Advice needed on pricing jobs

[handymidi]

Hi I have been a few jobs for clients but I don't think that I am pricing them correctly and underselling myself. 

 

I go to most jobs with my own tools  

• Van 
• Chainsaw 
• Pruning Tools 
• Chipper Machine  
• Bush Cutters 
• Hand Tools 

 

I can cut and clear most areas with those. 

 

I tend to charge £15ph for my cutting time but I am unsure about the other costs I need to factor and add. 

 

I am thinking on a day basis 

• Cutting Labour £25PH 
• Labourer Cost £100-£140 
• Chipper Cost Per Day £120 
• Fuel For Machines Per Day £20
• Waste Removal £100 Chipped, or Waste Removal (Waste Transfer Station) Whatever their price is. 
• Travel 75p per mile. 

 

Do you think that is an ok kind of formula? 

 

I really dont know how to work out the waste charge because it will not cost me anything to dispose of the chipped waste, but there is the cost to someone having to chip it in the machine and the machine cost too. 

 

Also to dump the waste at the dump would be a minimum £40 plus what ever the weight is. I would not know that until I am at the dump so it is not like I can give the customer a price for that until I know what is it. 

 

Please help 

Thanks 

 

 

[pleasant]

National minimum living wage is now £11.44 p/h for over 18's.

 

When charging yourself out, you need to include all your overheads- the cost of training and your skills and experience, the cost of purchasing your machinery, the depreciation, your time and cost to travel to the job, and then the running cost of your machinery for an hour- you will get though a litre of 2-stroke an hour for example, and a litre of unleaded now is say £1.50 plus the cost of your oil, and that's without the maintenance and repair costs factored in. Then protective clothing etc. Then you will have your income tax and national insurance, and then cost to purchase/rent/hire your vehicle, and the insurance for it and road tax and running costs, your public liability insurance etc. At that hourly rate you may as well stack shelves in Tesco and be financially a lot better off.

 

You need to work out how much you need in your pocket to live on after all these costs have been taken out. If you say you only need to clear in your pocket £15 p/h then you need to be charging yourself out at considerably more than that to know you won't end up working for little more than minimum wage.

Edited August 18 by pleasant

[handymidi]

8 hours ago, pleasant said:

National minimum living wage is now £11.44 p/h for over 18's.

 

When charging yourself out, you need to include all your overheads- the cost of training and your skills and experience, the cost of purchasing your machinery, the depreciation, your time and cost to travel to the job, and then the running cost of your machinery for an hour- you will get though a litre of 2-stroke an hour for example, and a litre of unleaded now is say £1.50 plus the cost of your oil, and that's without the maintenance and repair costs factored in. Then protective clothing etc. Then you will have your income tax and national insurance, and then cost to purchase/rent/hire your vehicle, and the insurance for it and road tax and running costs, your public liability insurance etc. At that hourly rate you may as well stack shelves in Tesco and be financially a lot better off.

 

You need to work out how much you need in your pocket to live on after all these costs have been taken out. If you say you only need to clear in your pocket £15 p/h then you need to be charging yourself out at considerably more than that to know you won't end up working for little more than minimum wage.

Thanks I know what you mean but there are so many factors like you mentioned that have to be taken into account and each job is different.  

 

I am trying to work out a set formula to approach every job with that will work until I can get a better idea. 

 

What I need to do is factor in things that I have not been doing like 

Travelling cost 

Fuel / Oil 

Machines 

Vehicle 

 

First thing is to up my hourly rate £25ph and then look at factoring other costs to the quote. 

 

 

 

 

[GarethM]

Why are you working it out per hour, it's not Tesco and using that mentality means less pay in winter!.

 

Know you're day rate and work backwards, £350 per person as a guide for tree work, more people just means more jobs per day tho.

[Ty Korrigan]

Why do people put "chipper £120/150?

6" machines cost very little to run per hour and often do under an hour per day on domestic work.

I assume a 6" as it's the most common.

Putting in £120 for what I assume is your own chipper would mean that over 180 days you'd be charging £21'600 

Seems rather excessive 

Talking about knowing your costs here not about gross profit margins.

Edited August 20 by Ty Korrigan

[handymidi]

On 19/08/2024 at 16:46, Ty Korrigan said:

Why do people put "chipper £120/150?

6" machines cost very little to run per hour and often do under an hour per day on domestic work.

I assume a 6" as it's the most common.

Putting in £120 for what I assume is your own chipper would mean that over 180 days you'd be charging £21'600 

Seems rather excessive 

Talking about knowing your costs here not about gross profit margins.

 

Yes but I am not using my Chipper all year round so I can't charge next to nothing. 

[handymidi]

On 19/08/2024 at 09:20, GarethM said:

Why are you working it out per hour, it's not Tesco and using that mentality means less pay in winter!.

 

Know you're day rate and work backwards, £350 per person as a guide for tree work, more people just means more jobs per day tho.

 

Hi yes, I could do it like that for labour and on the machinery too. 

 

I just tend to say per hour because most people don't always want to hire you for a day. That way it makes it sound a bit more pleasing to them at times. 

[Ty Korrigan]

2 hours ago, handymidi said:

 

Yes but I am not using my Chipper all year round so I can't charge next to nothing. 

That is not how it works, not at all.

Imagine, you decide to be a taxi driver but only three times a week.

Are you going to add a supplement to your fare because your taxi is idle the rest of the week and the finance and insurance needs paying?

 

 

[Ty Korrigan]

Also, this hourly rate nonsense.

Take two similarly equipped gardeners.

Gardener A. Asks for £20 per hour and takes 8 hours to cut a hedge because he told the client it might take a day and besides he is being paid by the hour, bags himself £160

Gardener B. 'Quotes' £160 for a similar hedge, smashes it out in a morning, does another similar hedge in the afternoon and takes £320 for a day's work.

This is because working to a quote is an incentive for productivity whilst a low hourly rate is merely a halfway step between being salaried and self employed.

[Dan Maynard]

Also, gardener A has no incentive to invest in better equipment to save time, so stays slow forever.

 

People doing general weeding and borders seem to do per hour, but I guess it's not really possible to write a quote out for weekly tidy up like that.