Tree, Shrub, and Hedge trimming

[adamc6]

For those of you who offer Tree, Shrub, and/or Hedge trimming, how do you price these jobs? Please tell me what you know about this. thank you

ADam

[CS Lawns]

I charge by the hour includes clean-up and removal

[kutnkru]

Since it sounds like this is going to be your first season shearing shrubs and pruning trees, I would write down how long each job you get takes. Then you need to catergorize by size so that if you get to a site that has 200 2' shrubs and 135 4' shrubs and 20 15' tall deciduous trees, you will know how long its going to take you based on past experience with specimens of similar sizes and foliar types.

I dont exactly remember which it was, but if you do a search on SHRUBS you will find a thread that many here gave details as to how they price for these services. I know mines out there in the archives somewhere. If you cannot find it I will dig it up when I have more time.

Hope this helps some.

[AGG Lawn Maintenance]

I charge by the hour. My prices are high because I up everything. If I know I can do a job in 1-2 hours I charge them for 4. This insures that no matter which one of my men are on the job its done right the first time. I dont like anyone rushing on trimming jobs. I like my bushes tight no Don Kings as I call it. LoL's
Travis

[PAPS]

I charge by the hour with a minimum of (2) hours per man. With the trimming equipment these days, you can really fly through some jobs, why should I suffer on hours becasue Stihl makes great hedge trimmer.

[TJLC]

I agree, charge by the hour. Anything other than mowing, I charge by the hour. So far it's worked out pretty well. On my comm. properties though, it is included in the monthly fee because they want it this way and so far it's also worked out well. I feel that tree, shrub, and hedge trimming is hard work, so charge accordingly. I personally prefer to mow over trimming, but that's just my opinion. I'll do trimming if a homeowner requests it. Good luck.

[HOMER]

I estimate my time and give them a figure (plumber and electrician rates). If I'm off by too much I eat it but I never tell them what the hourly rate is. If I did that then I would never get the job!:D

I'm in it to make money just like the other service providers.

I usually come out on the winning end with the rates I use and nobody has complained yet.

[TheLawnBoy]

Charge by the hour, includes cleanup and removal. However I try not to tell them too much of the "by the hour part" since the price is a little elevated to make up for the great job that my stihl trimmer does. That thing cuts the time in half!!!

[Jusmowin]

This is how I charge for trimming bushes:
under 2 ft $2 PER BUSH
2 to 4 ft $3 per bush
4 to 6 ft $4 per bush
6 to 10 ft $5 per bush

*Anything over 10 ft I sub out to a good friend of mine as he has a long shaft articulating hedge trimmers(StihlFH 75) that do a really great job ..........

[awm]

ive started doing what jusmowing is doing with variations more
determined by degree of difficulty.that may be determined by size ,but sometimes not.

[Bob Minney]

I figure time involved and use my hourly rate. I quote the customer one price-
trim XX shrubs @ $000.00 (no mention of hourly rate)
I use a higher rate when I have to work on a ladder.
How long it takes-it took doing and learning- clean up can take as long as the trimming so don't foget that time. Start with smaller jobs until you get comfortable estimating time.
I bid a 1 hr. min to cover estimating time.
And trimming shrubs in rocked areas, clean up is a PIA.

+ keep a dated set of notes on exactly which trees/shrubs were discused with the customer, along with any special instructions. Don't trust all this to memory, too much info to recall if you come back 2 weeks later.

[JimLewis]

I am with Homer. I give them a flat price and that price is firm, regardless of how long it takes. But with my experience I can almost always tell exactly how long it will take for pruning.

Personally, I don't recommend charging per-hour rates [for anything] unless absolutely necessary. It's easier to charge a high hourly rate for things that are perceived to require a great deal of skill and training (e.g. sprinkler repair) but when you start charging $35 per hour or more, for pruning, a lot of people will balk at that and you'll not land very many jobs. But if you give them a price like $380 ($35 x 8 hours plus $100 for hauling away the debris) for some reason, this sounds much more appealing.

It's all up to how you like to run things. But this is coming from someone who lands a very high percentage of bids. And I do it because I always try to look at things through the customer's eyes. And the fact is a lot of customers don't equate routine maintenance work (like pruning) with the kind of rates that we charge. So you have to give a flat fee, which hides the hourly rate.

Another tip - if you are just starting out, do yourself a big favor and read some pruning books. Don't prune like most maintenance guys do. Do it the right way. Read Ortho's "All About Pruning" and Sunset's "Pruning" books. Study them. Read them often until they make perfect sense. Another big reason I land most all of my pruning jobs is because when people walk around and begin to ask testing questions like "and how would you prune this shrub? What is this called?" I can answer them with confidence and answer correctly every time. The client always feels confident that I know my stuff. And it's sad to say, but most maintenance guys don't.

[kutnkru]

And THAT Jim ...

Is exactly my point why so many guys out there need to leave the "Landscape" out of their names. They are not educated or skilled tradesman, nor are they attempting to educate themselves in horticultural managment.

Just my .02

[AGG Lawn Maintenance]

Jim I'm with you. I mark everything out by the hour but the customer is charged the flat rate. This way the job allows me to mark up everything by an hour or two. You never know what you might run into. A bee's nest, birds nest, and/or etc.
Travis

[JimLewis]

And THAT Jim ... Is exactly my point why so many guys out there need to leave the "Landscape" out of their names. They are not educated or skilled tradesman, nor are they attempting to educate themselves in horticultural managment.
I see your point. And I couldn't agree more about uneducated guys trying to do things they shouldn't. I guess sometimes I just wrongly assume that people are going to do like I did. I began with "landscape" in my name even though I was just doing lawn care. Then I educated myself thoroughly before I ever took on a job I wasn't comfortable with. I guess I just assumed most people did that.

[TOSLC]

Charging by the hour is great, as long as the customer trusts you with blind faith. Most of my customers want an estimate first. So I figure it like this:

15 minutes - small shrub
20 minutes - medium shrub
30 minutes - large shrub/small trees

Multiply how many of these your have by your hourly rate, and you have an estimate. Add a little buffer, and your set to make some money. Yes, I can trim shrubs faster, but the extra time helps for clean up, and if anything goes wrong.

[LAWNS AND MOWER]

Originally posted by Jusmowin
This is how I charge for trimming bushes:
under 2 ft $2 PER BUSH
2 to 4 ft $3 per bush
4 to 6 ft $4 per bush
6 to 10 ft $5 per bush

*Anything over 10 ft I sub out to a good friend of mine as he has a long shaft articulating hedge trimmers(StihlFH 75) that do a really great job ..........

Let me get this right. If one job consists of trimming 5 three foot bushes, then you make a niffty $15???

LAWNS AND MOWER

[Jusmowin]

Yes Lawns and Mower I would take that "NIFFTY" 15 dollar job and put it in with a full day of lawns .I look at it as every little bit helps, besides that 15 dollar job would pay for gas in my mowers for a week or pay for my worker for an hour and a half .........Its also a nice little break from nothing but mowing all day.

[JimLewis]

I'd take it too! I bet it would only take me 10-15 minutes. I'll make a dollar a minute any day of the week. Even if it's just for 15 minutes.

[LAWNS AND MOWER]

I guess I could understand this pricing structure if you're already at the site doing other work. The point I was trying to make is that if you made a special trip to this account just to trim bushes, then you'd have a hard time breaking out even. I charge $30 for the first hour or any part of an hour. If I get the job done in 20 min, then I still charge $30. That's my minimun. After the first hour than it's prorated, meaning if it takes 1 1/2 hours then I charge $45. Granted there are some exceptions. If I get through mowing and the customer asks me to pull a weed beside her front door, I'm not going to charge for that.

LAWNS AND MOWER