Pricing Considerations for Process Serving

When considering how to price your services speed of delivery is another factor to consider. It is one thing if you have a court document that needs served; it is another thing if your client needs it served right now.  Charge a rush fee for that.  Why?  Well, beyond the obvious, let me put it to you this way.  If you have five routine papers you need to serve and four of them are all situated in one general locale, but then you have the fifth one needs to be served that day … no, that very instant. Oh, and it is on the other side of town, thereby taking you away from the $240.00 you will make off of the four other papers, it just makes good business sense that the client needs to understand (and they typically do) that a premium charge will be assessed.  After all, you are now delaying serving four other papers just to insure that one is served.  Do not be shy about charging for a rush.  Sure, if you want to score points with the client, then perhaps you might occasionally consider not charging the rush fee.  Do that too often however and you will find yourself working harder for a lot less profit than you can reasonably expect to make.

The level of difficulty of the assignment is also a key factor.  Say you have to deliver court documents on a military installation and/or may have to wait two hours at a particular location for the defendant/witness to appear so you can serve them?  What if you have to develop some sort of complex operation, in order to find yourself in front of the defendant/witness, because they have been or are known to evade service?  Factor these into the equation on a case-by-case basis.

Number of documents served is another area to keep in mind.  Now I have seen this vary from server to server.  What happens if you have two different types of documents to deliver to the same individual? Should you charge for that extra document?  Some servers do not while others do, but at half the price of the first document ($30.00). Still others charge full price for the second document ($60.00).  In terms of pricing second instruments (or second documents), to charge or not to charge is the question.  If you ask your client, especially those who operate in family law, they do not like being charged per document for the obvious reason that it increases their costs.  In the case of family law where you typically see second, third and sometimes fourth instruments, you should consider the issue of your time. Various affidavits of service come with serving those extra documents; there is the factoring in that should you forget to deliver one of those extra documents that could mean the difference between a court appearance or a cancellation. You also have to consider your liability towards your client goes up considerably if you fail to complete or fail to serve everything properly.  What I have mostly experienced is charging second instruments at half the going rate of a first instrument.  Very few servers charge nothing for the extra document, and those that charge full price very rarely get the business or get it from a very loyal constituent of clients.

In my next post, I will provide you with two prevailing rules of capitalist economics.  First, charge what you can afford.  Second, charge based on demand. 

Are you ready to start your own Process Service business? Check out my book “The Business End of Process, Running a Process Service Company From the Ground Up” available on Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=%22The+Business+End+of+Process%22&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3A%22The+Business+End+of+Process%22&ajr=0.

Serving Process: What Should I Charge?

So how much should you charge for serving process?  The answer varies depending on whom you ask. I’ve heard that the “golden rule” states that the rate for service of a single instrument (one court document) be competitive with the rate charged by the local sheriff or constable’s office for the same exact assignment.  In my business dealings with other process servers however, I have experienced a variance in the price that, in some instances, wildly swings from one extreme to the other.

In my opinion, there is no hard and fast rule. An amalgamation of factors plays into pricing.  To a small degree, consider what the sheriff or the constable charges for serving papers.  They have traditionally been the ones that served civil process before private process servers came on the scene, and as such, many feel they have set the standard.  Perhaps not in terms of quality or speed of service, but for some reason the local shire reeves (this is the original pronunciation for the sheriff from the old English dialect) appear to have set the standard.  I would not consider them the only factor.  After all, the reason private process serving has become an industry at all is because the volume of work available is so enormous that the quality and speed of the service derived from the sheriff or the constables is substandard, particularly in large metropolitan markets.  Not because they are terrible at what they do, but for the most part they simply do not have the resources to do otherwise.

When considering what local law enforcement charges the public for service of process, factor in other things, too.  First, would be fuel costs.  Factor in the distance traveled to deliver a paper as it relates to fuel costs.  If you have to travel thirty miles to deliver a court document pricing should reflect that cost.  It has been said that for every dollar cost per gallon of gas, one should factor a cost of $5.00 for the service.  Now, that is not to say that if gas costs $1.00 per gallon that you should charge $5.00.  No, what it says is that if gas costs $3.00 per gallon, then your fuel costs for the average process serving assignment should be $15.00 plus the cost of actually doing the service.

 
You might be scratching your head, so let me give you an example.  It is usually recognized that if you have an overall price of $60.00 per court document served in your local market, $30.00 should be for the actual serving part of the assignment - $30.00 for your time to go from your office to the service address.  Then you add $15.00 to cover fuel costs.  Now you are at $45.00.  Wait you say; that doesn’t add up to $60.00, and you’re correct.  Factor the remaining $15.00 for your office expenses, such as paper and other office supplies, insurance, utilities, advertising costs, and taxes.  Taxes?  Process serving usually doesn’t come along with sales tax, you say.  Correct; but you have to factor in your income tax withholdings, property tax, franchise tax, and all other government levees placed upon your business in accordance with the laws of your city, county, and state governments. 

So what happens if fuel costs go up?  Well, if a gallon of gas goes from $3.00 to $4.00 t you should probably consider raising your price from $60.00 to $65.00.

Next posting, we will discuss more pricing considerations.

If you are interested in starting up your own Process Service business, please check out my book “The Business End of Process, Running a Process Service Company From the Ground Up” available now on Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=%22The+Business+End+of+Process%22&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3A%22The+Business+End+of+Process%22&ajr=0.