I've been getting quite a few calls recently from customers wanting me to pull weeds in their planting beds. I've stuck mainly to mowing, mulch, stone, etc. until now but am seeing an opportunity here. However, I am uncertain what to charge...and that type of work is tedious. Any suggestions on price point?
Help with estimating for weed pulling jobs
GreenCloverlawnCare LLC
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I've been getting quite a few calls recently from customers wanting me to pull weeds in their planting beds. I've stuck mainly to mowing, mulch, stone, etc. until now but am seeing an opportunity here. However, I am uncertain what to charge...and that type of work is tedious. Any suggestions on price point?
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what your doing doesnt matter when pricing, its how long your doing it. Whether its pulling weeds or mowing grass, its all based on time
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ok. That makes sense. Then i'll set my price point according to what i need to make per hour. Thanks!
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Exactly, get good at estimating your time, as far as mulch jobs and such just double the cost of your material IE: $25/yd would be $50-$60/yd installed.
For weed pulling you got to get the price point reasonable. People are not going to pay someone$25 per hour to pull weeds. So something around $10 is more reasonable. And to make money you need customers and this might be a way to work your way in and it isn't going to kill you to pull weeds. Compared to roofing a house at 100F this work is sissy.
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...The heat index today was 105. lol I did a weed-pull gig this afternoon after this post. I took a look at the area needing weeded and the shear quantity of weeds...I quoted the family $50. It took me about an hour and a half. I think I will need to do a few more to determine a good price point. I think $25+ per hour is do-able and reasonable. I guess I also need to figure out if there is a time difference between weeding out of dirt vs rock vs mulch. It was rock today. Good feedback guys.
Compared to all the other work you do, weed-pulling may be a little redundant, but for me personally, it's my least favorite work to do. If I could get away with it, I would charge more per-hour to pull weeds than any other service I offer. Unfortunately, being such a simple task (though tedious), people simply will not buy into that. It's very difficult to make the same cash per-hour as other services (i.e: mowing, mulch, stone, etc.), but I would make the best of the situation, be diligent, and prove your liability to the customer. In fact, weed-pulling is one of the best ways to upsell another service. For example, if the weeds are an empty bed, you could suggest laying down some weed-prevent fabric, and put some nice mulch on top. Adds a nice positive to the negative IMO.
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Man, you guys sound like a bunch of Lawn Jockey's. :laugh::waving:
45 an hour is my rate with a one hour minimum. It's soon to jump to 50 if gas doesn't start dropping.
When it comes to mulch, 80-100 a yard depending on the prep work and any other materials involved.
What happens is that once you start getting the weeds under control, then it will take you less time to do each additional weeding, so you need to make it worth your time and effort.
Get licensed to spray also. You can do Round-up applications to help control weeds and also apply Pre-Emergence control.
Then once you get the hang of it all, you can offer your clients full services that includes mowing for a weekly premium and you can keep your time and costs down.
45 an hour is my rate with a one hour minimum. It's soon to jump to 50 if gas doesn't start dropping.
When it comes to mulch, 80-100 a yard depending on the prep work and any other materials involved.
What happens is that once you start getting the weeds under control, then it will take you less time to do each additional weeding, so you need to make it worth your time and effort.
Get licensed to spray also. You can do Round-up applications to help control weeds and also apply Pre-Emergence control.
Then once you get the hang of it all, you can offer your clients full services that includes mowing for a weekly premium and you can keep your time and costs down.
What you're doing doesn't matter.....only how long you're doing it?????
I don't even hate to say it. It DOES matter, to me.
Would you charge the same hourly rate to clean por-o-lets as you do to ride on your ZTR? If the answer is "yes", God Bless you.
I don't even hate to say it. It DOES matter, to me.
Would you charge the same hourly rate to clean por-o-lets as you do to ride on your ZTR? If the answer is "yes", God Bless you.
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I've got the wrong philosophy then. I love mowing grass, laying edges and trimming (not so much on the trimming to be honest). I'm not a fan of installing mulch and hate pulling weeds even more. When a customer asks me to clean out their flower beds and pull weeds, I try to price that at an even higher rate.
The way I see it, if the customer was going to do it at all, they would have done it long before their landscape was completely consumed by bermuda and crabgrass. I also know about how long it will take me, and how much I'm going to pretty much hate all of it. I know how bad my knees are going to hurt during the process and how much my hands will hate me when it's all done. If a customer wants my services, they will pay for it.
$25 an hour for pulling weeds? only $10 an hour for pulling weeds? If my customer isn't paying $40-$50 an hour for me to pull weeds, I'm probably not going to be doing it.
And yes, for me, it does matter how long I'm doing something. The only catch is when I'm doing something that doesn't require expensive machinery. When I'm mowing, I've got maintenance on thousands of dollars worth of equipment, plus have to have a large trailer, plus towing all that increases gas. That merits my higher rate. Pulling weeds requires a good pair of gloves and a trash can, not as much overhead, therefore, my lower rate.
The way I see it, if the customer was going to do it at all, they would have done it long before their landscape was completely consumed by bermuda and crabgrass. I also know about how long it will take me, and how much I'm going to pretty much hate all of it. I know how bad my knees are going to hurt during the process and how much my hands will hate me when it's all done. If a customer wants my services, they will pay for it.
$25 an hour for pulling weeds? only $10 an hour for pulling weeds? If my customer isn't paying $40-$50 an hour for me to pull weeds, I'm probably not going to be doing it.
And yes, for me, it does matter how long I'm doing something. The only catch is when I'm doing something that doesn't require expensive machinery. When I'm mowing, I've got maintenance on thousands of dollars worth of equipment, plus have to have a large trailer, plus towing all that increases gas. That merits my higher rate. Pulling weeds requires a good pair of gloves and a trash can, not as much overhead, therefore, my lower rate.
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Gravy train I think your right if the customer is willing to pay someone to pull weeds it's most likely cause they hate doing it themselves, so they are willing to pay someone to do it, well, labor aint cheap these days so I stay at my hourly rate no matter the task at hand.Folks WILL pay for it I just got a bed maint job mostly weed pulling last week I bid it at 45/hr Hell I think I underbid the thing.
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I had a weekly gig doing this a few years back. The lady had about 20k sq ft of beds full of little flowers and herbs that she refused to put mulch around because it was so expensive. She hired me to weed them weekly. No roundup allowed. I got myself a weeding hoe which is a steel loop on a handle. It worked well. I charged $35 per hr and I was there 4 hours a week minimum. She finally decided it was too expensive and dropped me, which was fine with me because it was the worst job I've ever had. I wouldn't do another weeding job now for double that.
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damn, must suck to have to compete with the illegals
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Exactly! DON'T! Hire a P/T teenager for these jobs I have a new account that is just bed maint, I charged my minimum $45/hr two hrs a week there are plenty of teens that will gladly work for $8-$9/hr a couple of hrs a week for some play money. Don't tell me people won't pay it cause they will! One of the stipulations this customer had was no illegals on his property, I gladly told him there wouldn't be. :usflag:
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I have started looking at pricing jobs to include weed pulling and small pruning...example, I will tell the customer I will work their site for 1 hour each week and maybe it takes 40mins to cut, blow trim, I will spend the next 20 pulling weeds... A little bit each week keeps the garden looking good and hopefully prevents me spending all day pulling weeds!!... oh and people Love it.
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Not a bad idea! I would move my minimum hrly rate up a bit and see if it works.
You guys are on the gravey train up there. We don't actually ever pull any weeds those are treated with chemicals. Ops I forgot today I hand pulled a bunch in some beds that our guys let get out of control. And I didn't get anything for that. Did chop horse weeds out of 6ft high corn fields in Indiana when I was a kid, in August so bed weeding isn't much to me.
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Ha! I used to walk beans before the days of round-up ready soybeans.
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Yea my ex used to tell me stories of how she used to walk beans as a teen, she grew up in Iowa, her family had thousands of acres of farmland, the first time I went for a visit I was in AWE!
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