Rototilling a garden.Price too low?

[fishguy]

Hi guys. If you read my intro post, you know I am total noob and have no clue as to what I am doing. Right now I am just flying by the seat of my pants to get a handle on how long jobs take me and how much the expenses are. I just started out last month part time; nothing fancy just push mowers, trimming, edging, and blowing. I'm keeping my yards small right now, less than 11,000 sq feet, due to lack of experience and equipment. Anywho, question: I just got a rototilling job this Saturday. The guy has 3 beds he wants to till up so he can turn them into gardens. There is a total of 250 sq feet of tilling between all 3 beds. I have an old tiller that I used to use on my garden; just fired it up and it works, so I don't need to rent anything. Anyway, I have no clue as to how much I should charge. I quoted him $95.00 and he jumped all over it. Did I go too low? Also for kicks, I've only got 6 accounts so far (which is fine for now) and like I said the biggest one is 11,000 sq feet including the foot print of the house and beds, etc. I've been charging $35.00 per cut on everyone's, does this sound fair? I haven't NOT got a job yet that I've quoted so I'm thinking I might be too low.

[Steve]

Lawn care business tips

How long are you thinking this job will take you? I have an old tiller that I used to use on my garden How large of an area was your garden and how long did that take?

__________________
- Subscribe to my Lawn Care Marketing Blog Feed and get daily tips sent to you. Free!
Download your Free trial of Gopher Lawn Care Software.

[OziGardenGuy]

If you're getting every job that you'r equoting, it means that you're quoting too low.

80% acceptance is the point at which you can be quite certain that your rate is correct. If you quote $10, then you will get 100% acceptance. If you quote $100 then you will probably get 10% acceptance. You do the math.

80%? You're right on target for that area you're working. Don't forget to allow for some parts of the patch you service being more willing to accept higher rates and better quality services than some other places.

Think it through, carefully.

Cheers - OziGardenGuy.

[ease-z lawn care]

how big is your tiller? It seems that if the grownd was soft and not really compact it should only take about 1 hours at most. Iv not done much tilling other than helping my grandfather and his is abot that size and done every year so its very soft, took 30 min with standerd tiller. Heck! sounds reasonable to me, But im a noob as well man.

[fishguy]

Originally Posted by Steve

How long are you thinking this job will take you?


How large of an area was your garden and how long did that take?

Well, now I am thinking I might have been a bit high after all. I was supposed to do the job today, but the potential client called and wants to move it back until next weekend. I'm not sure if he is legitimate or trying to string me along while he works some other bidder.

My garden that I used to do was about the same sq. footage all in one patch. Quite frankly, I can't remember how long it would take. I was completely guessing that it could take as long as 2 hours to till. I figured in 12 dollars in gas both ways and 1 hour travel time round trip including loading and unloading tiller. So, my thought process was $35.00/hour times 3 hours plus $12.00 for gas equals $117.00. So if I discount the $117.00 by 20% (because I really want the job for experience in tilling and estimating mainly), I came up with $93.60 for the job, so I rounded it to $95.00 thinking it was a nice round number and it was less than a mental barrier of $100.00.

But, I don't know. I'm just grasping at straws.

[fishguy]

Originally Posted by ease-z lawn care

how big is your tiller? It seems that if the grownd was soft and not really compact it should only take about 1 hours at most. Iv not done much tilling other than helping my grandfather and his is abot that size and done every year so its very soft, took 30 min with standerd tiller. Heck! sounds reasonable to me, But im a noob as well man.

My tiller is an old beast, but it works fine. It's a pretty good size tiller with a lot of heft. It is probably about 20"-24" wide and it is heavy. Did I mention it was a beast?

The ground has never been tilled, so I am thinking it may need 2 or 3 passes. I was figuring 2 hours to till and an hour round trip in travel time and load/unload of equipment.

[Steve]

See what happens. They still may go for it. Keep us posted on how it all turns out and how long it takes.