First Rodeo on bidding a lawn maintenance job

ziessen

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Hopefully Im posting in the right area. My son is excellent at mowing and landscaping yards. He has his first client as of yesterday. The job will mainly be cleaning up an uncared for property (about 3/4 acre). He will be doing some extensive weeding, trimming bushes, mulching, and possibly mowing. My question is we are at a loss of how to bid the job. Never done this before. Yard has alot of weeds and bushes that need trimming. We wil supply the equipment. Client will supply the mulch. Let me know if more specific information is needed. Yard is located in Iowa. Thanks
 

BlazNT

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I do $60 an hour per person.
 

RDA.Lawns

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I do 55$ a hour plus charge for dump fees if I have to remove the cut trees limbs shrubs from the property.
 

sidemouse

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Hopefully Im posting in the right area. My son is excellent at mowing and landscaping yards. He has his first client as of yesterday. The job will mainly be cleaning up an uncared for property (about 3/4 acre). He will be doing some extensive weeding, trimming bushes, mulching, and possibly mowing. My question is we are at a loss of how to bid the job. Never done this before. Yard has alot of weeds and bushes that need trimming. We wil supply the equipment. Client will supply the mulch. Let me know if more specific information is needed. Yard is located in Iowa. Thanks

Go out there, walk and look all around and take it all in, then take your best educated guess as to how long you think it's going to take you.
Straight labor hours, how many hours would it take for ONE person.
That's all that matters, if you want to hire folks to help you fine but if it's 10 labor hours then it takes one person ten hours, two people five hours and so on, so straight labor hours.
So how many hours to clean it all up, straight labor hours, doesn't matter how many people...
I usually quote $30-$35 per hour for the clean up part.

Are you hauling any debris away? If so you need to calculate distance traveled and any possible dump fees, you also need to find out where you can take it because not everyone will accept brush or whatever you're clearing. Keep in mind there are differences between brush, trash, and construction debris as well, maybe make a few phone calls just to be sure the place you're thinking of will accept what you're disposing and then what is their fee (if any). Then, how many loads.
I would charge $1 a mile for distance, one way.
Figure 1/2 hour labor to unload, per load.
Plus dump fees (if any).

Mulch is tricky, you never know how much...
You can go by the hour but that's not really fair as it opens the door for milking the clock. You can go by the cubic yard but that's not really fair as it opens the door for the customer to abuse the system. Unfortunately I don't think we have but so much choice in the matter so I would likely quote around $12 a cubic yard. A busy entrepreneur can spread 1-2 cubic yards an hour and in terms of overhead you're into a wheelbarrow, a pitchfork, and possibly a stiff tined rake so it's not unfair to get paid between $15-$20 an hour for this type of work (cost of mulch is additional, in this case the customer is taking care of this). Obviously the faster you can spread it the more you take home but careful... Always do a good job first.

Here's another rule of thumb:
If you're getting way more than half of all the quotes you give, your prices are too low.
If you're not getting at least half of all the quotes you give, your prices are too high.
I like to aim for getting between 80 to 90 percent of my quotes, your expectations may differ.
Depending how far off center you are may help dictate where you should head, and how fast although small changes generally work best.
So draw yourself out a plan or get some kind of a general idea where you want to fall price and work-wise, not right away but over the next 4-5 quotes you give out, think about this because it will affect you for the life of the business.
You can always make more adjustments later, matter of fact I don't think I've ever stopped adjusting.

Good luck
 

chester1

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For those of you saying to charge $35-$60 an hour, $60 an hour is what people charged for lawn cutting back in 1995. There is no way that you can make a living charging any less than $60, this has to be the only business where labor prices don't increase. Painters, plumbers, tree guys and roofers make a great living with prices going up all the time. How can you charge $12 a yard labor to spread mulch? That's crazy! Lawn cutting it seems like Little Johnny next door is charging the same as many "Professionals" Oh well I am semi retired now so I don't have to worry about this type of stuff. I feel that I'm not charging enough, from the time I leave my driveway till the time I get back I make $85 an hour. That includes road time and that is for lawn cutting. Landscaping is more. I guess maybe some areas in the country don't get the same prices.
 

bertsmobile1

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This post is a year old Chester but thanks for your input.
I would imagine things over there are not too different to things down here.
Every time a male over 50 gets laid off, they can not find work and the 2 easiest owner businesses to get into are lawn care & transport.
Thus the competition is really keen.
If you only have 2 years left on your mortage , a couple of kids at college etc etc then you will work for 50¢/ hour if you are desperate enough.

I repair mowers and the bulk of my work is from single person lawn care operators.
Most are going broke slowly and they know it but most have only a few years to pension age , or the kids finish school so if they can delay going bankrupt till then they will at least keep their houses in retirement.
Most of them are well educated people with years of experience but there is just no work for them or the 25 y/o recruitment operators see them as spent and employ younger men , who are usually less productive , but that is another question.

Things down here have got to the point where some people are driving better than 20 miles to do a single property which is a big loss maker so they will happily underquote for a couple more near by to at least end up breaking even.
 

Darryl G

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Then there are those of us who do it because we enjoy it (and got tired of working in the corporate world). :smile:

I've learned that it's not so much about how much you $ you charge per hour, it's more about maximizing your billable hours and limiting travel time and down time. Averaging in zeros takes a big toll on the bottom line! Tight routes, dedicated regular customers, efficient equipment (with spares), a well equipped vehicle and many other factors can make the difference. All of my mowers are hydro-drive and electric start, yes even my 21 incher. The bed toolbox and the cab of my truck are stuffed with things I might need when I'm out in the field. I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that you need to be spending your time working efficiently, not screwing around with broken-down equipment, chasing work all over God's creation and chasing down money owed.
 

jekjr

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For those of you saying to charge $35-$60 an hour, $60 an hour is what people charged for lawn cutting back in 1995. There is no way that you can make a living charging any less than $60, this has to be the only business where labor prices don't increase. Painters, plumbers, tree guys and roofers make a great living with prices going up all the time. How can you charge $12 a yard labor to spread mulch? That's crazy! Lawn cutting it seems like Little Johnny next door is charging the same as many "Professionals" Oh well I am semi retired now so I don't have to worry about this type of stuff. I feel that I'm not charging enough, from the time I leave my driveway till the time I get back I make $85 an hour. That includes road time and that is for lawn cutting. Landscaping is more. I guess maybe some areas in the country don't get the same prices.

That sounds awesome. Wish we could get that down here but unfortunately not. We charge normally $30 per man hour for small handheld equipment. We charge $40 minimum to drop the trailer tailgate. On a 1 Acre yard we normally get $50 for just a cut with minimum weed eating. We charge $40 per acre to run the Scags over multiple acres.

$50 per hour to bush hog or other tractor work with our 35hp tractor with a 2 hour minimum. It would be awesome to get the big $$$.
 

Darryl G

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That sounds awesome. Wish we could get that down here but unfortunately not. We charge normally $30 per man hour for small handheld equipment. We charge $40 minimum to drop the trailer tailgate. On a 1 Acre yard we normally get $50 for just a cut with minimum weed eating. We charge $40 per acre to run the Scags over multiple acres.

$50 per hour to bush hog or other tractor work with our 35hp tractor with a 2 hour minimum. It would be awesome to get the big $$$.

Those rates would be really low in my area, by about 50% with the exception of the $40 minimum, but I'm sure the cost of living is much higher here in coastal Connecticut. You really can't compare rates across different regions.
 
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