Home services and trades

Is a contractor's price book a trade secret?

By SourceX Editorial · Reviewed by Noah Loul · October 9, 2026

Short answer

A contractor's price book can be a trade secret if three conditions hold: the information is not generally known, it has value because competitors do not know it, and the company takes reasonable measures to keep it secret. Customer-facing task prices are hard to protect; cost build-ups, labor assumptions and markup rules are stronger candidates.

Key takeaways

Trade secret protection depends on secrecy, value from secrecy and reasonable measures, not on labeling a document confidential.
Prices every homeowner sees on an invoice are weak candidates; internal costs, labor hours and multipliers are stronger.
Price book content bought from a third-party provider is usually licensed to you, so its terms control what you may do with it.
Access controls, confidentiality agreements and exit procedures are the measures courts commonly look for.
Most owners exclude or mask price book cost and markup fields from licensed records.

Can a contractor's price book be a trade secret?#

A contractor's price book can be a trade secret, but only the parts that meet the legal conditions and only if the company treats them as secret. In the United States, trade secrets are protected under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act, signed May 11, 2016, and under state laws, most of which are based on the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. The federal definition in 18 U.S.C. 1839(3) requires that the owner has taken reasonable measures to keep the information secret and that it derives independent economic value from not being generally known or readily ascertainable by others. Details differ by state, and whether specific information qualifies is decided on the facts.

The question usually comes up after something goes wrong: a service manager leaves for a competitor with an export, or a software vendor wants full access to pricing. It is much easier to answer if the company has already sorted its price book into what is public and what is protected.

The three conditions, applied to a price book#

The three conditions courts generally look at are secrecy, value from secrecy and reasonable measures to keep the information secret. Applied to a price book, each condition points to different evidence an owner can gather now.

The three conditions, applied to a price book
Condition	What it generally means	Helps the case	Hurts the case
Not generally known	The information is not public or easy to work out from public sources	Internal cost build-ups and labor hour assumptions	Prices printed on flyers, websites or every customer invoice
Value from secrecy	Competitors would gain an advantage from knowing it	Margin rules and supplier discounts a competitor could undercut	Industry-standard task lists anyone can buy
Reasonable measures	The company took steps suited to its situation to keep it secret	Role-based access, confidentiality agreements, export limits	Shared logins, unrestricted exports, no agreements with staff

Which parts of a price book are easier to protect?#

The parts of a price book that are easier to protect are the ones customers never see. A flat-rate price on a homeowner's invoice is disclosed every time the task is performed; the labor hours, material costs and multiplier behind it usually are not.

A price book subscription bought from a third-party provider is a separate case. The provider's content is usually licensed to you, so its terms, not your own trade secret claim, decide what you may do with it. Your own adjustments and additions may still be yours.

Public pieces do not automatically sink a claim. The Ninth Circuit's model jury instruction on the federal definition notes that a compilation of public information can qualify if it is combined in a novel way, which may matter for a price book built from common tasks but organized around your own labor and pricing logic.

Which parts of a price book are easier to protect?
Component	Who usually sees it	Protection outlook
Customer-facing task prices	Every customer who receives an estimate or invoice	Weak, because it is disclosed routinely
Task descriptions and bundles	Customers and staff	Weak to moderate, depending on how distinctive they are
Labor hours behind each task	Estimators and managers	Stronger, if access is limited
Material costs and supplier discounts	Purchasing and management	Stronger, and supplier terms may already require confidentiality
Markup, multipliers and margin targets	Owner and senior managers	Strongest candidates when tightly held
Membership discount and commission rules	Managers and sales staff	Moderate, depending on who has access

Reasonable measures a contractor can take#

Reasonable measures are the condition an owner controls most directly, and the measures that count are the ones you can show were in place before a problem arose.

Courts generally do not require perfect secrecy, only measures that are reasonable for the business. Archived DOJ guidance gives examples such as advising employees that the information is a trade secret, limiting access on a need-to-know basis, requiring confidentiality agreements and keeping documents locked. A trades company that limits access, uses agreements and acts promptly when someone leaves is in a far better position than one that shares a single admin login across the office.

Limit price book editing and cost visibility to named roles in ServiceTitan or your field service platform.
Restrict exports and turn on logging where your platform supports it.
Use confidentiality agreements with employees who see costs and margins, and have counsel review them.
Include the whistleblower immunity notice required by 18 U.S.C. 1833(b) in new or updated employee and contractor confidentiality agreements; without it, an employer may lose exemplary damages and attorney fees under the federal act against that person.
Mark internal pricing documents confidential and store them in restricted folders.
Remove access promptly when employees leave, and remind departing managers of their obligations in writing.
Include confidentiality terms in agreements with software vendors and consultants who see pricing.

Illustrative: an HVAC company decides what to do with its price book in a data project#

Illustrative: a fictional HVAC and plumbing company is reviewing its records for a possible data license. Its job history includes invoices with flat-rate task prices, and its price book carries labor hours, material costs and markup multipliers refined over many years.

Counsel advises treating the cost, labor and markup fields as confidential and keeping them out of any licensed records. The review also shows that part of the price book came from a third-party subscription, which the company has no right to license in any case.

The licensed records keep job type, equipment, work performed and outcome. Invoice amounts are removed, and the decision is documented so the company can later show its pricing was never shared.

Where pricing hides beyond the price book#

Pricing hides in many records beyond the price book itself, which matters both for protecting it and for any project that uses job history. An owner who locks down the price book but leaves cost data in exported reports has only done half the job.

Map these locations once, note who can see each one, and apply the same access rules you use for the price book.

Invoices and estimates, with task prices and option tiers on every job.
Membership and maintenance agreements, with discount levels and fees.
Supplier invoices and purchase orders in accounts payable, showing your costs.
Commission and spiff reports that reveal margin targets.
Call recordings and transcripts where office staff quote prices.
Technician and manager notes that explain discounts or overrides.

Should you exclude the price book from licensed records?#

Most owners should start from excluding the price book from licensed records and then decide whether any part adds enough value to justify the exposure. AI developers are usually more interested in how work was diagnosed, performed and resolved than in what a company charged for it.

Because pricing runs through so many job records, the options go beyond leaving out the price book file. They include removing price fields, replacing them with broad categories, or keeping them only under strict confidentiality and permitted-use terms. Whether licensing confidential information under such terms affects its trade secret status is a question for counsel, assessed deal by deal.

In the SourceX five-step transaction, these choices are made in the Rights and Preparation steps and approved by the supplier. What was excluded and why is recorded in the SourceX Evidence Packet, so the company keeps a clear account of what left and what did not.

Frequently asked questions

Can a former employee use our price book at a competitor?

It depends on what they took, what agreements they signed, how you protected the information and the law in your state. Relying on general memory of pricing practices is usually treated differently from taking an export. If you suspect misuse, preserve evidence such as access logs and talk to counsel promptly before acting.

Does marking the price book confidential make it a trade secret?

No. A label helps show that you treated the information as secret, but it does not create protection on its own. The information must also be not generally known and have value from secrecy, and your other measures, such as access limits and agreements, usually carry more weight than a header on a document.

Is our pricing a trade secret if customers can see it?

Prices disclosed to every customer are hard to protect, because anyone who receives an estimate or invoice can share them. The reasoning behind the prices, such as labor assumptions, costs and margin rules, can be protectable if it stays internal. Treat the two layers differently in access controls and in any data project.

Should we let an AI estimating vendor see our price book?

Only under terms you have read. Check whether the vendor can use your pricing to improve its product for other customers, whether data is aggregated across contractors and how it is deleted. Limit access to the fields the tool needs, and keep cost and markup fields restricted where your platform allows.

Can we license our price book itself?

Some companies license pricing content, but it raises its own questions: whether parts came from a third-party subscription, how licensing affects confidentiality and whether the licensee could compete with you. For AI data licensing, price books are usually excluded or masked, and the value comes from job and outcome records instead.

Sources

Under 18 U.S.C. 1839(3), information qualifies as a trade secret only if the owner has taken reasonable measures to keep it secret and it derives independent economic value from not being generally known to, and not readily ascertainable through proper means by, another person who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use. Source
The Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016, signed May 11, 2016, created a federal civil cause of action for trade-secret misappropriation (18 U.S.C. § 1836). Under 18 U.S.C. § 1839(3), information is a trade secret only if its owner has taken reasonable measures to keep it secret and it derives independent economic value from not being generally known. Source
DOJ guidance states that trade secret protective measures need not be absolute but must be reasonable under the circumstances, citing examples such as advising employees of the trade secret's existence, limiting access on a need-to-know basis, requiring confidentiality agreements, and keeping documents locked. Source
18 U.S.C. 1833(b) grants immunity to individuals who disclose a trade secret in confidence to a government official or attorney solely to report or investigate a suspected violation of law, or in a complaint or document filed under seal, and requires employers to give notice of this immunity in any contract with an employee governing use of trade secrets or confidential information. Source
An employer that fails to provide the 1833(b) whistleblower immunity notice may not recover exemplary damages or attorney fees under 18 U.S.C. 1836(b)(3)(C) or (D) against an employee who did not receive it; the requirement applies to contracts entered into or updated after the DTSA's enactment and covers contractors and consultants. Source

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