I love the horticulture industry, the only place wer the hourly rate can go from $40 an hour per person on up to $210 and beyond...And the greatest thing is that as long as your client is happy and the check doesn't bounce, Its all good.
Anbody still want to be regulated....
My numbers are based on a hired crew leader and a hired crew being on the job. There is no business owner and direct management on site. In my experience, you can have the best darn crew on a site, but they will always figure out a way to kill time. whether it be the stop at a 7-11 on the way to the job, or that extra 5 minutes at lunch, forgettigto top off the fuel tanks the night before. Is one hour per tree by hand installed excessive, maybe, but we were only charging around 40 bucks per hour, which if you go by whats on this site TG was lowballing. I would never send a crew out to plant that many trees by hand, they would have an auger. I needed that crew to be fresh every day I needed to count on that crew to be able to bill 3/4 a million dollars each year just installing landscapes. and if they got over worked, then production slowed. I'd much rather have the guys working steady at a comfortable productive pace, than having them bust azz on one job only to loose the hours on the next job...
Yes it is quite amazing what can get done when the boss is on the site, But if the boss was on the site everyday, then jobs would not be proposed/sold, plants/materials would not be ordered, schedules would not be made...
But this discussion is not about what happens to a company when it grows beyond the stage of a one man band, and I apologize for heading in that direction. I just wanted to explain my numbers and "inificenies"
if I was bidding on this job in northern VA this is how it would wash out...
I would charge $3500. it would include adding compost @ 25 per yard(7 yards), mulching the tree rings @ 13 per yard(yes thats what we were payingfor double shredded hardwood and we wer getting our debris hauled for free) (23 yards), auger rental(this is a freebee, as we had an auger, but if you send it out to a job you still must bill for it) and watering. total hours is 41, wich means my standard 3 man installation crew should finish this job in two days with a few hours to spare to do equipment clean up, tool repair ect. 3500-all direct costs(labor materials ect)=2000 so my profit on this job is $50 per hour. But it doesn't stop their...I need to recoup my indirect costs(my salary, equipment repair, plant losses in the yard, commissinon sales...ect)
You really want to know the kicker...this job is not something I'd want to send my crews out to do, unless business was slow....we would bill on average 3000 per crew per day...so if I can't get this job done in a day, I'm losing money.
One step further. If i had to buy the plants and install them..the price jumps up to around $9500 for the exact same amount of time, my profit on this is jumps $3000 to $5000. just for buying and transporting trees Markup is your freind. Yes I know i have taken on a possible liability of a warrantee.
Then comes the chance for an upsell yet again...10 gallon gator bags and a watering contract...which we rent the gator bags for 10 bucks and charge $70 per hour to fill them from a water truck.....at the end of the season, we take the gator bags back and then rent them to someone else the following year....
Any body want to buy some undercoating....