How to price welding jobs

A welding shop prices three kinds of work. Repairs are priced by the hour with a minimum. Fabrication is priced by the job or by the piece from a drawing. Mobile work adds a trip charge. All three start from the same number: an hourly rate that covers your wage, your burden, your equipment and your overhead, with profit on top.

What goes into a welding job

• Your time. Fit-up, welding, grinding and finishing, plus the time on the phone and writing the quote.
• Material. Steel, aluminum or stainless, with waste and the trip to the supplier.
• Consumables. Wire or rods, shielding gas, grinding and cutting discs, tips and liners.
• Equipment. Welders, the plasma cutter, the saw, the truck and the rig, and what they cost to keep running.
• The drive. For mobile work, miles and time both ways.
• Overhead and profit. Rent, insurance, phone, software, slow weeks, and what the business keeps.

Setting your shop rate

Start with the wage. The closest group the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes is welders, cutters, solderers and brazers. In its May 2025 wage survey, that group's national mean wage was $27.29 an hour and the median was $25.84 (BLS OEWS 51-4121). Certified pipe and structural welders, and anyone running TIG on aluminum, are worth more than the median.

Add your labor burden on top: payroll taxes, workers' comp and any paid time off. If burden in your state comes to 20% of wages, a $27.29 an hour tech costs you $32.75 an hour. That loaded number is what goes into the job cost.

Then divide your overhead by the hours you really bill, not the hours you are in the shop. Thumbtack says hourly rates can reach as high as $120 an hour. The free welding shop rate calculator works out your own rate from wages, overhead, consumables and billable hours.

Your minimum charge

A ten minute repair uses the same setup, cleanup and conversation as an hour of work. Thumbtack notes that some welders charge an average minimum of $60 for any welding work no matter how small the job, and quotes a Texas welder at $25 to $30 for tack welds on a patio chair. Set a minimum that covers your setup and one billable block of time, and put it on every small repair.

Koira estimates carry a setup fee, a minimum charge and a rush percentage from your price list defaults, and they carry through to the invoice and the customer's page. Per part, per batch and per pound lines sit on the same price list.

Mobile work and trip charges

Charge for the drive both ways. The IRS business rate is 76 cents a mile for the second half of 2026 (IRS standard mileage rates), and the time behind the wheel is time you are not billing. Many mobile welders add a flat trip charge for the first zone and a per mile charge past it.

Published welding prices

These are national consumer figures from Thumbtack, so they show what customers are told to expect. Use them as a check on your own math.

A worked example: a mobile trailer tongue repair

Every input is an assumption for the example, except the wage and the mileage rate, which come from the sources above.

• A cracked trailer tongue, cut out, plated and welded on site.
• Labor: 2.5 hours at $32.75 an hour, the BLS mean wage plus 20% burden.
• Material and consumables: $40 of steel, wire and gas, and $12 of discs.
• Drive: 30 miles round trip at the IRS rate of 76 cents.
• Overhead 25% of the price and profit 15%.

1. Labor on site: 2.5 hours x $32.75 = $81.88
2. Steel, wire and shielding gas: $40
3. Grinding discs and consumables: $12
4. Drive: 30 miles round trip x $0.76 = $22.80
5. Direct cost: $81.88 + $40 + $12 + $22.80 = $156.68
6. Overhead plus profit: 25% + 15% = 40% of the price
7. Price: $156.68 / (1 - 0.40) = $156.68 / 0.60 = $261

Check it: 40% of $261 is about $104, and $261 minus $104 is about $157, the direct cost of $156.68. The profit and overhead are inside the price, not added on top of a cost you guessed.

That is about $104.40 for each hour on site, under the $120 an hour Thumbtack gives as the high end, and $261 sits under Thumbtack's $305 to $480 national average range. Bigger jobs, certified work and fabrication from drawings land higher.

Pricing fabrication

Price a gate, a railing or a run of brackets from the drawing: material with waste, cut and fit hours, weld hours, finish hours, and finishing work you send out, like powder coating, at what it costs you plus your markup. For a run of parts, price per part with a setup fee for the jig and the first piece. The quote form on your Koira site takes PDF, DXF and STEP files with the request.

Paid at pickup

When the job is done, mark it Ready. Koira texts the customer once that it is ready for pickup, or shipped, with the pay link, so most work is paid before it leaves the shop. On Grow the text goes from your Koira number; it waits in your quiet hours and never goes to someone who replied STOP.

Common welding pricing mistakes

• No minimum. Small repairs eat a day if each one is priced by the minute.
• Free drive time. Mobile work without a trip charge pays you for half the day.
• Old steel prices. Quote material at today's price and say how long the quote holds.
• Consumables forgotten. Gas, wire and discs add up on every job.

Sources

Every published figure on this page was read on the source page itself on the date shown. Worked example inputs are assumptions, labeled as such.

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025, Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers (51-4121), checked October 10, 2026
• Thumbtack: How much does welding cost?, checked October 10, 2026
• IRS: Standard mileage rates, checked October 10, 2026

Questions contractors ask

Shane Allen writes Koira's guides for trade business owners. How we check our numbers.