I've been in the commercial snow management business for almost 40 years. Three snow facts that you can take to the bank: 1) It is impossible to predict the amount of snow you can expect in any given storm, let alone a full season, 2) Nothing is as easy as it looks, and, 3) Someone will always offer to do it cheaper.
I have a friend who plows driveways and during a heavy storm a couple years ago, he was plowing a driveway and each time he backed up he noticed a guy across the street shoveling, but mostly leaning on the shovel just looking at him plow. The guy started trudging through the snow towards the street and Jeff knew the inevitable "flag down" was coming.
Sure enough the guy was at his driver's window in no time inquiring "how much to plow my driveway". Jeff had already surveyed the driveway from his truck figured $40 was about right so he said "$40" and they guy laughed and held up a $20 and said "How about $20". Jeff said "Gee mister, is that a real $20 bill? ... No thanks" The guy persisted that $20 was more than fair because it was only a few minutes of work. Jeff said "Look, it's $40 if you want me to do the driveway" and the guy continued to argue. Jeff said "OK, tell you what; get in your car and you can follow me along my plowing route and write down every address I plow - most are paying $40. Then you can go and offer them all a plow from you for only $20. Once you get them all lined up, go buy a $30,000.00 truck, hang a $4k plow on it, buy the proper but necessary insurance for about $2k/year, load up all the spare parts you'll need because plowing breaks equipment constantly, and then you can take all of my customers and I'll even have you plow my driveway for $20!" The guy walked away indignant and Jeff continued to clean up the driveway he was working on. A few minutes later as he backed out to leave, he saw the guy coming back down his driveway with what were clearly two $20 bills in his hand. Jeff avoided eye contact and backed on to the street as he did the guy was waving the 2 20's and trying to get his attention and as he drove off Jeff feigned to catch him out of the corner of his eye and gave a wave back as if the guy was waving good bye. As he went up the street the last image he saw was of the guy standing in the street with his shovel, the two 20's, and a bewildered look on his face.
The moral of the story is that professional snow removal is not easy, it is frequently under-priced for the work involved, and there are plenty of hidden costs that are not appreciated by the uninitiated.
Typically, residential removal contracts are per storm per visit. So the first plow is $40 but if it keeps snowing and you have to go back, the second visit in the same storm is at a lower rate such as $20 because it's usually only a clean up. All additional things such as salting, sanding, having to push back piles in a heavy winter, doing the sidewalk, etc, are all normally priced on an "a la carte" basis.
If you are doing this with a snow-blower, that's full exposure in the weather. If the snow comes at night and you have to clear 5 driveways between 3AM and 6AM, you might not be able to do that with a snow blower due to the engine noise and potential complaints. People generally don't like to hear small engines running for hours on end in the middle of the night.
Doing commercial snow removal with only a snow blower is hard work that has the provider totally exposed to the elements for hours and that is grueling. If the snow-blower breaks down, you must have a back-up plan in place. You also must have a good inventory of consumable parts like shear pins for when you find yesterday's newspaper or the dog's toy under the snow as you are clearing. Stuff happens and you need to be prepared.
That's my two cents after making my living in snow removal for the past 38 years.
