Electrical work prices well because it is countable. Devices, fixtures, panels and circuits are on the drawing or visible on a walk, the wire between them is measurable, and the labour follows the count almost linearly once you know your own units. That makes it one of the few trades where a small firm can build a genuinely defensible price list, and the firms that do it stop bidding against their own guesses.
How to estimate residential electrical work: count the devices, measure the runs
Receptacles, switches, fixtures, panels and terminations are counted; homeruns and feeders are measured. Everything else in an estimate follows from those two numbers, which is why a device count taken carelessly is the most expensive shortcut in electrical estimating.
In electrical cost estimating, labour units are the estimate
Material moves with the market; labour dominates most bids. Start from a published set if you have nothing, then correct it against your own completed jobs. A firm that never compares the two is bidding at somebody else's productivity indefinitely.
How to charge for electrical work: hourly, flat rate or per item
For service work, a burdened hourly rate with a stated minimum, or a flat rate price book built from your own average times. For project work, the device count times your labour units plus material plus overhead recovery and margin. Both are how to charge for electrical work honestly; neither is a number you can borrow.
Questions people ask about how to price electrical work
Should I use a flat rate price book?
For repeatable service work it removes the argument about hours and makes pricing consistent across technicians. It has to be built from your own times, or it will be wrong in both directions on different jobs.
How do I price a residential rewire?
From the device count and the runs, with an allowance for access and making good, which on an occupied house is a large part of the labour. Estimating it per point without an access allowance is the classic underprice.
What is most often left out?
Terminations, testing and certification time, and making good. All three are real hours, none is on the drawing, and each is routinely absorbed.