? on giving an estimate

[clncut]

When giving an estimate for labor intensive jobs, clean ups, hand weeding etc. do you just give a hourly rate or a flat price. I started giving hourly rates last year for clean ups and had no problems getting the customers to go with me for their clean ups. Im going to start hand weeding some jobs and will probably go with an hourly rate since estimating times can be different from job to job. What do you guys do?

While I have you, Im bidding a mulch job. beds are prepped and all that is needed is new edges and mulch. Total sq. ft is 1204 and will be laying a 3" layer of mulch. There is a total of 116' of edging required. Access to the beds is right off the driveway and terrain is flat. Im going to bid 750.00. What would you guys come up with. I understand their will be differences, just curious thats all.

John

[Ric3077]

My bid would be $1076. And hand weeding I do by the hour but I give them a ballpark est (should be 3-4 hours).

[BMLS]

How many yards of mulch are you using?

[Ric3077]

at 3" it would be 12 yards

[nobagger]

Time and materials! You can never be accused of ripping anyone off and you can make a decent profit providing you know what you need to make per hour to do so. I posted a reply last week about this. We started minimum rates and time plus materials, and so far I landed 3 out of 3 jobs.