What you charge?

[bcowl]

Hello, I am new to this site and would simple like your imput. In your business, what do you usually charge for your services? I would also like to know what area your business is in just for reference with your prices. I would appreciate any response! thank you

[Lawn Masters]

It depends on many things, what the customer wants me to do, how much mowing there is, trimming, frequency of mowing etc.

[YardPro]

we have a base labor rate of $35.00/hr for a base labor.. then we add for machines... mower.. truck.. weedeater.. etc..

we inclide nonmotorized hand tools in our base rate.

for anything specalized (design.. irrigation troubleshooting.. pesticide application...) we charge $65.00 per man hour.

[LB1234]

45 bucks, lawns

[ooo]

Im in Pittsburgh. For landscaping work I try and estimate how long I thought the job would take and how many man hours to do the job. I charge no less then $30 man/hr depending on how big the job is and what kind of feel I get from the customer. If I believe the customer will give more work Ill stick to the 30/hr mark. If get a bad vibe from them and think they're trying to be cheap, have an attitude, or feel I could care less if I get the job, I bid higher. I add material cost, and add a few dollars for equipment wear-n-tear and gas. For plants, mulch and other materials, I mark prices up a bit to cover any unexpected costs. Grass cutting I bid about the same way.

[The Cowboy]

Minimum $55 per hour, lawns. I get $65 on average. Some places are bigger and the clients a little cheap, but I cant complain.
Labor is a minimum of $25 per hour for me. If I bid a job, I get $40 and up. I have some clients that have me work enough hours every year that $25 is the way to go else they couldn't afford it as easily. I just rack up the hours spent every month, and send them a bill. I am competing against many scrubs and large companies they are all between $16 and $30 per hour. I try to fall in the middle. Remember this is Illinois and the immigrants outnumber the Americans in my area.

[sheshovel]

OK Cowboy let me get this correctly.......
You don't mow a lawn for less than $55.00 an hour but it usualy takes you more than an hour so you average $65.00 a mow job.
But if you pull weeds to then it's $25.00 an hour.
But if you bid a labor job then
(not mowing say shoveling dirt or digging a ditch or cleaning an outhouse )
you get $40.00 and up an hour.
Right so far?
BUT if you have a client that uses you more than a few hours a year..then you charge them $25.00 an hour instead of $40.00
cuz if they used you more than a few hours a year they could not afford $40.00 an hour for your work.
Is this a correct interpretation of your charges?

[The Ripper]

You guys make my head hurt.

[PMLAWN]

I have some clients that have me work enough hours every year that $25 is the way to go else they couldn't afford it as easily. .

Not sure why you do this. The more you work the less you make.
I see this as saying that they can not pay you, so you work cheap, so you also can't pay anybody either.

[LB1234]

[QUOTE=The Cowboy] I am competing against many scrubs and large companies they are all between $16 and $30 per hour. I try to fall in the middle.[QUOTE]

huh...

[PMLAWN]

Hello, I am new to this site and would simple like your imput. In your business, what do you usually charge for your services? I would also like to know what area your business is in just for reference with your prices. I would appreciate any response! thank you

Do a search using - costs, pricing, overhead, profit.
There are many good threads that tell how to arrive at your price. What you charge has nothing to do with what others charge. You have to know what you need to make to live at your chosen lifestyle. Than add the costs of running your business. Make your business profitable. The number you come up with is what you charge.
If you can not sell work in your area at this price than you need to do something else for a living, or move.

[The Cowboy]

OK Cowboy let me get this correctly.......
You don't mow a lawn for less than $55.00 an hour but it usualy takes you more than an hour so you average $65.00 a mow job.
But if you pull weeds to then it's $25.00 an hour.
But if you bid a labor job then
(not mowing say shoveling dirt or digging a ditch or cleaning an outhouse )
you get $40.00 and up an hour.
Right so far?
BUT if you have a client that uses you more than a few hours a year..then you charge them $25.00 an hour instead of $40.00
cuz if they used you more than a few hours a year they could not afford $40.00 an hour for your work.
Is this a correct interpretation of your charges?

I missed this post.
I am saying I have rates that factor in my mowers, and make me some profit because I am using bigger equipment getting more work done. When I am doing manual labor with hand tools, I charge based on this, 25 dollars per hour. If I have the privilege of bidding the job as a whole, I can charge more because the customer never finds out how long it takes. This explains me getting over 40 per each manhour. Like when I am putting sod down, I can make over 100 dollars per hour if I am fast enough. I have gotten screwed though, sometimes I am a poor judge of the time it might take to do a job. So most of my customers are on an hourly basis for general maintenance. If my helper and i are weeding after mowing, the cost is around 50 bucks per hour for the 2 of us. Not bad, the customers appreciate this, and I am satisfied. My workers get between 10 and 12 per hour, so I am making money. What is wrong with that? I am well aware that there are very skilled people in my area charging upwards from 14-16 per hour, and also that the general rate for the big companies is between 25 and 30 per hour. I am in the middle to give an incentive for my neighbors to go with me. I end up getting more work because I am affordable. I never lack work, and don't often get to much either, except during autumn.

[topsites]

sheshovel / cowboy...

I think what he's trying to say is he would like to earn 55-65 / hour, and it happens sometimes and other times he exceeds this, but for the other part he's still working on it. I'm not entirely unsympathetic here, earning 50-60/hour is tough cookies and not as easy as it looks when you ARE competing with 15-20 / hour guys on top of the we-want-something-for-nothings and the never-ending slew of comedy and bs...

You need the equipment, the experience, AND the demand in order to have the motivation and the ability to complete literally twice the work in the same time so as to double your labor rate invisibly to the customer and in the end be AS cost-effective as the cheaper guy, turn out AS good or better a job AND earn twice the hourly rate (without it costing more, to you OR them).

I like to think myself a 50/hour guy and have no problem turning down bs jobs such as when I am thinking 100 dollars while they're thinking 25 dollars... WTF I hate that crap and walk away from this in a heartbeat but...
The other day I had a job took 90 minutes for a regular year-round lawn customer and I was GOING to ask 50 bucks to be nice but the check was already made out, for 30 dollars... What are you going to do, this is the reason I do leaves only for existing lawn customers, the yard is priced right AND I got a X-mas bag with cookies and chocolate truffles, which made it easier to swallow.

The above I did not foresee, I didn't expect this to happen but will be better prepared next year, something may change, or maybe not, who knows... It's a once-out-of-20 loss. The times I can't deal with it is when it is not as unintentional or innocent as it appears and it breeds a little monster and next thing you know, everytime I come out they expect something for nothing and less and less they want to pay and THOSE ppl can kiss my tail, but I don't feel this was the case here.

It still balances out, there are times I over-estimate and they agree because they trust me. I don't over-estimate on purpose but it just happens to take less time and I get to the door and once again, the check is already made out... So, it balances out.

To me, this is not only standard run-of-the-mill accept it and be happy stuff, but it also goes to prove what I say when I talk about sticking to my regulars like crazy glue, I mean what I say because they are worth it to me, they really are.

In the end, cowboy has brought up an excellent point for I believe the thread starter is a newcomer and I can assure you there is no way in heck a newcomer is going to go out there and get away with quoting $60/hour, nice as it may sound, one compromises until one figures out a few secrets and then one compromises some more, and that is how it works, at least in my book.

[PMLAWN]

Point to remember--"Thank You"s don't put gas in the truck!payup