Why the table is the page that sells
A customer with a broken thing asks three questions: can you fix it, what will it cost, how long. A price table answers two of them in the time it takes to scroll, and it is the reason a repair site converts or does not. Shops resist it for good reasons, mostly that prices change and that some jobs cannot be priced blind. Both are solvable, and neither is a reason to write "call for a price" and lose the customer to the shop that answered.
Here is how to build the tables, step by step.
1. Decide what belongs in a table
Anything with a known price and a known duration. Look at your last hundred jobs and the top ten will cover most of the work.
- Phone and computer: screen and battery by model, charging port, rear glass, keyboard, operating system reinstall, data recovery from a working drive.
- Appliance: the callout fee, then typical repair cost ranges by appliance and common fault.
- Bike: service levels, with what each includes, plus common jobs such as a gear cable, a wheel true or a brake bleed.
- Jewellery and watches: battery, resizing, clasp, rhodium plating, service by movement type.
- Shoes and alterations: the standard list, with turnaround beside each line.
- IT support: per user or per device by plan, and an hourly rate for ad hoc work.
Everything else gets a stated diagnostic fee and a fault form.
2. Choose the shape of the table
By model for phones and tablets, because the customer looks for their own device. Make it searchable or filterable once the list passes about thirty rows, group by brand, and put the newest models at the top of each group.
By item and fault for appliances, with a range rather than a single figure, and the callout fee stated separately so nobody thinks it is hidden.
By service level for bikes and for anything sold as good, better, best, with a short list of what each includes.
By job for jewellery, watches, shoes and alterations, in the order a customer would ask for them.
Two columns minimum: what it is, and what it costs. A third for turnaround is worth more than any paragraph beside it.
3. Build them as records, not as a picture
The commonest failure is a table baked into a page as an image or a hand-typed block that only the developer can change. Prices then drift out of date, and a wrong price on the site is worse than no price.
Build them as structured records, one row per repair, with fields for the item, the model or variant, the price, the turnaround and a note. You edit a row in your admin and the page updates. Where your software is the source of truth, the same fields can be kept in step with its menu.
4. Say what is included and what moves the price
Under every table, three or four lines in plain words. What the price covers, including the part and the labour. What grade of part you fit, and whether a cheaper or a genuine option exists. What the warranty is. What can move the price, such as further damage found once the device is open, and the promise that nothing is done beyond the quote without the customer's approval.
That last sentence is the one that turns a price table from a risk into a trust signal.
5. Put a Book button beside every row, or every group
The table is where the decision happens, so the action belongs there. A Book button per group, deep-linking into RepairDesk, RepairShopr, Housecall Pro, Jobber or Acuity with the repair pre-selected, so a customer who has just found the price for their model does not have to describe it again.
6. Keep the site and the booking flow in agreement
If the site says one figure and the booking step says another, you have undone the trust the table just built. Pick one source of truth, usually the software's service menu, and set a rule: when a price changes there, it changes on the site the same day. Put a "prices updated [month]" line under the table so customers know it is maintained.
7. Handle the awkward cases openly
- Older or discontinued items. Say that parts availability decides the price and the turnaround, and that you will confirm before ordering.
- Water damage and unknown faults. Diagnostic fee, stated, with whether it comes off the repair.
- Quotes after inspection. A jeweller pricing a complex restoration or an electronics repairer quoting from a fault description should say so plainly and route to a form with photos.
- Trade and business rates. A separate line pointing at the accounts page rather than a second public table.
8. Test the table on a phone
Mobile data, private window. Can you find your own device in under a minute? Does the table scroll sideways or reflow legibly? Are the numbers readable without zooming? Is the Book button reachable with a thumb? Most price tables are built on a laptop and read on a cracked screen.
Where this sits
Price tables you can edit yourself, with turnaround, warranty and a Book button that carries the repair into the booking flow, are the centre of every repair business website we build, alongside the appliance and bike variations where the shape differs. The table is not a price list. It is the page that decides whether the customer walks to you or to the shop that told them the number.