When you are beginning your lawn care business, how do you find how much you should charge to mow a lawn? This is a question that was recently asked to us on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. Here are a few ideas.
First off, if you have not done so, log towards the lawn care business forum and post your question along with your range. There is a good chance another lawn care business owner in the area can give you the going rate. You could also 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 contact a few local lawn care businesses in your area and get an estimate from them to service your yard works lawn mowing service. If there isn’t a lawn then ask a friend to get a few estimates to service their lawn. When own three estimates, you may have a good idea simply how much to charge. You will know the price, plus you discover the square footage sized 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 differ from another lawn care business owner’s expenses, so know your expenses.
The next question you may be 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, has been 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 looking for a surprise. I did not know there were four ditches in the front lot that would need being manually trimmed and gone around while mowing. Luckily for me it still took the estimated time that I figured and my price still puzzled out to what I was looking for.”
If you are 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 group of services, to your satisfaction, for $50” than the guy “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 need to pass those pricing details on to the customer. You should the customer watching contributions and as you get good at your job and shave a few minutes associated with 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 want to. Then I figure my hourly rate or what Let me make from the property and put a price together from that. A lot of times commercial properties are gonna be broken up into several mowing areas, I locate one easier to just locate the time it calls for for each and then figure out the total time plus drive your time.”
Another more advanced method is to charge per sq . ft . based on formulas. Using formulas requires a a lot more experience, because it critical your formulas are best.