How to pay repair technicians: salary, commission or a mix

Arguments about pay in a repair shop are rarely about the amount. More often they are about the rules: what the commission was calculated from, why this repair was not counted, who pays for a repeat repair. So it is more useful to agree on the scheme first and talk about figures afterwards. Below are the three schemes you see most often, and the questions worth settling before the first payday rather than after it.

Three ways to pay

Fixed salary. The same amount every month, however many repairs were done. Clear and calm for the technician, predictable for the owner. The downside is obvious: it makes no difference to the technician whether they did twenty repairs or forty. A salary works well where the workload does not depend on the technician — for example, warranty work with a steady flow.

Commission. The technician gets a share of every repair. The fairest scheme for people who work fast and well, and the riskiest in a quiet month: no repairs, no pay. Commission pushes people to take on more work, but also tempts them to grab the expensive jobs and put off the cheap ones.

Base plus commission. A modest base plus a share. The base covers quiet months, the share keeps people motivated. Most shops with two or more technicians end up here sooner or later.

One caveat: in many countries even a commission-only scheme has to reach the legal minimum wage for the hours worked. Check the local rules before you drop the base altogether.

What to calculate the commission from

This is the main question, and it causes the most confusion. There are three options:

• The whole price of the repair, parts included. Easiest to calculate, but unfair: replacing an expensive screen earns the technician more than tricky board-level soldering for the same labour price.
• Labour only, without parts. Fairer, but it needs labour and parts recorded separately on every job.
• The margin — price minus the cost of parts. The most accurate, but the technician has no control over purchase prices, and that raises questions.

An example. A repair costs the customer €200: the part is €80, labour €120. 40% of labour is €48; 25% of the whole price is €50. Close enough — but on a repair with a €300 part the two will be miles apart. So before choosing, take a few typical repairs from last month and work them out both ways.

When a repair counts as earned

You cannot count a repair towards pay when the device is booked in: the customer may change their mind. Counting it when the technician finishes is risky too: the customer may not collect the device for months. The most common rule is: a repair counts towards pay once the device has been handed over and paid for. Then pay never runs ahead of the money in the till.

Write this rule down even if you only have one technician. When the second one arrives, you will need it in the very first month.

Warranty and repeat repairs

Manufacturer warranty. If you are an authorised service centre, the manufacturer pays for the repair — often a month or two later. Decide in advance: does the technician get their share when the job is closed, or when the manufacturer has paid? The second is fairer to the till, the first to the technician. What matters is one rule for everyone.

A repeat repair under your own warranty. The device comes back with the same fault. The usual practice is that the repeat repair is free for the customer and unpaid for the technician who did the first one. Some shops split the loss. Either is better than deciding case by case. How to set the warranty itself — in our article on repair warranties.

The customer declines. The customer says no after diagnostics. If diagnostics are paid, the technician gets a share of that fee like any other repair. If they are free, there is nothing to share — one more reason to charge for diagnostics.

Front desk and managers

The person at the counter also affects takings: whether the customer leaves the device and agrees to the repair depends on them. That is why front desk staff are often paid a small percentage of the repairs they booked in that were paid for — separately from the technician, at their own rate. If one person both books devices in and repairs them, two separate rates are easier to live with than one average.

Transparency: technicians should see their own figures

Most pay disputes start when a technician learns the amount on payday and has no way to check it. The best way to avoid this is to let the technician see, on any day, which of their repairs have already been counted and what that adds up to. They should not see anyone else’s figures.

Once a month, before payday, go briefly through each technician’s list with them: which repairs were counted, which moved to next month and why. Ten minutes of conversation clears up questions that would otherwise pile up for months and end in a resignation.

Example: one month on base plus commission

An imaginary shop with illustrative figures, just to show how the sum works. The technician gets a base of €1,800 and 30% of labour on repairs that were handed over and paid for.

What	Amount
Repairs handed over and paid this month	42
Total price of those repairs	€7,100
Of which parts	€2,700
Labour	€4,400
30% of labour	€1,320
Base	€1,800
Total before tax	€3,120

Two repairs the technician finished on the 30th, but the customers collected next month, are not in here — they go into the next calculation. Tell the technician about this in advance, or the first such case will look like being short-changed.

Moving from salary to commission without losing people

Changing an experienced technician’s pay scheme is a risk: even a better deal looks like an attempt to pay less. A few rules that help:

• Run the numbers on past months first. Take the last three months and show the technician what they would have earned under the new scheme. If it comes out lower, the scheme is not ready.
• A transition period. For two or three months the technician gets whichever is higher: the old scheme or the new one. That removes the fear and gives time to adjust.
• One change at a time. Do not change the scheme, the commission base and the warranty rules all at once — otherwise nobody can tell what actually moved the number.

Deductions and penalties

A device damaged during repair, a lost part, a return because of poor work — every shop faces these sooner or later. In most countries deductions from wages are tightly limited by law and only possible under rules the employee knew about beforehand, so talk to an accountant or employment adviser before putting them in anyone’s contract. In practice a rule works better than a fine: a repeat repair under the shop’s warranty is done by the same technician, unpaid. It is fair and needs no arguing over amounts.

How often to pay

Pay the commission together with the regular salary, once you know which repairs of the month were handed over and paid. Where pay is twice a month, make the mid-month payment the base or a fixed advance and settle the commission at month end — that way you only calculate the percentage once. Either way, keep the date fixed: “when we close the till” as a payday causes half the stress.

If repairs are long — large appliances, parts on order — part of a month’s work only reaches the next month’s pay. That is normal; just tell a new technician on their first day.

How ServiceCenterSoft calculates it

In ServiceCenterSoft each employee has a rate — one as a technician and one as a manager, if they do both jobs. The technician report for any period shows how many repairs each person handed over, for how much, and their share. A technician’s share is calculated on what they did: the base price of the repair and the estimate lines where they are the one who did the work; for a part from stock only the markup counts, not its full price. A manager’s share comes from the paid jobs they handled. Only repairs handed over and paid in full go into the report, so pay never runs ahead of the till.

Click a technician to see the breakdown: job, line, amount, cost, what was counted and how much was credited. The “why so little?” argument is settled by a table, not by memory. Payouts are recorded on a separate tab: how much was credited for the period, how much was paid and how much is still owed.

A technician without the right to see everyone sees only themselves in the report. You can try it in the demo.

In short

• Rules first, figures second: the scheme, the commission base, the moment a repair counts.
• Base plus commission is the scheme that most often suits both sides.
• A repair counts once it is handed over and paid for, not when it is booked in.
• Warranty jobs, repeat repairs and refusals — one rule for everyone, written down in advance.
• A technician can see their own figures on any day, but not anyone else’s.
• Contracts, taxes, minimum wage and deductions are a question for your accountant, not for an article: the rules differ by country and change.