Knowing What Price Range to Quote for Your Travel Fee

First off let’s start with goal numbers and work our way backwards.

Disclaimer: Some states have maximums or specific ways to calculate travel fees. Always abide by the rules and regulations that apply to you. For the states, where you are allowed to decide your own travel fee, we will now go into talking about a recommended price range. Most notaries want to earn $100,000 a year. Hypothetically speaking, how many appointments would you have to complete to reach that goal?

Let’s do the math:

$100,000 divided by 12 months in a year = $8,333.33 per month.

A weekly breakdown would be $100,000 divided by 52 weeks in a year = $1,923.08

On the low range, let’s say you’re making $50 per appointment (including travel fee)

$1,923.08 per week divided by $50 per appointment = 38.46 appointments per week

A $50 total is pretty low, especially in states like California where the signature rate is $15 per signature. We have clients across the country who we manage Google Ads for and we’d say they charge an average of about $75 per appointment between signatures and travel fees. Let’s do the math at that level.

$1,923.08 per week divided by $75 per appointment = 25.64 appointments per week.

Let’s estimate that the average general notary appointment takes you about 15-20 minutes. You also have to factor in drive time back and forth. Altogether, we can estimate that the average general notary appointment takes you about 1 hour including drive time. That means that you would only have to work 25.64 hours per week in order to hit your goal of $100,000 per year. If you schedule your appointments in a location-intelligent way, you can even cut down on the travel time between appointments. For example, let’s say you schedule all of the customers who call from the East side of town for the morning, and you schedule all of the customers who call from the West side of town for the afternoon. You minimize the drive time between customers and can reach this goal with even less time spent in total. 

Now most of you reading probably have a smaller first goal that you want to hit before you start reaching for the $100,000 a year. Most notaries we talk to are part-time and have a regular job, or they’ve quit their job to pursue being a notary full-time, but are having trouble filling up their appointment calendar. Usually, if they have quit their job to pursue it full-time, but still aren’t getting any traction, they’re seriously contemplating giving up and returning to their old job. For someone in either of those situations, they aren’t even thinking about a $100,000 year yet. They would be happy with a $50,000 year, and work their way up from there. Let’s do the math for that one. This will be easy as $50,000 is exactly half of $100,000

At an average of $50 made per appointment, you would just need to complete 19.23 appointments/hours per week. 

At an average of $75 made per appointment, you would just need to complete 12.82 appointments/hours per week. Imagine only working 13 hours a week, and making $50,000 per year. Most people have to work a full 40-hour work week to make that kind of money. This is the beauty of being a notary. You can set your own schedule, work less hours, and still make great money. 

So let’s talk about pricing and quoting at the end of the conversation after you’ve asked the caller the 4 essential questions we went over in the previous blog. Of course, things will vary depending on where you are. If you are in a higher-income, major city, people are less price sensitive. If you are in a rural, low-income part of the country, people are more price sensitive. In general, we recommend that you want to make $50-$100 per appointment. We’re talking in terms of the total money collected between the signatures and the travel fee. A $50 total means different things in different states. Let’s say the document only requires one signature. If notarizations are $15 per signature in your state, that means you’re charging a $35 travel fee. If notarizations are $10 per signature in your state, that means you’re charging a $40 travel fee, and so on and so forth. So how do you know whether to charge a total of $50, a total of $75, or some other amount? The first thing you go by obviously is the number of signatures and the price per signature in your state. For example, if the caller needs 10 signatures and the price per signature in your state is $15, 10 signatures time $15 is $150. You can charge a travel fee on top of that, or waive your travel fee if you’re being nice. Now just because a caller only needs one signature, doesn’t mean you should automatically quote them for your lowest total of $50 between the signature and the travel fee. If the caller needs it done right away (within an hour or two,) most other notaries aren’t able to drop everything and accommodate them. If you are able to come through for them on short notice, consider charging more. Likewise, if the caller needs you to come after hours in the evening, you can bet that most notaries aren’t willing to go out after 5 pm. Charge more for the late-night service. In our opinion, you should shoot to an average of about $65-75 per appointment. That means half can be on the lower side of that, and half can be on the higher side of that. Now think back to the example of my notary client in Los Angeles who had to drive to the airport at nighttime to help out the mother in need with her minor travel consent form. In those rare occasions where a document has to be notarized within the hour, in the evening, and it’s incredibly important to the customer, that’s when you make $100+ on your travel fee. Try out different price points, and see how your particular local market responds. 

While we recommend you at least charge a total of $50 between the signature and the travel fee, you will have some callers who think that price point is way too high. If that’s the case you want to ask the following question. You want to ask if they absolutely need the mobile aspect of the service. If they tell you that they absolutely need someone to drive to them, because the person signing can’t get out of bed, or otherwise can’t leave a certain facility, then tell them that you have to charge a travel fee. Sometimes the callers will have the memory of going to a bank or the UPS store and getting a notarization done in the past for simply the state fee of $15 or $10 or whatever it is in your state. They may be thinking that the service should be the same price as they have in their memory without realizing that they need a mobile notary this time. They’re not factoring in the gas money and the extra time it takes you to drive to them. And in a post covid world, where you have to gown up to enter hospitals or complete certain health precautions before entering old folks’ homes, mobile appointments can take up a good amount of time. Explain to them that they are thinking of the price they would get for a signature if they themselves drove to a notary’s home or office. You may be a little nervous about using this rebuttal and explaining to them that your mobile notary travel charge is actually pretty generous at under $50.

Now if the caller is in fact willing to drive to you, and you yourself are willing to take them to your home, you can give them that option and just charge them the per signature fee. However, most notaries we work with aren’t comfortable taking people into their homes. They’ll usually compromise and lower their travel fee if the customer is willing to meet them halfway at a Starbucks or McDonald’s. Remember that you are not obligated to take every potential appointment. You may be out running errands, picking up your kids from school, or doing something at that moment where it’s just not worth it for you to drive home and carve out time to wait for somebody whose only willing to pay $5 or $10 because that’s the state per-signature fee. What we usually recommend is that if you are going to compromise the usual travel fee that gets you to that $50 mark, at least get a review out of it. If you are going to meet them halfway for less, or if you are going to let them come to your home for just the per signature fee, definitely get that Google My Business review. Sometimes, the only way that it’s worth it for you to accept people at your home and not be able to charge a travel fee, is if you get that review. As long as you get that review, it’ll be worth it, because once those reviews add up, you’ll get more than enough future business down the road, to warrant your sacrifice.