Overview
Not every service fits neatly into a single price. The cost of cleaning 5 windows is different from cleaning 20. A 900-square-foot home may fall into a different pricing tier than a 3,000-square-foot home. Instead of asking customers to request a quote for these services, the Online Scheduler can calculate the price as they book.
Dynamic pricing uses the pricing rules you already configure in ServiceMinder. There isn't a separate set of online prices to maintain.
Depending on how you sell your services, there are two common approaches:
- Price by quantity when the customer knows how many units they need.
- Use a custom field with Pricing Bands when you need to collect information first and use it to determine the appropriate price.
As customers enter their information, the Online Scheduler updates the price automatically.
Choose the Right Pricing Approach
1. Price by Quantity
Quantity-based pricing works well when customers can easily tell you how many of something they need.
For example, imagine you offer window cleaning for $15 per window.
Instead of creating separate services for 5 windows, 10 windows, or 20 windows, the customer can select the number of windows they want cleaned while booking.
If they select:
- 5 windows, their price is based on 5.
- 12 windows, their price is based on 12.
- 20 windows, their price is based on 20.
The running total updates as the quantity changes. This approach works especially well for services or add-ons priced by things like windows, fixtures, rooms, or items.
Use quantity when the question you really need to ask your customer is simply: "How many?"
2. Use Custom Fields and Pricing Bands
Sometimes quantity isn't something you want the customer to adjust directly. Instead, you may need to ask a question such as:
- How many square feet is your home?
- How many bedrooms do you have?
- How many stories is the property?
- What is the size of the service area?
A Contact Custom Field can capture that information during booking. You can then use the value from that field to determine the service quantity and apply your existing Pricing Bands.
For the customer, the experience is simple: they answer a question and see their price. Behind the scenes, ServiceMinder uses their answer to determine the appropriate pricing.
A Few Real World Examples
Example 1: Price Carpet Cleaning by Square Footage
Suppose you offer Carpet Cleaning and want your per-square-foot rate to decrease for larger homes.
Your pricing might look like this:
| Square Footage | Rate |
|---|---|
| Under 1,000 sq. ft. | $0.30/sq. ft. |
| 1,000–3,000 sq. ft. | $0.25/sq. ft. |
| Over 3,000 sq. ft. | $0.20/sq. ft. |
Rather than asking the customer to select a quantity, you can ask for their home's square footage and let ServiceMinder calculate the rest.
1. Add the Custom Field to the Online Scheduler
First, make sure your Square Footage Contact Custom Field is available during online booking.
Navigate to: Control Panel > Scheduling > Online Scheduler Under Custom Fields, add the Square Footage field.
Customers will now be able to provide their square footage as part of the booking process.
2. Connect the Custom Field to the Service
Navigate to: Control Panel > Services Edit your Carpet Cleaning service.
First, confirm that the service is enabled for online scheduling.
Then find the Duration and Pricing section and set Override Quantity From to your Square Footage custom field. 
This tells ServiceMinder to use the customer's square footage as the quantity for the service instead of asking them to enter a quantity manually.
3. Create Your Pricing Bands
In the service's pricing settings, add the Pricing Bands you want to use.
That's it. If a customer enters 1,500 square feet while booking, ServiceMinder uses that value to find the appropriate Pricing Band and calculates the service using the corresponding rate. The customer doesn't need to understand the pricing rules behind the scenes. They simply provide the information you need and see their calculated price.
Example 2: Use Pricing Bands for Flat-Rate Ranges
Pricing Bands don't always have to calculate a per-unit price.
You can also use them to assign a set price based on the range a customer falls into.
For example:
| Home Size | Price |
|---|---|
| Under 1,500 sq. ft. | $199 |
1,500–2,500 sq. ft. | $329 |
2,500+ sq. ft. | $449 |
In this scenario, the square footage helps ServiceMinder select the right band, but the customer receives the set price for that range.
When configuring Pricing Bands this way, use Ignore Quantity so the quantity determines which band applies without multiplying the price by that quantity.
This can be useful when you want the simplicity of tiered pricing rather than charging for every individual unit.
Helpful Tips
Use quantity when customers already know the answer
If customers can easily answer "How many?", quantity-based pricing is usually the simplest experience.
A window cleaning customer probably knows they have 12 windows. They shouldn't have to understand your pricing structure to book them.
Use a custom field when you need to ask a question first
Custom Fields are helpful when the pricing input is information about the customer or property, such as square footage.
Once the field is enabled for the Online Scheduler, customers can provide that information during booking just as your team would capture it in ServiceMinder.
The scheduler uses the pricing you've already built
You don't need to recreate your Pricing Bands specifically for online booking.
The Online Scheduler reflects the pricing logic configured on the Service or Part.
If a price isn't changing as expected, start by checking the pricing configuration on the underlying Service or Part rather than looking for a separate scheduler pricing setting.
Make sure the Custom Field is connected to the pricing
Making a Custom Field visible in the Online Scheduler doesn't automatically make it part of the price calculation.
If you're using the field to drive quantity, make sure the appropriate Service is configured to use that field for Override Quantity From.
Think about what the customer understands
Your customers don't need to know what a Pricing Band or Override Quantity is.
Build the booking experience around questions they can answer confidently:
How many windows do you need cleaned?
What is the approximate square footage of your home?
ServiceMinder can handle the calculation from there.
Dynamic pricing works inside packages, too
The same pricing logic can carry into packages created with Proposal Templates.
If a Service or Part in a package is priced according to quantity or Pricing Bands, it can still calculate dynamically when the customer books that package through the Online Scheduler.
