Pricing Driveways

[Ken]

I'm new to the board and need your opinions. I've been doing snow removal for a few years. In my neck of the woods, we haven't had much snow.

I have several contracts and am a one man operation. I'm trying to cut down on my contracts by raising my prices. I use a Deere 455 garden tractor with a 54" blade and a Deere 1032 snowblower. My mininum fee for a standard driveway is $25. What is the average price in your neck of the woods for a standard driveway? How high could I raise my prices before people think I was crazy. I want to raise my prices without upsetting a good customer.

Whats your opinion and also what the valve of my Deere 1032 mint late model snowblower.

[John Allin]

Keep raising your price until you start to lose people. Then you'll know where the threshold is for your market. You may be incredibly surprised where that line is.

[diggerman]

Ditto as to what John said,as for your blower I have one and it is the biggest pile of crap I have ever owned.This is the machine that changed my whole view of "quality" snow blowers,so I guess its value depends on who you talk to.If I didn't finally have mine so it didn't break down or literaly fall apart ever snow I'd be giving mine away.

[iowastorm]

I agree too. We won't drop our plows (or snowblowers) for anything under $50 this year. If people will pay for it and are happy with our service, then it's great for both of us.
BTW: Digger, please stop using that vulgar language. Didn't you read the post concerning proper forum behavior. We're going to have to put you on double secret probation!

[GeoffDiamond]

The going min, in maine is around $ 25.00. For a paved drive about 16' wide, and 75' long.

Geoff

[Chuck Smith]

Wow Geoff, that's the minimum we get for a 16' x 16' driveway! As a minimum here, it's about $10 for each car that fits in the driveway. So a "4 car" driveway would be a min. of $40. The walk to the front door is included if it isn't unusually long.

~Chuck

[GeoffDiamond]

Well chuck, we get a little bit more snow up in the northeast corner. So i think it evens out, over all. That and most of my drives are a lot bigger, and a lot more money.

Geoff

[Lazer]

If I could get $25 for a 16'x75' driveway, I'd be RICH!

If they're close enough, I'm happy to do a drive like that for $6.

($6 x 40 = $240/hour)

Actually, I can properly plow a 16'x75' driveway in 35 seconds without travel time and almost regardless of snow amount. (8" or less)

[cutntrim]

Damn Karl-Quit bull$hitting us buddy.

[cutntrim]

In answer to your question Ken, going rate around here is $25-$40. We used to charge $25, now we charge $40. Our scenario is different from yours, in that we use plow trucks, so we target commercial lots for plowing and only consider driveways as "grocery money". $40 is steep for a lot of people, and if we only did residential driveways we would not charge that much. We'd probably charge $30 (no shoveling of walks though).