pricing question

[straightlinelawns]

i have a customer that called me the another day and wants me to give him a price on the following...clean out the huge flower bed in front of house, side house and rear house and rear side of house.(when i say clean out the beds, i mean the bulk of debris like sticks, pinecones,leafs, most old pinestraw). shape two shrubs in front. next he wants me to lay pinestraw in all beds,(i estimate around 65-70 bails). i also will have a dump fee to get rid of all old debris from beds($15.00 a dump. possibly 2 dumps.)
i've tried to estimate my time and come up with a price but i can't find anything reasonable. also i have alot of other customers to take care of and this job would really slow me down, so if i'm going to do it, i want the price to be worth my time!!!! is there anyone that knows a reasonable price out there? i try to break it down to figure the price out like:
how long will it take to clean all beds out?
how long will it take to lay pinestraw?
thanks alot people!!!

 

[charlies]

totally impossible to say without a better idea of how big the beds are, etc. does the guy live in a 1000 sq. ft. home on an eigth of an acre or a mansion on 100 acres. i would charge differently for each of those situations.

 

[FFMED74]

I charge at least $20-25 hr per person and then go from there. I do sometimes quote high (time wise) and then when you get to the actual invoice and it is cheaper looks better to the homeowner, but your job would be really tough to guage w/o seeing numbers or actually seeing the prop.

 

[DJL]

straightlinelawns,

I think you are wrong about the "reasonable price." You should take what your expenses are going to be for that job and add what you would like to generate as PROFIT. And when I say expense I mean everything, phone calls to vendors, materials, fuel, truck maintenance, equipment maintenance, taxes, etc. Then add what you want to make. Present this to the customer. If they come back with "it is too high", explain your quality of service and break down everything you are going to do and explain the time and effort that is involved. Some people may disagree with this line of thinking. But you, upon your discretion, could always lower the price (thus lowering your profit).

My point is, it may look like a lot of money for a "small" job, but once you add in all of the costs, it really might not be. Just my two cents...