Hourly rates by provider type
| Job | Hourly rate |
|---|---|
| General home repairs, Vancouver | $70–$100 / hr |
| Typical Metro Vancouver range | $70–$120 / hr |
| Canadian average, professional services | $85–$110 / hr |
| Specialized work | $150+ / hr |
The charges that are not in the hourly rate
The advertised rate is rarely the whole bill. Four things get added, and they are worth asking about before you book rather than after:
| Job | Typical add-on |
|---|---|
| Minimum service charge Most handymen bill a minimum | 1–2 hours |
| Emergency, weekend or after-hours | Premium rate |
When hourly is the right call
Hourly billing genuinely is cheaper for small, visible, bounded work: mounting a TV, swapping a light fixture, hanging shelves, changing a lock. You can see the whole job from the doorway, so nobody is pricing in uncertainty. Hire an hourly handyman and pay the minimum.
When hourly starts costing you
The moment a job has unknowns, hourly billing transfers those unknowns onto your invoice. Opening a wall to patch drywall and finding water damage, pulling a door frame and finding rot, a second trip because the right trim was not on the van — under hourly billing you pay for all of it, and you learn the total at the end.
Three signs a job should be fixed-price rather than hourly:
- It will take more than about half a day
- Anything is hidden behind a surface
- More than one trade or material type is involved
How we price instead
Thatcher Home does not bill hourly. We quote a fixed price for the whole job from photos before anyone is dispatched, and that number is what you pay. Working out how long something takes is our problem to solve, not a risk to pass to you.
That is not always the cheaper answer. If you need twenty minutes of work, an hourly handyman will beat us and we will tell you so on the phone. Our minimum is $500 because below that the cost of quoting, scheduling and documenting a job exceeds what the job is worth.
Where it pays off is everything above that line — drywall repair, door and trim packages, deck repair, rental turnovers.
Common questions
Is an hourly handyman cheaper than a fixed price?
For genuinely small jobs, usually yes. If you need one shelf hung, an hourly handyman with a one-hour minimum is the cheapest way to get it done and you should hire one.
For anything over about half a day the math flips. Hourly billing means you carry the risk of the job running long — a second trip for materials, a wall that opens up worse than expected, a slow morning. On a fixed price that risk sits with the contractor.
Why do quoted hourly rates vary so much?
Mostly insurance and overhead. A self-employed handyman at the bottom of the range may carry no general liability cover and no workers compensation. If they are injured on your property or damage something expensive, that can become your problem. An insured company near the top of the range is carrying those costs inside the rate.
Ask any hourly quote two questions: is that the rate for the whole crew or per person, and is there a minimum.
What is a fair minimum charge?
One to two hours is standard. Anything higher without a clear reason — or a trip charge stacked on top of a two-hour minimum — is worth questioning before you book.
Should I pay hourly or a flat rate?
Hourly suits small, clearly bounded tasks where you can see the whole job from the doorway. Flat rate suits anything with unknowns, anything over half a day, and anything where you want the final number before work starts.
The one combination to avoid is hourly billing on a job nobody has properly looked at. That is how a small estimate becomes a large invoice.
Do handymen in BC need a licence?
BC has no provincial licence for general handyman and minor repair work. Electrical, gas and plumbing work are regulated trades that require licensed contractors. Most Metro Vancouver municipalities also require a business licence for contractors working within their boundaries.
Rates compiled from published 2026 Canadian cost data (HomeStars, UrbanTasker and Metro Vancouver contractor pricing guides), in CAD. We update these figures from our own completed jobs each quarter.