Price per SF?

[mark123]

Originally Posted by TNT Family Lawn Care I look at the lawn and estimate how long its gonna take me to complete the mowing trimming blowing edgeing. Then I bid a dollar a minute this has never failed in getting anything I quote.Try it see if it works for ya THat's not a bad plan but how do you take into consideration longer services due to overfertilizations by other companies or the customer themselves? How do you handle double cuts or bagging clippings in these cases?

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Boughter's Lawn Care Services Mowing and Fertilizing in New Castle, PA

[jasonw]

Lawn care business tips

Originally Posted by mark123 No. That's still about 4 times too much. About $30 is my price for 11k. If you charge about $50 per hour then your price should be somewhere around $28 for 11k. How do you make any money doing it that cheap? One of the properties I did last weekend was an acre and I did it for $200, maybe its just the difference in area that we are in but this acre needs to be cut as low to the dirt as possible and takes about 4 hours time to hit it with the tractor then go all the way around the fence with the trimmer. I mean for $30 I could not even load the tractor up and drive the truck out there. I know my price for that particular property is good to because I know the people and know what they paid before having me do it which was about $480 for 3 Mexicans to do a half a$$ job. Thats why I got the job because I was cheaper and do it how they ask for it to be done. I know after adding it up for the property size my price is only $80 more than yours but I like to have money left over after paying for gas and insurance and licensing and all that fun stuff.

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White Company

[jymie]

To be honest, use the wheel to measure beds for size when your doing mulch jobs to figure how much product you will need. Estimate how long it will take you to cut the lawn and quote what you feel it should be. Using a $1 a minute is a good way to look at it. That would include the time to do the trimming.

[jasonw]

Originally Posted by jymie

To be honest, use the wheel to measure beds for size when your doing mulch jobs to figure how much product you will need. Estimate how long it will take you to cut the lawn and quote what you feel it should be. Using a $1 a minute is a good way to look at it. That would include the time to do the trimming.

How would using that method work on larger jobs? For example for my yard that would cost the client about $30 which is not bad but for the larger one I did last week it would cost the client $240 which is actually $40 more than I charge them. Dose that mean I am under bidding that big job or would you drop the time/min for larger properties?

[jymie]

Its really how you feel. You may have gotten $240 for that job or maybe not. People will pay if they like the quote. Even $200 was probably a good idea, I usually round off also. Depends on the situation, if there is a lot of trimming to do etc, if its an easy mow.

[TNT Family Lawn Care]

The going rate is different in other areas, states here in michigan the going rate for 1 acre is around 30-40 a acre you go any higher they will laugh and tell you they can get it done for cheaper

[jasonw]

Originally Posted by jymie

Its really how you feel. You may have gotten $240 for that job or maybe not. People will pay if they like the quote. Even $200 was probably a good idea, I usually round off also. Depends on the situation, if there is a lot of trimming to do etc, if its an easy mow.

Well that particular job is super easy. The trimming sucks on the back but most of it is just a matter of driving the tractor in circles for a while. Now that I think of it I quotes $150 to cut the back of the property, its a vacation house. They showed up one day and the guys said "How much to do the front as well" I said $50 more and its been that way ever since. I have done it this way once per month for a little over a year now. What kills me is the smaller properties around town here. I remember one guy whose yard would take me about 45 minutes here in town wanted it done for $10 per week, that's 45 minutes every week for $40 per month. Needless to say I left my card and walked away from that one. I mean I am all for making deals and helping out the elderly and doing anything I can but I need to eat at the same time.

[jasonw]

Originally Posted by TNT Family Lawn Care

The going rate is different in other areas, states here in michigan the going rate for 1 acre is around 30-40 a acre you go any higher they will laugh and tell you they can get it done for cheaper

$30-$40 for one acre? WOW. "Reaches over and crosses Michigan off list of potential places to move" LOL that's crazy.

[TNT Family Lawn Care]

tell me about it but back in the day before the bottom fell out the rate was 50-65 per acre an when everyone lost there jobs for down sizing or got laid off they all went out and bought mowers an started under cutting just to get money coming in. There still is a company mowing out here in my town 25$ a acre its tough out here but make your work stand out from everybody else

[TNT Family Lawn Care]

Originally Posted by mark123

THat's not a bad plan but how do you take into consideration longer services due to overfertilizations by other companies or the customer themselves? How do you handle double cuts or bagging clippings in these cases?

this just happen to me this 2010 season there grass grew so fast within 5 days i had to cut it 3 times before i felt it looked good an i could leave my name on the front yard i charged them the 1 dallor min for all the time i was there they had no problems paying then i told them if it keeps growing that fast i will be here twice a week to cut did this for 3 months. it was a pain in the butt, but easy money picked up the nieghbor also they loved the work