Generate Accurate and Competitive Pricing with ServiceTitan Core Features

In the next episode of Mastering ServiceTitan, where we seek expert advice from power users, our conversation delves into one of the most valuable—and underutilized—capabilities within ServiceTitan Core: pricing automation. 

Steve Cossette, ServiceTitan Expert and Consultant at Titan Wizards, breaks down the mechanics and strategic importance of Dynamic Pricing, a feature that allows businesses to automatically generate accurate, margin-protecting prices based on real data, as well as Client-Specific Pricing (CSP), a powerful tool for commercial or construction time-and-materials work that lets businesses apply custom pricing rules to individual customers.

Cossette explains what prerequisites companies need in place, how to structure their pricebook, and why this workflow becomes transformative for technicians, managers, and the bottom line. 

Whether a company is cleaning up a messy price book or trying to scale with confidence, Cossette and podcast host Josh Lu show how these features can bring clarity, consistency, and profitability to every job.

What is Dynamic Pricing?

Cossette, known as the “literal wizard” for his superior problem-solving skills when it comes to all things ServiceTitan, explains how Dynamic Pricing works.

First, Dynamic Pricing is mainly used by businesses who use flat-rate pricing vs. hourly rates when performing jobs for customers, and it only works with materials and/or equipment linked to services. 

Prerequisite #1: Ensure services are linked to materials and/or equipment, and include the sold (billable) hours for those services. 

• Note: Dynamic Pricing applies only to services, not individual materials. It automatically includes the cost of linked materials and equipment when setting the service price.

“I usually recommend using a service as a starting point,” Cossette says. “Once that happens, ServiceTitan will be calculating based on what you configure for Dynamic Pricing. For all the material costs, for example, it will mark it up how you want it.”

Prerequisite #2: It’s best to fully configure your pricebook in ServiceTitan before using Dynamic Pricing.

You can add markups based on gross margin, a multiplier, or a percentage.

“However you like it, and then generate your service price from there,” Cossette explains. “It’s going to be dynamic, meaning that as you update your material cost or change the hours, the price is automatically going to update in real time.”

As far as the prerequisite workload, linking services to materials and equipment, setting your sold hours for services, and fully configuring your pricebook may take some time on the front end, but you’ll ultimately save time through pricing automation.

Cossette says the hardest part for most businesses is knowing the average amount of materials or equipment to link to each task. If you click into the service in ServiceTitan, you can choose the exact quantity for equipment and materials for each service you offer.

“Once you have all of that and you have the category that the service resides in added to your Dynamic Pricing, then the price is automatically going to update,” he says.

Pro Tip: If your pricebook isn’t fully configured, start with your static pricing and set up Dynamic Pricing on the backend with all of the rules, rates, and calculations. Once it’s configured, revisit your most common services first and flip those over to Dynamic Pricing one at a time.

“The most common services are going to be the installer ones. For example, AC furnace coils. Then, work on the services that are not static,” Cossette says, such as your $99 tune-up special that may be costing you $105 in labor and materials to complete. “Just try to add your material cost to as many of your tasks and go by order of priority.”

“So, you’re saying I can update the cost of one material and every single service that uses that material will dynamically update in real time?” podcast host Josh Lu asks.

“Yep,” Cossette says. “All your technicians need to do is download the latest pricebook and that's it.”

Set up Dynamic Pricing rules

Make sure your Dynamic Pricing rules include:

• Billable rates: Labor costs based on technician paid hours

• Material markups: Flat or percentage-based markups applied to material costs

• Equipment markups: Similar markups applied to equipment costs

• Surcharges: Fees for specific scenarios, such as after-hours work or add-on services

Then, you’ll select your categories (same as your pricebook categories), add the markups and surcharges, save the rules, then preview your Dynamic Pricing changes, Cossette says.

“This feature dynamically and automatically ensures you have the right price for the right job every single time,” Lu says.

Linking all of your services to materials also improves your ServiceTitan reporting data and prepares you “to tackle the beast that is inventory,” Cossette says.

>>Ready to learn more about setting up Dynamic Pricing? Watch this video.

What is Client-Specific Pricing?

Simply put, Client-Specific Pricing automates how you charge your customers for commercial jobs. It’s mainly used by commercial and construction contractors who charge by time and materials used on the job, rather than charging a flat rate.

This feature allows businesses to create custom "rate sheets" to automate pricing for individual commercial clients, overriding standard pricebook rules. Each rate sheet defines the labor rates, materials and equipment markups or discounts, and any fees, so pricing is applied consistently and automatically. 

Another key difference is that Dynamic Pricing is generated on the specific service or task before the customer ever sees it, while Client-Specific Pricing is generated when it’s added to the customer’s invoice, Cossette says.

“It’s customer-specific instead of being task-specific or category-specific,” he explains.

Some businesses even create hybrid pricing models, where they use Dynamic Pricing for certain customers and Client-Specific Pricing for others. With a recent update to this feature, you can now exclude specific pricebook categories.

“For example, if you have three categories that are using Dynamic Pricing and three that are using Client-Specific Pricing, then you can save those three Dynamic Pricing categories on your Client-Specific model and roll them out. You’re going to be able to segment your pricebook in the different ways that you're making your prices,” Cossette says.

Often, businesses performing both residential and commercial services create their own hybrid pricing strategies to automate pricing for both types of customers.

To set up Client-Specific Pricing, just make sure your costs for materials and equipment are accurately represented in your pricebook.

“You don't need to link anything to anything, but you need to make sure your materials or equipment have accurate costs there. Because if you have no cost, it cannot generate the price,” Cossette explains. “You also have to make sure that you have some labor services. But if you're on time and materials, you already should have that.

“Once that’s done, you’ll get it turned on, get the filters set up, and just have fun,” he adds.

Again, both features are available through the core ServiceTitan package, with no extra or add-on fees.

>>Want to learn more about Client-Specific Pricing? Watch this video.