Minimums

[vipermanz]

Do any o you out there have a minimum price for services?If so please post so i can get a better idea of how i'm doing.
Currently mine is $35.00 is that bad? Good? Average?

[joshua]

viper, when you ask if people have minimums you have to consider what typeof market they have and what type of clients they have. i would also have to say what size properties they have, because its different where you are from compared to me. but in awnser to your question i don't have a minimum if a yard is within a route, meaning on a same street as others. if a yard is close to a route i have a minimum of $25 a cut. my average size lawn is about 22,000-25,000 and i get $27 a cut, average time 25mins.

[AVRECON]

I try to get at least $35 when I can. Sooooooooooo many lowballers around here that its tough to do sometimes. So I turn them down most of the time if the customer doesn't like my price.

[Eric ELM]

Originally posted by vipermanz
I'm done for the season, school and lawncare don't go together to well when time is important,hopefully school will take its course,settle down and i can do some fall work before it gets cold.


Later Guys,
VipermanZ

Thanks For All The Help And Advice:)

Originally posted by vipermanz
only had 2 left anyhow, they weren't too reliable either

Originally posted by vipermanz
Do any o you out there have a minimum price for services?If so please post so i can get a better idea of how i'm doing.
Currently mine is $35.00 is that bad? Good? Average?

I'm confused. :confused:

I can't keep up with you. Are you now mowing again? How big are these 2 lawns and do you get more than $35 for one or are they $35 each?

I have one customer we do 6 lawns for. 5 of these are completely furnished executive rental properties, just bring your clothes. The smallest one has a little less than 1 k of turf and we get $25 for it and the biggest is about 8 K and we get $40 for it. We do the 5 rentals in less than an hour. To answer your future question, yes we mow these postage stamp lawns with the 60" Chopper since I do not own a w/b.

[AltaLawnCare]

I was wondering the same thing, Eric.

Well at least he's building up his # of posts, thats the important thing!:p

Anyway,....
I get a $25.00 min "drop gate charge"

[dhicks]

Typically, my minimum is $35.00. However, I do some small townhouses that are together for $22.50 each and could be cut with the trimmer :D

[Double D]

$30.00

[65hoss]

Everything this year has been min. of $35. I have a few 1-2k lawns from other years I do for less.


Viper sure is running up some #'s considering he is 15 and not mowing. Most educated none cutter I know. ;)

[Esby]

With the exception of the Orthodontist building in which I only charge $15. I dont even drop the gate, just lift off the 21" Airens w/ bagger off the trailer make one pass down and back on a 20 ft strip. Lift back onto trailer, no blowing, no trimming required. Its a 4 minute stop. I guess I would look stupid running the Lazer Z on this one!!

[TotalLawn]

But I do not have very many at that price. Most are higher.

[vipermanz]

thanks for the useful info, i see i am doing about average as far as min. prices go, Thanks :)

What do you think i will do with a higher amount of posts?

[GreenStar]

my residental minimums are $20 usually this is small amount of trimming and about 4k of turf area takes me about 18 minutes with 1 other guy

[Pauls Mowing]

Our rates start at $35.00 per hour and go from there.

Paul

[Just Cut]

0 -10000 cut trim blow, few obstacles, no hills 25.00

[hustlers]

32.00 if i have to load up and move
a little less if its a neighbor

[David Gretzmier]

I can't believe this- I had a 35 minimum in 1993, and 45 last year. when you fill your route, it makes no sense to me to do anything less than $45 yards unless they are next door. lots of folks told me I was crazy in 1993, and crazier still in 2000. our routes still are full . Dave g

[Butchs Lawn]

theses threads about prices seem impossible to reply .every state every lco in every town have different prices.depends on size orperation etc... find out your local competiers prices you'll have better luck competing. to those responsible/we're coming to get you

[ronslawncare]

most of my lawns are about 30 and up i wish i can get 40 for all of them there 100 by 100 .but most people around here cut lawn for 15.00 20.00 thats why i only have about 40 customers which are all over because i refuse to lower my prices.

[TGCummings]

No real minimums out this way. A lot of residentials around here are 500 to 3000 square feet and I'll charge as little as $9/cut ($36/month since I bill monthly not per cut) for the smaller yards. I can get the smallest yards done in 10 minutes with a 21" mower, thus coming in around $54/hour. Sufficient to meet my costs and provide worthy profit. I can get a couple of them together in 15-20 minutes, amplifying my per hour charge to over $70.

A lot seems to depend on your area and your market. There simply aren't any 25,000 square foot lawns out here since everything is so condensed.

-TGC

[kpyoung]

$25 min. for mow

$30 min. for hedge trimming (1 hour or less)

[bubble boy]

TG-$9 for a cut, please have some respect for the biz.

$9 for ten minutes, $9 x 6=$54 hour is how i figure you got your numbers

what you don't drive to these six houses? and paperwork, invoicing, repairs ? dont do these or do you?

im glad you make a worthy profit and cover your costs at $9 a cut, i wish i could. I'd bet $9 per week for a house is closer to my costs per cut, not revenue.

[TGCummings]

Depends on the house, bubble boy. I'm nearly double the guy cutting the same size lawn next to me on those properties. When my costs come out of that $54/hour rate I still make good.

I respect the business to no end, brother, but you have to respect the fact that there's a large market variant. I haven't seen anything larger than 6000 square feet in my market and we're loaded with turf under 1000 square feet. I can do 5 lawns that size per hour, if they're not next to each other, work 8 hours/day and bring the business nearly a 6-digit annual revenue working alone! My costs are covered, my profit is good, and my customers are getting the top professional in town.

Why the venom?

-TGC

[walker-talker]

i charge $20 minimum but try to get at least $30 and hour.....but those cost are going to go up

[LJ lawn]

must be a wonderful thing to live out in CA,mow postage stamp sized properties all year and make a 6 figure income.

[TGCummings]

Well, I'm not there yet but it will be nice when we get there... :)

-TGC

[David Gretzmier]

I remember reading somewhere that it costs you 9 bucks to air up a flat on a lawn....

[David Gretzmier]

In the "old " days 20 years ago when I started, I did postage sized lawns as well. but even at 12 years old in 1979, I had a 10 dollar minimum, and most folks paid me 15 bucks! I'd make 100 bucks some days, and living at home, I was RICH. I cannot believe yards are mowed today for 9 bucks, and the "scrubs beside yoou are HALF THAT? but then again, if you can and don't mind doing over two hundred of them a week... BY YOURSELF... Daveg



Math "approaching six figures" = 100k, 52 week mowing season in sunny CA - approx 1925 per week, at 9 bucks per, 1925/9 = 213.8: = insanity squared.


confused:

[TGCummings]

I guess if I get a flat on a big lawn, I'll be thankful it's paid for by that quick stop I made before... ;)

And obviously, David, they're not all that size. I don't have any problem charging what the lawn is worth if I'm making money for a quick stop. I could easily tell them I won't stop for less than $20 and wave them goodbye, but there's too much of a market for tiny lawns in my area. I know what I need to charge to make money, and I charge it. I'm a professional and the customers I have appreciate that and are willing to pay me what they do even though they know they can get 5 guys on the same block cheaper. If I set your kind of minimum, I wave goodbye to profit. Doesn't make sense no matter how you dice it up.

Part of being a professional is knowing your market. I'm the best there is at what I do in my market. Perhaps, in time, I'll drag the whole market up in my town, kicking and screaming, but in order to do that I have stay solvent, make money, and continue to be a professional. I'm doing that, now, at my rates. What's to understand?

-TGC

[bubble boy]

TG, dont mean to spew venom, just tired of being undercut by people like yourself in my market. and my price structure is hardly what i'd call the high end of the market. obviously, your not in my market and you may be bang on in your market. sunny CA, i guess you dont need my trucks(3/4 ton 4x4's) and dont need to buy blades for the snow. so you have lower cost to cover, and thats fine.

my beef though aint with your costs, its with your revenue number of $54 per hour. just seems a lot of people throw hourly numbers around here without accounting for total time spent on the business. im not talking about accounting for every minute you spend opening cheques in the mail, washing the truck, etc. that stuff doesn't seem like work (although it is) and can be done in true spare time. but if i spend three hours doing estimates, or an hour repairing a mower, i myself take that into consideration. once i log off today i figure ill do 6 to 7 hours of bookeeping. it all counts.

i dont doubt you can do 5 an hour, i have a lot of small props myself and if you say you are on the high end of the price structure in your market per lawn i will take your word. but what you make per hour of cutting isnt what you make per hour (often i fail to make that distinction myself when doing projections.) i do realize that often the hourly charge for cutting is the more relavent number. we all are satisfied in the end with our money per hour for our total work or we wouldn't be in this.

if your being under cut yourself you should get your competition to join lawnsite so your market can become more lucrative on the whole. if you make profit at $9 for the small lawn, imagine your profits at $15 with the same costs.

[TGCummings]

bubble,

I agree with you on the fact that what we charge is not what we make. I reevaluate my total time and numbers constantly, running spreadsheets and job costing estimates to make sure I'm on the right track. I may not be, but not for lack of trying. ;)

$54/hour may be what I'm walking away with on those little properties, and that's enough to keep me cutting them. I've let go of properties that in the past I was cutting at the same rate as the 'competition' in my area, because they went with the lowballer up the road. Like you said, lowballing is relative to our market.

Sure I want more. We all do. I want to drag my entire market up, kicking and screaming, like I said. I hope to set the standard that others will either follow, or get out of the way. The 'competition' I speak of, those charging half my rates, are the guys working out of the back of their beat up pickups, using outdated homeowner equipment, and skimping on things like business licenses, insurance, and tax payments. The fact is, my area is inundated with that kind of 'talent'. I know them all to well, because I was one of them a couple of short years ago. My step-father founded this business and ran it for 25 years that way, and that's what I learned. When I took it over, I began the long process of turning it into something meaningful, despite the strange looks I got from all the 'competition' in the area. I decided I wanted to be a professional. Before LawnSite, I admit, I had no idea how to do that.

Now, I'm doing it. I see it everyday with the respect factor customers give me. The disdain from the competition has turned to disbelief. They see it happening as my equipment gets bigger and better, my operation looks a little snazzier, and my head is held a little higher as I take pride in what my business is becoming.

I do want $15 for my ten minutes of work. And then $20. And then $30. But in my market, that's not feasible just yet. I'm not lowballing, I'm just working my market.

Which gets me back to the original point. Minimums? Sure, there has to be. I can't cut any lawn for $1, obviously. My minimum is $9, because that's what I have to charge for the quickest cut I've seen in order to make profit. I can't have a $35 minimum in my market, because $35 lawns are too few and far between. I would be in the business of writing essays on LawnSite while working at McDonald's if I held out for that kind of minimum.

To those who want to know what they should charge, I would never say "never charge less than $xx!". I would tell them to understand their costs and price for profit, whatever the size of their target.

-TGC

[Buttered Waffle]

My minimum is $5.00 per cut and I have two such lawns. One is 7k the other is .5 k. I lose my butt on them everytime I do them. But I smile the entire time knowing that the lady at the .5k lawn can't walk, work, depends on family that doesn't give a rats arse about her. I offered to do it free, but her pride got in the way. The 7k lawn ditto.....but a man. Both are amputees that I occasionally get groceries for during snow storms. Their lists include beans, bread and milk, corn meal and the like. No meat or fresh veggies.
Otherwise, as long as I make 80 bucks per man hour including travel time I am happy. Remember.....especially in these trying times,to try and do some charity work. It makes you feel good. It restores a clients pride in the one thing that have left...their home.