When you are first starting your lawn care business, how do you find how much you should charge to mow a lawn? This is a query that was recently required to us on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Community forum. Here are a few ideas.
First off, if you have never done so, log to the lawn care business forum and post your question along with your part. There is a good chance another lawn care business owner in your area can give you the going rate. You likewise want to ask yourself, do you have any friends in the service? If so, ask them what they charge per lawn.
Another response that was posted was to speak to a few local lawn care businesses in your area and get an estimate from them to service your lawn. If instead of a lawn then ask a friend to obtain a few estimates to yard works landscaping service their lawn. When own three estimates, you will have a good idea how much to charge. You will know the price, plus you come across the square footage dimensions your lawn and you can divide that out to find how much to charge per square ft. Individuals . give you a ballpark idea. Keep in mind, the expenses you end up being run your lawn care business can drastically vary from another lawn care business owner’s expenses, so know your expenses.
The next question you most likely are wondering is should you charge by the square foot or man hour?
Kurt Chance said “The first thing you always want to do, when giving an estimate, is actually walk the property and don’t be in a rush to get in and out. I did this once and when I got there I was in for a surprise. I did not know there were four ditches in the front lot that would need regarding manually trimmed and gone around while mowing. Luckily for me it still took the estimated time that I figured and my price still solved to what I demanded.”
If you are a fresh lawn care business owner, you may want to charge based on man hour. Author Joel LaRusic of mowboy.com suggests “you want to quote quality, not time. In other words it’s better to say “I’ll perform these set of services, to your satisfaction, for $50” than to say “I’ll spend an hour at your house for $50.” Of course, you should use your hourly rate to base your price on but you don’t must have to pass those pricing precisely to the customer. You should the customer watching the clock and as you get better at your job and shave a few minutes from it, that should be to your advantage.”
Kurt explained further “What I do when estimating large properties is I figure out how long it’s going to take me. Break it into smaller sections if I would like to. Then I figure my hourly rate or what I have to make from the property and put a price together from that. A lot of times commercial properties are gonna be broken up into a few mowing areas, I find it easier to just calculate the time it needs for each and then figure out the total time plus drive day time.”
Another more advanced technique to charge per square foot based on formulas. Using formulas requires a a lot more experience, because it is crucial your formulas are effective.