox in Shop you can switch off.
What none of that covers is the sentence you have to say when the scan you were called for turns up something you weren't. Show the Worn Part Before You Quote the Fix is this trade's deep-dive on exactly that — the three questions a find has to clear before you mention it, how to put it in front of somebody so it reads as information instead of a sales call, and why saying "that one can wait" out loud is what makes the rest of your quotes land at full price. Read it before the next scan.
Every one of these is running on a seeded shop in the live mechanic demo — nothing to sign up for.
Price it now
Labor, parts, and the common jobs already loaded. This is the free estimator from the mechanic page, dropped in so you don't have to go get it:
The paper worth keeping
Up the page is the list of what a mechanic job records. Here is what each one is actually for, on the day it matters:
- The car, printed on the document. Year, make and model, the VIN, and the mileage all sit in the header of the estimate and the invoice. A year on, that is what tells you which of the two Civics in that driveway got the brakes.
- Odometer in and out. Two boxes on the job: the reading when it came to you, and the reading when you handed the keys back. The out reading lands on the final invoice. It is the cheapest answer there is to "this started right after you had it."
- Tire pressures, remembered. Set front and rear PSI on a job and they print on the document. The first time you set them the app also files them on the car as its placard spec, so the next visit fills both boxes in one tap and you are comparing against what that car is supposed to run.
- Every part by what it actually is. Used, reconditioned, rebuilt, OEM crash, aftermarket crash, customer-supplied: the tag rides the line on the invoice next to the part number, while your cost stays on your side of it. A part with no tag reads as new, which is the convention the whole trade runs on. Customer-supplied is the one to tag every single time. The drivers list above says why it does not change your labor; the tag is the separate thing — the only record on the invoice of whose part failed, six months from now, when somebody asks.
- Your registration number, on everything you send. Shop has a field labeled "Registration / license #," and whatever you put in it prints on every estimate and invoice. States that register auto repair generally want the same two things: a written estimate the customer authorized before the work, and their copy of it after. The approval flow up this page is that record: what they approved, when, and the name they typed. Whether your state registers you, and from what point, is yours to check. The app's job is making sure the paper exists either way.
- Tax time, mostly already filed. Numbered invoices, the payments actually received, and scanned parts receipts roll into a year-end wrap-up: a cash-basis summary for the year, spreadsheet exports, a mileage estimate, and a page you can print for whoever does your return. No box of curled receipts under the bench.
SideWRK is a documentation tool, not legal advice. It keeps the records; the rules stay your state's, and meeting them stays yours.