How we calculate this

The price ranges on Boatwork come from prices marine businesses publish on their own websites. We do not estimate, model or guess prices, and we never show a number that a business has not published itself.

Where the numbers come from

We read each business’s own published prices and record the price, the unit (per foot, per hour, per month, and so on) and the exact sentence the price appeared in. The quoted text is kept word for word as the evidence for every number shown. Prices that only appear inside an image or a PDF are not used unless we can quote the text. Prices are refreshed periodically from each business’s own published pages, and each block shows the month the prices were researched. We don’t name individual businesses when we show a price.

One value per business

A business that publishes several prices for the same service is counted once, at its own median. That keeps a single detailed price list from outweighing every other business in the area.

Typical and the middle half

We describe an area by its median, which we call the typical price. “Most charge” is the middle half of the businesses — the 25th to 75th percentile (P25–P75). In a distribution graph, each dot is one business.

Outliers

Once every business has one value, we remove values that fall far outside the rest of the market — more than three times the middle spread from it, the same as anything below Q1 − 3 × IQR or above Q3 + 3 × IQR. The range we publish is the 25th to 75th percentile (P25–P75) of the businesses that remain, with the median alongside it.

When we show a range

We only show a range when at least five local businesses have published a price for that service. If fewer than five businesses in the city publish prices, we widen the area: city first, then county, then the whole state. A national range needs at least 10 businesses across at least 3 states; a state range needs at least five businesses in that state. If we still do not have enough, we show nothing rather than a number that is not representative. When most businesses in a category don’t publish prices, we say so and show how many we checked.

How often it updates

We re-read the businesses’ published pages on a regular cadence and refresh these ranges when we do. Prices change, so confirm a price with the business before you rely on it.

A business correcting its price

If you own a business and a price is out of date or wrong, you can update it from the business center, or contact us and we will re-check your site.