Yet another great job to price!!

[Mesterh]

Agg221 has put that brilliantly. Take all of that and add this thought provoker to it.

How much do you need to make in profit alone to have a good business?

You have 52 weeks in a year, but you take 3 weeks holiday and may well be sick for a week. Now only 48 5 day weeks available to work=240 days.

Now, you will need 1 day in case of funeral, 1 to mot the van,2 for kids school functions, 5 to look after kids when wife is ill,1 to go to a trade show, now down to 230 possible working days per year

You need 1 day in 5 for looking at jobs and 1 day in 10 when you cannot work because of poor weather, take off another 72 days, now down to 158

 

158 x8 hour days = 1264 hours, but... You have 2 hrs travel and prep per day, so its 158 x 6 = 948 hrs. My mental arithmatic is rubbish so we will round it up to 1000

 

I dont know what you want to make in profit, but you need to be on at least 32k or you are better working for someone else IMO. You therefore need a profit of £32 per working hour. This is a profit figure. Work out your costs, divide them by 1000 and add them to £32 to get an hourly rate. If you want to earn more (or less) re jig the figure. i assume one man band.

 

All of this can be taken loosely, but i bet its not far off reality.

 

There is definitely more money in repairs and sales than cutting and climbing ! I bet there's not many tree business owners taking that in never mind someone on the books.

 

Back to the OP, sounds like an awkward job with scope for a few mishaps and delays which need factoring in.

[butler]

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm

[GardenKit]

There is definitely more money in repairs and sales than cutting and climbing ! I bet there's not many tree business owners taking that in never mind someone on the books.

 

Back to the OP, sounds like an awkward job with scope for a few mishaps and delays which need factoring in.

Ok. so substiute any figure you want for my 32K. i.e £20k needs £20 per hour profit over costs. its still a lot of money.

The point is that there are very few workable hours available in reality, so they need to be priced accordingly. Too many people think along the lines of 40 plus hours available per week, but it seldom works that way.

[Tom D]

Its always interesting to read others thoughts on pricing, It begs the question; do you price the job (time) or the tree?

 

I tend to price the tree.

 

So a tricky job like that which you may do in a day would be priced at maybe £1300+.If it takes two days than thats ok. at £850 if it takes two days thats not enough.

[Pete Hart]

There is definitely more money in repairs and sales than cutting and climbing ! I bet there's not many tree business owners taking that in never mind someone on the books.

 

Back to the OP, sounds like an awkward job with scope for a few mishaps and delays which need factoring in.

 

 

 

The old product against service business question......I would love to have a crystal ball!!!!

 

Interesting thread...i've enjoyed reading about peoples takes on pricing.

It is sometimes trickier to get the price right than do the work i find!!!

[likeitorlumpit]

£20 per hour is an absolute minimum for 1 man band

Thats not profit as you then have to take out costs leaving yu about £8-10 per hour.

Thats pretty crap for the danger involved

Whatever you do don't undercharge or you'll end up disenchanted:thumbdown:

[Mark Bolam]

People on here are happy to share their knowledge on pricing with a part-timer trying to go full-time, but not on underpricing.

 

The fact you seem to have no EL might grate on a few as well.

 

My tuppence worth is that it sounds like a crap job for crap customers, and I wouldn't be interested.

[Pedroski]

Mark, what's "EL"?

[skyhuck]

Employers Liability insurance.

[Pedroski]

Cheers for that. I knew it must have been something obvious but my brain was out of gear!