I got in on this discussion kind of late, but we are a landscaping co. with a 2710 and a older Massey tractor. We have a couple of box blades plus a 3 point trencher, a post hole auger, a tiller, a cultivator, and a (seeding)drill, along with some other equipment that we put in sprinkler systems with (a couple of ditch witch vibratory plows). I guess I am trying to qualify my answer to your question here. We live in a fairly small market, but keep very busy. Basically we charge about $45.oo an hour per tractor and operator. If we have one tractor working and another man on the ground running a shovel it might go up to about $60.00 an hour. All this very to some degree depending on how big or small the job is and what all is involved. Example: if we were back filling a new house and then putting a new lawn along with a sprinkler system the whole package might be less than a normal hourly rate. We go in and bid every job to the hour, and if we end up taking less time getting it done we will come down on the original price. And we NEVER ever charge more than we bid. It is very good for business to tell a customer that the job you did them ended up costing them 50 to 100 dollars less than they expected, and it is only fair. Learning to bid the job to start with is the trick, and if you have been running a tractor very long at all you probably have a better idea than you might think. We haven't lost any money yet on a job, but we learned after time and experience that we were in this to make money and to not cut things to darn close. As far as the hourly rate, it just depends on the market, like everything else. I know 50 miles to the north of us is a fairly large city with unlimited building going on and their rates are 20 to 30 dollars higher than ours. Why don't we go up there and work more, because you add in 2 hours of driving plus gas and it gets less worth it. Also I just like working in a smaller town. Sorry if this got a little long. If you have any other questions feel free to contact me at my e-mail address anytime.
