How to import a price book into Housecall Pro

If you’re staring at a CSV file trying to figure out why Housecall Pro won’t take your price book, you’re in the right place. Importing a price book into HCP works on every plan tier, no API access required. You just need the file formatted the way HCP expects.

This walks through the full import, start to finish, plus what to do if you don’t have a clean price book to import yet.

Before you start: get your file ready

Housecall Pro imports price books as a CSV file. Every row is one line item (a service or a material), and every column has to match a header HCP recognizes. If you’re building this from scratch, don’t start with a blank spreadsheet — pull HCP’s own export first (Price Book settings, then export) so you inherit the exact column structure, or use a preformatted starting point.

If you don’t have an existing price book to export, grab the free HVAC price book template. It’s already formatted with the right headers and sample line items, so you can drop in your own services and pricing without guessing at column names.

Step 1: Open Price Book settings

Log into Housecall Pro and go to your account settings. Look for the Price Book section — this is where HCP manages both your service catalog and your material list. You’ll see options to export your current price book and to import a new file.

Step 2: Export your current price book first (even if it’s empty)

Before importing anything, export what you already have. This does two things: it gives you a backup you can restore from if the import goes sideways, and it hands you a real HCP-formatted CSV with the exact headers your account expects. HCP export headers are lowercase and include columns you won’t think to add yourself, like industry_uuid, task_code, and online_booking_enabled. If you’re importing materials, you’ll also need part_number. (For a full walkthrough of the export and what every column means, see the price book export guide.)

Open the exported file in Google Sheets or Excel and leave the header row alone. This is the row that tells HCP what each column means, and it’s the most common place imports break.

Step 3: Fill in or replace your line items

Now edit the rows below the header. Each row is one service or material. A few things that matter here:

• Keep the Industry/category column filled in on every row. A blank or misspelled value in this column can fail rows, or fail the whole import, depending on how the file is structured.
• Don’t rename or reorder the header row. HCP maps columns by header name, not position, but a missing or renamed header will drop that column’s data on import.
• Use plain numbers for prices. No dollar signs, no currency symbols, no commas. 149.00, not $149.00.
• Save as CSV, not XLSX.Excel and Sheets will try to save as their native format by default — explicitly choose “CSV (Comma delimited)” or “Download as CSV.”

Step 4: Import the file

Back in Price Book settings, choose Import and select your finished CSV. HCP will process the file and show you a result, usually a count of rows added or updated, and any rows that failed. Read this result screen carefully. It’s the fastest way to catch a bad row before it causes confusion out in the field.

Step 5: Spot-check in the app

Open the Price Book from the main app (not settings) and check a handful of items across different categories. Confirm prices, descriptions, and categories landed where you expect. If you’re using online booking, check that the services you want customers to see have online_booking_enabled set correctly.

Step 6: Test with a real estimate or job

Before you trust the new pricing in front of customers, build a test estimate and add a few of the newly imported items. Confirm the price that shows up matches what you intended. This catches formatting issues, like a price that imported as text instead of a number, that don’t always surface on the import result screen.

If something went wrong

If rows failed or pricing looks off, don’t start guessing at the CSV. Check our price book import errors guide for the specific fixes to the most common failure causes: bad headers, invalid category values, encoding issues, and duplicate names.

Frequently asked questions

Does importing a price book require the API or a paid HCP plan tier?

No. CSV export and import works through the standard Price Book settings on every Housecall Pro plan. No API access needed.

Will importing overwrite my existing price book?

It depends on how your file is structured. Rows that match existing items by name or ID typically update them; new rows get added. Export your current price book first so you have a backup before you import changes.

Can I import materials and services in the same file?

Materials need the part_numbercolumn, so they’re usually handled as a separate import or a separate section of your export. Check your exported file structure to see how your account organizes the two.

What’s the fastest way to build a price book if I don’t have one yet?

Start from the free HVAC price book template — it has the right headers already in place. If you want your pricing built around actual target margins instead of guesswork, that’s what The Margin-Right Rebuild is for.