Should you publish EV charger install prices on your website?
The case against publishing electrical prices, why it is mostly wrong for EV charger work, and how to write a range that filters shoppers without losing jobs.
The objection comes up in every conversation about an electrician's website, and it always sounds the same: "I cannot put prices on the site. Every house is different. If I publish a number, somebody holds me to it or somebody cheaper undercuts it."
The first half of that is true. The second half is where most shops lose money.
What the homeowner is actually doing
Someone who just ordered an electric vehicle has a delivery date and a garage with no charger. They open six tabs. They are not choosing an electrician yet. They are trying to establish one fact: is this a $900 problem or a $6,000 problem.
Every site with no price loses that person, because the only way to get the answer is to call and be sold to. The site that says "on a panel with available capacity, a hardwired Level 2 charger with up to 25 feet of conduit runs $850 to $1,600, permit included. If your panel is full or you are on 100 amp service, add $3,200 to $5,400 for a service upgrade" gets the call. Not because it is cheaper, but because it answered the question and sounded like it knew what it was talking about.
The price-shopper argument, examined
The fear is that publishing a range attracts people who only care about price. In practice it does the opposite, for a specific reason: a range with conditions attached does the qualifying for you.
The homeowner who reads "add $3,200 to $5,400 if your panel is full" and closes the tab was never buying a service upgrade from you. You did not lose that job. You saved a truck roll and an hour of a licensed electrician's time on a free estimate that was going nowhere.
The homeowner who reads the same sentence and calls anyway has already accepted the possibility of a four-figure job before they dialed. That is a materially better conversation than the one that starts with a person who thinks chargers cost $300 because a big box store quoted a plug-in unit.
Why EV chargers specifically
There are two reasons this matters more for charger work than for most electrical jobs.
First, the search intent is unusually high and unusually early. "EV charger installation cost" is one of the most-searched residential electrical terms in the country right now, and it is a research query. The page that answers it wins the click and often the job, which is why the Google Ads guide treats charger terms as their own campaign.
Second, the charger is rarely the real job. A significant share of homes that want a Level 2 charger are on 100 amp service or a full panel, and the load calculation says upgrade. Publishing both numbers on the same page does two things at once: it makes the charger price look reasonable, and it introduces the panel upgrade before a technician has to break the news in a driveway. That conversation goes far better when the homeowner read it on your site a week earlier.
How to write the range so it holds up
Four rules.
Give a range, never a single number. A single number is a quote. A range is information.
State the conditions in plain words. "On an existing 200 amp panel with two open spaces, within 25 feet of the garage wall." Everyone understands that different houses cost different amounts. What they do not accept is "it depends" with nothing after it.
Include what is in the price. Permit, inspection, conduit, the breaker, cleanup. Half the value of publishing a number is showing that the cheap quote down the road excludes the permit.
Update it when it changes. A price page from two years ago is worse than none, because the first thing you have to do on the call is walk your own number back.
One more note on incentives: federal and state credits and utility rebates for home charging equipment have changed repeatedly and vary by state and utility. If you mention them, link to the current source and say the amounts depend on the program, rather than printing a figure that goes stale and turns into an argument at the kitchen table.
The wider point about prices on trade websites
This is not really about EV chargers. It is about the fact that 34.6% of electricians have no website at all, and a large share of the ones that do have a site that answers no questions. Across 65,890 listings, the median electrical company has 7 reviews and a page that says "quality workmanship since 1998."
Publishing ranges for your four most-searched jobs, the charger install, the panel upgrade, the generator and the diagnostic fee, puts you ahead of nearly everyone in your market on the one dimension the homeowner actually cares about at that moment. It also gives the AI assistants something quotable, which is increasingly how these questions get answered at all. That mechanism is covered in the AI search guide.
What to do this week
- Pick your four highest-volume jobs and write an honest range for each, with the conditions.
- Put each on its own service page, not on a single pricing page nobody visits. The website guide has the page structure.
- Add the diagnostic fee and the sentence that it applies to the repair.
- Watch your call quality for a month. The volume may dip slightly. The share of calls that become quoted jobs should rise noticeably, and that is the number that pays you.
Service pages with published ranges are part of the website work in the free 14-day trial. Text or call (385) 832-6175.