How to Set Limo Rates: Hourly, Point-to-Point and Airport Pricing That Actually Covers Your Costs

What does an hour of service really cost you?

Most underpricing comes from counting only the hours a passenger is in the car. A 90-minute airport transfer can consume three hours of vehicle and chauffeur time once you add positioning, parking, waiting for a delayed flight and the empty return.

Build the number from your own accounts, per vehicle class, monthly. Then divide by realistically billable hours — not total hours available.

• Direct: chauffeur pay including payroll costs, fuel, tolls, parking, cleaning.
• Vehicle: finance or lease, insurance, servicing, tyres, depreciation.
• Non-revenue time: deadhead miles, positioning, waiting between jobs.
• Business: phone, software, accounting, marketing, card processing fees.
• Risk: a repair reserve and an allowance for cancellations and no-shows.

How should hourly rates and minimums work?

Hourly pricing suits charters, weddings, roadshows and 'as-directed' corporate work. The minimum is what protects you: a two- or three-hour minimum on a stretch or bus, garage-to-garage or portal-to-portal billing stated clearly, and overtime billed in defined increments.

Point-to-point: zones or distance bands?

Point-to-point pricing must be quotable in seconds and must not lose money on the long, low-value run. Two workable structures: fixed prices between named zones, or a base fare plus per-mile bands that step down as distance grows.

Whichever you pick, define the extras explicitly: additional stops, after-hours hours, extra passengers or luggage, child seats, tolls and airport access fees, and a defined out-of-area surcharge.

Airport pricing: where margin quietly disappears

Airport work is repeatable and reference-rich, which is why operators tolerate thin margins on it. Keep the margin by pricing the parts customers forget.

• Free waiting window — for example 30–60 minutes on arrivals from wheels-down, 15 minutes on departures — then a per-15-minute or hourly waiting rate.
• Flight tracking, so a delay does not become unbilled waiting time.
• Meet-and-greet as a separately priced option, since it consumes parking and time.
• Airport access fees and parking passed through as their own line.
• A late-night or early-morning differential if that is when your airport volume falls.

When should you discount — and when never?

Discount for volume you can plan around: a corporate account with weekly commitments, a hotel that delivers steady referrals, a return booked at the same time as the outbound. Never discount for a one-off retail enquiry that is comparing you to a rideshare app — that customer is not yours to keep.

Also decide your net rates for affiliate farm-in separately. Those are wholesale rates and should never be quoted to retail customers.

How often should the rate card change?

Review quarterly against fuel, wages and insurance renewals; re-price annually as a scheduled event with notice to corporate accounts. Grandfather contracted rates until their renewal date — surprise increases cost accounts.

In Limozoft, rate cards, hourly minimums, zone and distance pricing, waiting-time rules and per-account corporate rates live in the pricing engine, and quotes generated from them become bookings without retyping — inside one-time setup from $399, then $10–$40/month by fleet size, with no per-trip, per-booking or per-driver fees.