How much to charge per hour.....already searched

[rutwad]

If you do not know your operating costs at this point, and are trying other methods to find your pricing I would look at a couple of things.

1. What do other people charge doing similar work in your area ie, if you wanted to sub it out, what would it cost you to have it done?

2. What the rental cost of that machine would be, and what the minimums etc would be in your local area.

3. I am assuming you are operating above board with reference to taxes / insurance, licenses etc. It sounds like you are just starting in and getting a feel for it, but I will caution you that when you tell someone the price, remember that you will see between 35% to 50% of that price come into your pocket after taxes etc. Then you still have to pay your expenses (gas, maintenance, what you broke etc.) before you put any $ in your pocket.

It is very tempting easy for folks starting into a business like this to say, something along the lines of well, I was making $10 an hour at Wally World and I own my machine so if I charge $20 an hour I am making twice the money, all those guys out there charging $50 (or whatever) are ripping people off..... After they have been around for a while, they find they are charging those prices as well, or going out of business.

There will be a wide range of rates being paid, a general Contractor having yards done as a normal deal will pay a lot less then the one time homeowner who needs some quality work done.

I would talk to some landscapers in your area, we have a 610 Bobcat and a NH 1925 and we sub out a lot of our dirt work to a guy that we work with for $50 an hour. It is just more practical sometimes for us to pay him and have it done than for us to do it with our stuff. He has a Harley as well as a substantially larger Gehl Skid steer.

I was hoping for more. If a guy running a lawn mower charges $60/hr, then a $55k machine should be worth more.

 

[AlanB]

I guess I have lost you completely somewhere or you have lost me, either way I think we are on parrallel paths which will never intersect.

Go find people running similar equipment to yours and ask what they charge.

I hire a guy fairly regularly, that runs a large skid steer (probably 75 horse or so), with a Harley, as well as forks and buckets etc for $50 an hour.

What do they pay in your area? Beats me, You need to go ask the folks there is what I am saying.

When I say do yards for a contractor, I am not speaking about cutting the grass, I am talking about doing the dirt work, finish grade and seed bed prep for new yard installs.

Good luck.

 

[rutwad]

Sorry I wasn't clear. I understand to check rates locally. But then I am just saying (totally another subject) that if a guy charges $60/hr for cutting grass, then it seems like a 100 HP skid steer should be worth quite a bit more. Just an "off topic" comparison.

Sometimes my brain outruns my fingers, so it makes sense when I am thinking something, but I end up shortening my typing which can often be confusing. Sorry

 

[AlanB]

Makes sense.

And it may very well command more, I know I am getting an excellent deal on the work we have done, but he rents part of our storage lot from us, and we work back and forth somewhat.

I loaded his Harley onto his trailer with my Bob Sunday for instance. (you want to talk about a funny sight) I think his harley is 6+ foot, hanging on the front of my Bobcat 610,,,,,, My rear tires occassionally touched the ground.

The real deal is to find some folks close enough too you, that they are in the same pricing area as you, but far enough that they do not feel threatened by you and see if you can sit down and talk price, business plan, pitfalls etc.

I have been lucky in that we started small, and grew slowly (not trying to make a living off the business takes a lot of the pressures off) and we have developed a lot of good contacts "in the industry"

The one person I would not listen too as far as telling you what you can make $ wise with the equipment, is the guy selling it too you.

I always love how the mower shops tell us how many millions of $$$ we are making as lawncare folks, and they are just struggling by as mower shop owners. Kind of like the guys on TV wanting to sell you the "secrets" they learned buying and selling real estate.

Take these guys advice with a huge grain of salt.

If you have to come up with a price today, my suggestion is that you check on what it costs to rent a similar piece of equipment for the anticipated duration of the job.

Swag at what you need to make for your labor as an hourly wage.

Add those two together and that is what I would charge per hour.

Do not forget "set up time" or transport time or whatever you care to call it.

Most folks want a bid price for the exact reason you do not want to give one.

You need some "special" and understanding customers if you do not have the experience to accurately bid your time at present.

I would bet $20 that when you tell someone you are $XX per hour, the first words out of their mouths will be, "how many hours will it take"

Guess high, do not expect to get every job, you are going to eat it on some jobs and if it takes considerably less then you thought, don't be bashfull about discounting back to a fair price, just make certain that the customer understands that, it is unusual or every time they will expect that to happen.

 

[LoneCowboy]

Agreed, people don't like by the hour.
One thing we did was go experiment on a friends' 5 acres. We did it for free (good deal for him) but it gave us an idea of how long it would take to do X or Y.
Then, we just divided by acres.
So, we can give a price by acre by work (mowing, how many acres?) or by time if they have no idea how much land they have.
We do have a minimum price (60/acre to do X, they only have 1 acre, it still costs a $100). That covers my transport and load time. On a 10 acre job that time is minimal, on a 1 acre job its a large part of the time.


It seems to work better, people don't like T & M.

 

[Farmwithjunk]

Sorry I wasn't clear. I understand to check rates locally. But then I am just saying (totally another subject) that if a guy charges $60/hr for cutting grass, then it seems like a 100 HP skid steer should be worth quite a bit more. Just an "off topic" comparison.

Sometimes my brain outruns my fingers, so it makes sense when I am thinking something, but I end up shortening my typing which can often be confusing. Sorry

In a previous thread on your equipment, I mentioned a local land clearing contractor we do business with. (I'm an estimator/project manager for a general contractor) They have a MUCH larger version, self propelled and track mounted. (as opposed to a skid steer attachment) It's 400 HP and 8 feet wide. It'll clear about anything that stands in it's way.

Last job they did for us, we paid $290 per hour. It took 20 hrs to clear 6-1/2 acres of hilly land. (along with 4 "ground men", a dozer, and a log skidder. All priced seperate from that $290)

This would qualify as specialized equipment. There aren't so many of them around to my knowledge. From what the operator told me, there's a fairly high incidence of equipment downtime.

Also consider this is a relatively inexpensive area of the country to do business in.

Purely a guess on my part, but I'd expect to pay $120 to $145 an hour for services of that sort of equipment.

 

[AlanB]

Man, maybe now I am confused, but I think on this thread (or at least I thought) it is just for a high HP tracked SS, not with the munching thing on the front. Just basic bucket work.

I could see my rate doubling when I hooked that muncher thingy up.

Got to be a fairly rare beast. (and I would not even want to think about maintenance, the big ones I have seen have a service truck equippeped to make hydraulic hoses following along behind them )

But a SSL with a bucket on the front is just not that uncommon (which drives the price down quite a bit)

 

[RobertN]

Sorry I wasn't clear. I understand to check rates locally. But then I am just saying (totally another subject) that if a guy charges $60/hr for cutting grass, then it seems like a 100 HP skid steer should be worth quite a bit more. Just an "off topic" comparison.

It's really variable. And, it depends on how expierienced an operator you are. You're looking at about $85/hr around here for a good operator on a large skid steer or track-loader like the ASV. That is someone who has a 4:1 bucket, auger, and breaker. He's expierienced, licensed, and insured. Typically has a 3 hour minimum. It is less expensive for an less expierienced operator.

When I have done work with my Kubota, I usually charged 3 hour minimum. In my case, It was not worth putting the tractor on the trailer for less than that. In a few cases, I had the tractor out and a clients neighbor would ask for work. If I did not have to load the tractor up to move to the next job, I'd usually cut both clients a break.

That is a good question; how good are you? If you are new, you'll be charging less. As you build skills and can do faster, more accurate work, the price goes up, just like any other job. You made a huge investment so I'm guessing you have expierience...

I can't justify it, but I still want the smaller ASV-RC30

 

[rutwad]

Well, originally this thread was about a high HP SS doing bucket work. I had already checked around for mulcher pricing, but still appreciate all the feedback about both. Talked to a couple of people yesterday locally. One using his backhoe doiing bucket work charges $55-65/hr and another guy using the same machine as mine charges $65-75/hr. These are both prices for bucket work only.

Mulching in my area is about $130-150/hr. Seems like price varies tremendously by location. How experienced am I? Quite a bit with equipment, and operate quite efficiently. However, I have never seen anybody else mulch, so I guess I am the best I've ever seen. But that makes me the worse I've ever seen also!

I had one guy only 2 miles from the house offer me $100/hr to mulch 40 hrs. Reach 40 hrs., load up and go home. I will look at the property to see what it is he wants cut, then decide.

And what about hourly labor rates? I operate by myself, but sometimes the customer has me doing non-machine work. The planned job doesn't start out that way, but sometimes it happens. How much do you guys figure for "man hours"?

 

[AlanB]

Get clear before you start, how "hours" are counted.

Clock hours from the clock on the wall or machine hours on the Hobbs meter.

Sounds to me like I would jump on that deal. You get a fair amount of run time (I bet that is a bit of a rough ride) while still making some income. I would consider the other part of the income I would have liked to make as a "schooling cost".

I do not want to work as a laborer (and with current employment I do not need too) so they get charged what our hourly rate is, if the equipment is needed or not. (that said we price everything pretty much by the job, never had much luck getting people to buy into hourly, or they wanted to pay us $10 an hour or something.)