What is a typical price for a piano tuning where you are?

Bellyman

I know it is going to vary by location. But I am curious as to what a typical piano tuning costs where you are?

OK, I have something in mind. Have been debating about whether it may be worthwhile to hang out the ol' shingle again and dust off the ol' tuning hammer again. I don't wanna be fulltime at it. But I have wondered whether it might be a sideline that would be both interesting as well as bring in a bit of income. I do have the skills, not a big deal with that. But it's been a while. The price of a tuning may be one thing that would have an influence on whether I want to. If the average is $50, I probably wouldn't even try. If the average is $500, yeah, I believe I would. I doubt either is common and likely typical is somewhere in the middle. But I wondered. What would you expect to pay?

rogerch

I pay $175 in the Sacramento, California area

Timothy

Denver Metro $200+

Gombessa

$225 for me, major US coastal city.

Adagiette

About $160 here, midwest USA.

Bellyman

Pallas, not close by, sorry.

Currently living in rural Tennessee, about half way between Nashville and Knoxville... BUT... considering a different location nearer to a large city a bit further south. (For some odd and personal reasons, it would actually be easier for me to make a fresh start in a new location.) Neither the move to another location or the restart of tuning work is a given, just exploring. But thanks for the invitation!

Joseph-Fleetwood

Well if that location is Huntsville Alabama, there's a lack of good tuners. I'm paying over 200 here.

Bellyman

Joseph-Fleetwood,

One of the things that kinda got me started was that our step-son is looking to relocate. He's a "city" type person and loves the downtown metropolis lifestyle. He makes great money, works remotely, and can afford it.

My wife is from lower Alabama and has commented numerous times about wanting to be closer to her family, especially since her two sisters are both in lower Alabama and getting well up in years. My wife has also mentioned that if something happened to me, she would want to move back down there. Well, my thinking was, what's stopping us now?

And with that, step-son just got back from a week in Birmingham and really loved it. My wife and I are not city people but getting a bit older, medical care might be more of an issue as we age and Birmingham has a LOT of medical / hospitals, that kind of thing. And here in this part of TN, we don't even have a hospital closer than an hour's drive that one would actually wanna go to and although there are doctors, it seems like there aren't enough, they aren't taking new patients, they don't take a particular insurance, etc., and an awful lot of people just go without any health care at all. Maybe not the best area to get old in.

Maybe seemingly unrelated stuff, but I've been mulling stuff over.

I'm not sure how well tuners are able to keep up with demand these days. I hear numerous stories of how hard it is to find a good one. Lots of the ones I've worked with over the years have either passed away or retired and I have no idea if there were people to step into their shoes or not. A few I know just went peacefully into retirement and not even a remnant of their former businesses which kinda leaves their customers in a hard place.

Thanks for the input. Actually, I believe Huntsville may be on step-son's short list of places he'd like to visit soon. We'll see. For now, I'm learning and taking in info. 🙂

Bellyman

Thank you all for the input! It appears that the prices for tunings have gone up a bit since the last that I tuned. At that time, I think they were running in the $100 - $125 range with the occasional finding of maybe $90 or so with some of the higher ones in the $150 to $175 range.

Although not the only factor, this kind of info is helpful for me to sort things out in my mind. I do appreciate the input.

sysadmindave

We paid $160 (each) for our 2 pianos about a month ago, but I think our long-time tech is cutting us a deal. We're in the LA area.

bSharp

$185 here, Los Angeles area.

TLH21

C$150-300, depending how long it takes to get to your location, and how many other pianos can be tuned in the same trip. BC, Canada.

AaronSF

Here in Santa Fe I pay $180 for a tuning which includes any minor other work (e.g., a little voicing, minor repairs, etc.) It seems to be in line with what the rest of you are paying. Major work (like complete voicing, complete regulation, etc.) is priced separately of course as these projects typically involve 1-2 days of work.

Rubens

175 CAD in Montreal.

twocats

I think tuning is generally around $200 in Portland, OR. I'm paying $245 for about 2 hours of tuning and minor servicing according to my new tech's website. I usually have him do additional work while he's here so it's usually more.

Bellyman

Thank you all again for the input! I really appreciate the perspective.

I've always been a "slow" tuner. Even when I was working for the big piano store, they would usually schedule 3 tunings a day (sometimes 4) for me and plan on 2.25 to 2.5 hours per, plus a little bit for travel time. I much preferred shop work (building soundboards, bridges pinblocks, that kind of work) but they wanted me out makin' fast cash, and that was tuning, which brought in a fair chunk of change for the store. I don't actually recall what a tuning cost the customer at the time, I believe it was right around the $100 area by the time I had moved from the area.

I definitely appreciate the input from so many locations. Thanks again, all!

brdwyguy

I live just south of Asheville NC, near Hendersonville.
We have not only a good tuner but a really really good technician in this area that really knows his stuff! Thank God!
I pay around $175 for a good solid tuning on my Steinway.

brdwyguy

Grandman

I'm curious to know, with the various prices among the different communities, if the approach to tuning is different. Specifically:

How long does your tuner spend tuning your piano for the given price charged?
Does the tuner go through the piano more than once?
Does the price include only the tuning or other minor work (touch up voicing, regulation, repairs, etc.)?

Swallowtail

Without other servicing $180 Coastal Maine
Only 1 pass over the keyboard but a careful one. Hope this is helpful. It's remarkable how close
the charges are across the country.

Bellyman

Swallowtail, it is interesting. And I wouldn't think there is any "price fixing" or similar or anything shady about that. But people (tuners, techs) talk, even more so today when we can chat with people around the globe nearly instantly on multiple media possibilities. If 30 people that are out there tuning across multiple cities and states and mostly being pretty close to $175/tuning, it's not a surprise for someone starting out to think that a decent tuning should be worth around $175.

The natural order of human beings is that some will think that they can charge less and be happy with that. Others might think that they will charge more than that. Either may have legitimate reasons and they may have different attitudes towards what they're doing. For instance, one might say, "I can do an OK tuning and be in and out in 45 minutes, I'll make it $125 for a tuning." Another might say, "I want to plan on a 'service appointment' where I will not only tune, but plan on spending an extra hour or so with things like cleaning, voicing, regulation, just going a bit above and beyond, and I'll charge $500 for a 3 hour time slot." (I made those numbers up, BTW.) Neither are necessarily wrong. Different customers may gravitate towards one or the other for those or other reasons, or towards others who do similar work that are in between in both price and expectation. If they happen to end up with a decent tuner who does a good tuning and it happens to be around $175, I wouldn't be at all surprised. 🙂