You charge $140 per tuning, you do three tunings a day, and you net $420. Subtract 90 miles of driving, two hours of windshield time, a broken string replacement you did for free because you were there, and the RPT exam fee you haven't yet amortized, and the day's profit is closer to $180 — before tax.
Piano tuning and repair looks like a per-appointment business, but it is a route business. The techs who clear six figures don't charge more per tuning — they drive less per tuning.
Per-Tune Job Costing
Every tuning has four cost buckets:
- Tuning labor: Hands-on tuning time, typically 60–90 minutes for a pitch-correct tuning, 120+ for a pitch raise plus fine tune. Track the appointment slot, not just the pin time, including setup and customer consultation.
- Drive time and mileage: A 28-mile average per appointment at $0.72 per mile is $20 in mileage plus 45 minutes of windshield time at your loaded rate. At $30 per hour loaded, that is $22.50 in drive labor. A scattered route where the next piano is 40 miles away can cost more in driving than the tuning itself.
- Small parts: Strings, pins, felts, and damper material for that appointment. A $12 bass string replacement is not overhead — it is job cost.
- Overhead per tuning: Tool depreciation (tuning hammers, ETD), association dues (PTG), insurance, and scheduling software, allocated per tuning. A $400 hammer over 2,000 tunings is $0.20 per tuning; a $150 annual PTG membership over 400 tunings is $0.38.
Total cost for a $140 tuning on a dense route (12 miles average): $5 chain? No — for piano: $14 mileage + $12 drive labor + $2 parts + $8 overhead = $36, leaving $104 contribution before tax. On a sparse route (38 miles average): $27 mileage + $28 drive labor + $2 + $8 = $65, leaving $75. That $29 per tuning spread is $11,600 over 400 tunings.
RPT Certification: When the Letters Lift Price
Registered Piano Technician (RPT) status from the Piano Technicians Guild requires three exams — written, tuning, and technical — and continuing education. The bookkeeping question is ROI:
- Cost: Exam fees, travel, practice pianos, and preparation time (often $1,500–$3,000 all-in).
- Benefit: Price lift of $15–$40 per tuning, access to dealer and institutional clients who require RPT, and eligibility for higher-value repair work that a non-RPT cannot ethically quote.
Book the certification as an intangible asset and amortize or expense under your capitalization policy, then track price lift per tuning after the designation. If the lift is $25 over 300 tunings in the next year, the incremental $7,500 covers the certification in the first year. Without that tracking, the credential feels expensive instead of accretive.
Building a Route Dense Enough to Pay
A six-figure tuning practice is a scheduling problem, not a pricing problem. The levers:
- Cluster by geography and day: Assign each day to a quadrant or town. Offer a $10 discount for a customer who takes the cluster day, and charge a trip fee for off-cluster requests. Your ledger should show revenue per mile by day — clustered days will be 2× sparse days.
- Service interval: Most pianos need tuning every 6–12 months. A customer on a 6-month interval is worth $280 per year; on a 14-month interval, $120. Track average interval by customer and market a 6-month reminder.
- Repair attachment: A tuning that reveals a needed regulation or voicing job at $250–$600 is where profit actually lifts. Quote the repair separately, book it as
Revenue — Repair, and track attach rate (repairs per 100 tunings). A 15% attach rate with $300 average repair adds $45 per tuning in expected value.
Keep Your Finances Organized From Day One
Piano tuning pays by the appointment and profits by the route. Cost per tuning, revenue per mile, and attach rate are the three reports that tell you whether the next 50 miles are worth driving.
Beancount.io keeps each appointment as a transaction with mileage, parts, and overhead, all version-controlled so last month's route can be diffed against this month's. Get started for free and make the route the product, not just the tuning.