Home Inspection Fee Calculator
Price an inspection by square footage, home age, foundation type, and add-ons — and see what it works out to per hour once drive time and report writing are counted.
Suggested fee range
$330 – $410
Midpoint $365
- Base inspection
- $367
- On-site time
- 2.9 h
- Total time incl. drive + report
- 6.4 h
- Effective hourly rate
- $57/h
39% of the time you bill for this job is spent writing the report, not inspecting.
Cutting report time in half would raise your effective rate to roughly $71/h on the same fee.
See how FieldScribe drafts it →How the estimate is built
The model starts from a base fee covering a home up to 1,500 square feet, then scales with size. Home age applies a multiplier — older homes take longer because there is more to document and more systems past their design life. Foundation type adds a flat amount for crawlspace and basement access. A market multiplier adjusts the whole figure for local cost of doing business. Ancillary services are added as separate line items with their own time cost.
The effective hourly rate is the part most inspectors have never calculated. It divides the fee by the whole job — drive time, on-site time, and report writing — rather than by the hours spent walking the property. It is usually a lower number than expected, and the gap is almost always report writing.
These are starting figures, not market data. Adjust for your credentials, your insurance costs, your capacity, and what inspectors in your own area actually charge.
Frequently asked questions
How much do home inspectors charge?
Most US residential inspections fall between roughly $300 and $600, with square footage, home age, foundation type, and local market driving most of the variation. Metro markets on the coasts commonly run above that range, and ancillary services are billed separately.
Should ancillary services be bundled or priced separately?
Price them separately and show them as line items. Bundling hides the value of the extra time and makes it harder to raise the base fee later. It also lets the client decline a service without renegotiating the whole inspection.
Why does this calculator ask about report writing time?
Because the fee is earned across the entire job, not just the hours on site. An inspection that pays $450 for three hours on site is a different business than one that pays $450 for three hours on site plus three hours at a keyboard that evening.
Is this a survey of actual inspector pricing?
No. It is a heuristic model built from commonly published price ranges, meant as a starting point you adjust for your market, your credentials, and your capacity. Check what inspectors in your own area actually charge before setting your rates.
The report hours are the ones worth attacking
You cannot drive faster or skip the crawlspace. You can stop retyping observations you already photographed and narrated. FieldScribe drafts the report from your photos and voice notes so the evening work becomes a review pass.