What do you charge for your services?

[GPintheMitten]

Yeah, for little tiny gardens. Price/sq.ft. goes down on larger square footage.

Seems high to me too. A 20' x 20' garden is 400 sq. ft. I don't know anyone who would pay $400 for that. Seems like $50 would be about right for that.

Maybe you meant $0.10 per sq ft?

 

[bucktaker]

mowing is $50.00 an hr for pasture/field woody brush is by estimate

min Charge is $150.00

 

[Canada_CT230]

What a tool!

Why? He mentioned nothing of the amount $$$ so you can't say the guy was a tool.

I tried to get a carpet installer in my house to do a hallway and stairs (rest of the house is hardwood). I asked for several quotes and no one came back.

GIVE me a price and I'll decide. Even if it is a 1.5 hr job...maybe the guy was willing to pay top $ to get it done...you don't know.

A job is a job. If the guy is willing to pay you for travel, loading/unloading and the 1.5 hrs of work why would you decline?

Now if he only wanted to pay for the 1.5 hrs then yes...take a hike.

I was willing to pay up to a $100/hr (labor rate) for a carpet guy...but no one even gave me a price quote. Ended up buying carpet and doing it myself. Took me 12 hrs to do and it was the first time doing carpet. A professional would have been a day job. Easy $800 (labor) in a day...but alas...nobody gave me the time of day.

Now...I tell my story about all the carpet guys in town. Bad customer service gets you bad reviews.

 

[pjbci]

Im saying he was a tool. The guy said to me, " I only gots about an hour and a half of work for you and I gots a tight budget". This is after I told him 80 per hour and I needed a full day of work to travel that far. This is why I declined.

 

[Canada_CT230]

That is ok then. Small jobs are ok as long as you get paid for your time. I had a small job and was willing to pay but nobody gave me the time of day. That is bad business in my books.

 

[pjbci]

Agreed. Small jobs put groceries on my table. Probaly 60 percent of my income is from 4-5 hour jobs.

 

[raptor749]

$55 to $70 an hour, depends on what i'm doing, . Thing is tractor,equipment, fuel, and your time !! COST ALOT, time away from family can't be replaced, if they had to purchase the equipment they would understand ( IT'S NOT CHEAP $$ ) , fuel cost keep going up $$ , and you can only do so many good deeds for FREE !! Just think about insurance $ , truck , trailer , then tags for each $ , taxes , it never stops , . Just got my truck tags $526.60 a year , 5 trailers one time ( multi year tags ) $75.00 each good for life of trailer, then tires, ect., ect., Just my 2cents..

 

[Turbys_1700]

I don't do work for hire but I would think that a 4 hour minimum @ $50 per hour would be a reasonable rate for a small 30 HP tractor...
I would estimate $70 per hour on 50 HP and $ per hour on 70 hp...
Lot of people are ignorant of the cost associated with doing this type of work...

 

[RDrancher]

One thing we haven't mentioned yet is the skill it takes to operate the equipment, which is also worth money. Anyone can rent equipment to do the job themselves but few have the knowledge to run the machine and even fewer can do it well and efficiently. I have a handful of new customers every year that relate stories of trying to do it themselves. They spend the money to rent, say a skidsteer, then spend most of the day trying to figure out how to make it work and a lot of time spent trying to fix their screw ups.

And how about the danger we put ourselves into operating the equipment, hooking up attachments and even hauling to the job? If you're hurt doing any of these things (or even worse), YOU are the one who pays...and your family too.

 

[blucoondawg]

I work for a utility installation company we put in natural gas, electric, and communications, every job we have digger's hotline come out, and we still manage to hit stuff, we get 18" from the mark they paint on the ground, as long as we hit it more than 18" away from that paint we are not liable at all. Last week we did a job installing 4000ft of primary electric wire and hit a 50 pair copper phone wire cutting it, it was 4ft off the mark when we hit it, the next day just as we were finishing the job we hit a fiberoptic line and broke it, that was not marked at all, knocked out cellphones to a large portion of the state as well as internet service, we were there til 10:30 that night waiting for 6 phone company technicians to burn the fiber back together. I wonder if that locator still has his job, we still have ours. Never do any digging without calling the digger's hotline first.

 

[Z RENCH]

I'm kinda new in the 'for hire' business, but I.ve settled on $50/HR. I try to keep my services somewhat local approx. within 10 miles. I use a 41 hp CT440 and do mostly loader/blade work, mowing, tilling, or phding. I also have a Kioti DK55 w/ a backhoe on the rear and a man lift cage on the front. I haven,t hired it out yet, but I think I should probably charge a little more for it's services. Hey blucoondawg , do you recognize my avitar?

 

[blucoondawg]

I don't recall seeing it before?

 

[Z RENCH]

I don't recall seeing it before?

It's the Pelican Lake chamber of commerce logo.

 

[westbrooklawn]

Tractor work is $80/hr. with minimum 1 hr. transport time.

 

[blucoondawg]

It's the Pelican Lake chamber of commerce logo.

Now that you mention it, I have seen that, just couldn't place it

 

[MESSMAKER]

I get $45-60 per hour, plus $2 per loaded mile. I frequently do work by the job.People just want to know the final # an can they afford it. I include travel in that quote. I seem to stay busy.

 

[RDrancher]

I get $45-60 per hour, plus $2 per loaded mile. I frequently do work by the job.People just want to know the final # an can they afford it. I include travel in that quote. I seem to stay busy.

I will second that. I offer services by the hour, but folks typically want to know the final number and I end up quoting about 90% of my work. That works fine since I always quote to make sure I cover everything. Works for them, works for me. Doesn't get any better than that.

 

[galaxie428]

I have thought about charging for milage but never really knew what to charge. I was following a rule of $1 per mile after the first 10 miles.

So your $2 per loaded mile is round trip correct?

 

[pjbci]

I have wondered about just charging my hourly rate for transport time. Diesel for this peterbilt is killing me.

 

[MESSMAKER]

I have thought about charging for milage but never really knew what to charge. I was following a rule of $1 per mile after the first 10 miles.

So your $2 per loaded mile is round trip correct?

I don't charge for the first 5miles and kick in at $2 per mile after that. You got to get something. What if something breaks and you lose money. Make a long trip twice for free and you will come out in the hole for sure.