Editorial Policy

Trade Price Book explains the business and sizing math of trade work. People set prices and buy equipment from what they read here, so the rules for what gets published are strict. This page sets them out, and says what happens when something is wrong.

Who is responsible

Trade Price Book is run by people who operate a plumbing and sewer business in the United States. The site is published under its own name, Trade Price Book, and the people who run it set the rules on this page and are responsible for every guide and tool. We are not accountants, attorneys or engineers, so the site stays within a clear lane: how the numbers are calculated, and what the cited sources say. There are no guest posts and no paid contributors.

What the site covers, and what it doesn't

Covered: labor rates, overhead, markup and margin, job costing, estimates and invoices, the published formulas behind common plumbing, HVAC and electrical sizing estimates, and plain comparisons of field-service software.
Not covered: tax, legal or accounting advice for your business; what your local code requires on a particular job; design work that the law reserves for licensed professionals.
Each guide answers one concrete question. We don't publish several pages that say the same thing under different keywords. If two questions share an answer, they share a guide.

How guides are sourced

Primary and authoritative sources first: the IRS, the Social Security Administration, the U.S. Department of Labor and Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Small Business Administration, the U.S. Department of Energy and ENERGY STAR, standards and code bodies, manufacturers' technical documents, and software vendors' own pricing and documentation pages.
Every guide lists its sources at the end, and important claims link to the source where they are made. A claim that can't be traced to a source isn't published as fact; rules of thumb are labeled as rules of thumb.
Guides report what the sources say and attribute it. They don't claim testing, customer stories or results that did not happen.
Every number in a worked example is computed, then checked against the site's own tools.
We don't reproduce copyrighted code tables. Where a tool needs them, it computes from the published formula and says so, or it isn't built.

How software is compared

Software pages are built from each vendor's public pricing and documentation, read on the date shown on the page. When pricing isn't public, we say so. We don't claim hands-on testing we haven't done, we don't accept payment for placement or for a better write-up, and a vendor that pays an affiliate commission is described by the same rules as one that doesn't.

Use of AI tools

Guides are researched and drafted with AI writing tools that work to the rules on this page. Before a guide is published, a separate review pass checks every factual statement against its cited source and recomputes every worked example; a statement that cannot be confirmed in a source is corrected or removed. Sources are never invented: each one listed was opened and read during that process. Reader reports and the yearly re-check are reviewed by the people who run the site.

Dates and updates

Each guide shows the date it was first published and the date it was last updated. The updated date changes only when the content changes in substance, not for cosmetic edits. Tax rates, mileage rates and software prices change, so guides are re-checked against their sources at least once a year, and software pages more often.

Corrections

If you find an error, email hello@tradepricebook.com with the page address and, if possible, a source. We check every report. When a factual error is confirmed, we fix it and add a dated “Correction” note at the top of the guide that says what changed. Spelling and formatting fixes are made without a note.

Tools

The tools follow the formulas and assumptions stated on each page, and their arithmetic is covered by automated tests that compare results with independently worked examples. If a tool produces something wrong, it is fixed first and explained second. Please report problems through the contact page.

Advertising is separate from content

Ads are served by Google AdSense. Each ad position is labeled “Advertisements”, sits in its own clearly marked box, and is never placed inside a tool, a table or the middle of a sentence.
Advertisers have no say in what we write, and we don't know in advance which ads Google will show. An ad on a page is not a recommendation.
Guides never ask readers to click ads.

How tools are chosen for gear lists

Gear lists name pro-grade tools by brand and exact model, with facts taken from the manufacturer's own product page and the date it was read. We list a tool because it fits the job the page is about — not because of its commission rate. We don't claim to have tested a tool unless the page says how, we don't publish ratings we didn't measure, and we don't show prices: check the current price on the seller's page.

Independence

Trade Price Book is not affiliated with any software company, supplier, manufacturer, trade association, code body or government agency. Organizations are named only as the sources of the information discussed or the products described. We don't offer trade services or sell job leads through this site.