Corporate town car billing makes most people nervous until they actually see an invoice. You’re expecting some mystery charge to appear, or a “miscellaneous fee” that doubles the price, or… I don’t know, a line item for “premium air freshener service” or something.
Doesn’t usually work that way, but I get why people worry. One company quotes $85 for the airport, another says $140, and nobody wants to explain to their CFO why they paid $140 when “Uber would’ve been forty bucks.”
The straight answer on corporate billing & invoices
Two ways this works: monthly consolidated invoicing, or pay-per-trip.
Monthly billing means we send one invoice on the 1st with every trip from the previous month listed separately. Date, time, addresses, passenger name, what you paid and why. Your AP department gets a PDF they can reconcile instead of hunting through 47 email receipts. We had one client’s accounting person actually thank us for this because their previous service sent handwritten receipts. In 2024. On paper.
Per-trip invoicing is simpler – you get an email within a couple hours of the ride. Same detail level but charged immediately to your card on file. Some companies prefer this because it ties expenses to specific client visits or projects without someone in accounting having to figure it out later.
Purchase orders slow everything down but we’ll do them if your procurement team insists. Just… make sure they know ground transportation needs faster approval than ordering staplers. Had a client whose PO process took three weeks for a ride that already happened. That was awkward.
What’s included vs extra
Base rate covers vehicle, driver, fuel, insurance, and 15 minutes of wait time. You walk out at the 12-minute mark? No charge, that’s normal.
Every trip includes door-to-door service (not curb drop-offs), luggage handling, water bottles, phone chargers if we’ve got the right cable for your phone, flight tracking for airport runs, and a tracking link so you know where your driver is.
Extra costs: wait time past 15 minutes runs $2/minute and that adds up fast if your meeting goes over. Tolls – 520 bridge, 99 tunnel, whatever. Parking fees at places that charge (stadiums, some downtown hotels where we can’t idle at the curb). After-hours surcharge for midnight-to-5am pickups, usually 20%. Multiple stops that aren’t on the direct route.
Gratuity gets added automatically at 20% for corporate accounts. You can adjust it down if something went wrong, or up if your driver waited 45 minutes without complaining while your meeting ran over. Though heads up – some corporate policies don’t allow additional cash tips even if you want to.
Real examples: 2-3 common itineraries
SeaTac to downtown Seattle office: Started at $95 base, added $19.73 gratuity (we round to 20% but the math doesn’t always come out clean). Total $114.73.
Flight landed 2:15pm, passenger got through baggage by 2:50pm which is actually pretty fast for a Tuesday. Met driver at arrivals 2:53pm, dropped at 4th Avenue office building 22 minutes later. Two roller bags and a briefcase. Driver tracked the flight so he was there when the passenger actually arrived instead of when the flight was scheduled – which matters because that flight sat on the tarmac for 15 minutes before getting to the gate.
Full-day private black car service with multiple meetings: Six hours at $70/hour = $420, plus $4.50 for two 99 tunnel passes, $12 parking at a Bellevue office building, $87.30 gratuity. Came to $523.80 total.
Picked up client at 8am from downtown hotel, first meeting in Bellevue at 9am (driver waited in the parking garage and caught up on email). Back to Seattle for 11:30am meeting, lunch in Fremont at 1pm, South Lake Union at 3pm, hotel return by 4pm. Vehicle stayed with the client the whole time which beats trying to coordinate four separate rides and wondering if you’ll actually get a car during lunch rush in Fremont.
Actually had the client’s assistant ask if the driver could grab them coffee between the 11:30am and 1pm meetings. Driver said sure, added 8 minutes to the route, client was happy. That kind of flexibility is why people book hourly service instead of paying per trip.
Kent town car service to SeaTac, early morning: $85 base plus $17 after-hours surcharge for 4:30am pickup, $20.91 gratuity = $122.91 total.
Client needed to be at the airport for a 6am Alaska flight, requested 4:30am departure to avoid any traffic risk whatsoever. Driver showed up at 4:27am (we tell drivers to be a few minutes early for these, nobody wants to be the reason someone missed a flight). Kent to SeaTac took 18 minutes at that hour – barely any cars on the road. Passenger got dropped at Alaska departures by 4:48am with plenty of time for TSA PreCheck and overpriced airport coffee.
That after-hours surcharge surprises people every time but finding drivers willing to wake up at 3:45am costs more. It just does.
How to avoid surprises
Wait time charges kill people on invoices. You book for 4pm, you’re not ready until 4:40pm? That’s 25 minutes over the 15-minute buffer = $50 extra. Clock starts at the scheduled time, not when the driver actually arrives.
Best move: if you think you’re running late, text dispatch. We can push the pickup back 15-20 minutes without penalty if we know ahead. What doesn’t work is just… not showing up and not communicating. Driver’s sitting there burning time, can’t take another booking, meter’s running.
Tolls and parking during events are the second surprise. Climate Pledge Arena event? Parking garage charges $45-50, we’re not marking that up. Same deal with Lumen Field. We mention it when you book but sometimes people don’t process it until they see the invoice and go “wait, what’s this $45 parking charge?”
Cancellation fees get people too. Cancel within 2 hours of pickup = 50% charge. Within 30 minutes = 100%. One client cancelled a 5am airport run at 4:52am when our driver was already ten minutes from their house. Full charge applied, client was mad, we were sympathetic but… driver was already committed, couldn’t take another job, lost that income.
We’re not trying to be jerks about it, the economics just don’t work any other way.
Questions you should ask before booking corporate service
When you’re talking to a town car company about corporate billing, here’s what actually matters: Do they take purchase orders and if so what’s the processing time? Can you get monthly consolidated invoices or do you have to track individual trip receipts? What payment methods work – some companies want to use virtual credit cards for each trip which is fine but not every service handles that. Is gratuity included in the quote or added on top?
For the actual service part – what’s their wait time policy and when does the clock start? How do they handle flight delays for airport pickups, because if they’re just guessing at arrival times that’s a problem. Can the driver make multiple stops and does that cost extra? What happens if you need to cancel or reschedule, like what’s the actual fee structure?
Vehicle questions matter too depending on what you’re booking. Are we talking Lincoln Town Cars or Mercedes S-Class or Suburbans? How many passengers and bags actually fit – some companies say “seats four” but mean “four people with no luggage.” Do they have vans for larger groups?
The question nobody asks but should: what’s your backup plan if the assigned driver has a problem? We keep backup drivers on call specifically for corporate accounts because “sorry, car broke down” doesn’t work when you’ve got a CEO heading to catch a flight. Some companies just… don’t have a backup plan, which you discover at the worst possible time.
Town car rates: what you actually need to know
Why’s one company charging $85 and another $140 for the same airport run?
Different service levels. The $85 is probably rideshare-adjacent – clean car, decent driver, but if something goes wrong at 5am good luck getting anyone on the phone. The $140 is commercial service with actual support, newer vehicles, licensed drivers. For corporate use you want the latter.
Can we get a discount if we’re doing a ton of trips?
Yeah, usually works out to 10-15% off if you’re over 20 trips monthly. Less room on airport runs since those are already competitive. Hourly bookings have more margin.
Do Eastside pickups cost more?
Same base rate but you pay 520 tolls – $2.25 each way last I checked. Sometimes Bellevue to SeaTac is actually cheaper overall than Seattle to SeaTac even with the toll, just depends on traffic and routing.
What’s the deal with minimums?
Most companies won’t dispatch for under $65-75 even if you’re going two blocks. Economics don’t work – driver’s got 25 minutes invested by the time they get to you, do the trip, and reposition.
