What to charge per acre/square foot for roto-tilling?

[Spurlucky]

Hello friends,

I am looking to turn my obsession into occasional $. I am an Instructor at a Vocational High School and have the summers off. I am also a Craigslist attachment addict and buy things on the off chance I might use them once. I am trying to justify a trailer to move these beautiful works of art from site to site (tractor itself mostly) and turn this "investment" (that's the word I use when the wife is in the room) into a little cash. Roto-tilling gardens comes to mind.

I have a MX5200 with the following attachments:

FEL bucket & forks
Backhoe w/hydraulic thumb
74" Roto-tiller
Two bottom 16" plow
7' Lime spreader (tow behind)
7' York Rake
72" brush hog
72" finish mower
3pt Snow blower
72" back blade
3pt Post hole digger
72" 3pt chain drag

My question is what are you guy/gals getting for tractor work per hour/square footage or acre and what are you paying for insurance just in case?

Thanks!
Spurlucky

 

[nickelplated5s]

If you're a CL user check there. What I see here varies, some charge travel time and some have a minimum.

 

[85Hokie]

My question is what are you guy/gals getting for tractor work per hour/square footage or acre and what are you paying for insurance just in case?

Thanks!
Spurlucky

I would think that travel time and more importantly soil type would play a major roll in deciding what to charge. Has the land every been turned? I am no farmer, but I do know that every "field" is different and you need to plan for those situations that might bite you in the ol booootox!

 

[D2Cat]

Probably when most folks thing about tilling, in their mind they see a picture of last years garden needing a do-over to get ready for the next year. Always look at the job site to see what you're up against. The area the customer wants tilled could be a past dump site with who knows what in it, from axles to car bodies. You better know before you give a bid!

If you can't determine from neighbors past cost, or CL prices, I'd charge what you think is fair. You either get too much work and need to raise your price, or no work and have to lower your price. Soon you'll find a happy medium.

 

[hodge]

In our area, they don't charge per square foot, but per garden- about $45. I won't till for money, because it isn't worth it. I've tilled gardens for friends, and dented my tiller up on their rocks. I've asked them to go ahead of me and get the big stuff out, and I still tore up my tiller. So, I can't till enough gardens here or there to make enough money to replace my implement.
I will till if I know the garden well- a friend has two, which I take care of for him. One I can drive the tractor to, and the other that I have to trailer to. I've never charged him, and he's always given me a $200 tip...

 

[Kurtee]

I charge for tilling by the hour. 40 per hour for a 42 inch on tractor and 35 for rear tine walk behind with a 20 dollar minimum which is too cheap for the cost of the machines. The tiller you have would be useable in only one or two that I till as it is too large. In looking at your equipment list I see one tool that could get you in trouble. That is the post hole auger. Be sure to use the 811 call before you start any digging. I have been in this stuff for years and there are plenty of whores out there that make it difficult to make anything at it. Charge what you need to come out and if you don't get the work you didn't wear out your equipment for nothing.

 

[eipo]

My son and I started doing this so he can make money to buy a car.

We charge $0.05 per sq ft for an existing garden and $0.06 per sq ft for a new garden. Prices per sq ft go down as the sq footage goes up. Minimum charge is $40.

 

[GEPM64]

Good morning,

I started a business in my area providing services to small acreages (up to 10 acres) depending on the task. I charge $70 per hour with a minimum charge of $140.00. I dont charge travel time if they are within 10 minutes of my house. I provide, tilling, cultivating, harrowing, field mowing, spraying, etc. Any seed or chemical is extra. For reference the skid steer guys are charging $80-$85 per hour. Make sure you visit a job site before you commit as Ive turned down some jobs because they were too big or too hard for my machine.

So far business has been good. If your interested check out my (lousy) website at www.anolaagriworks.ca

Regards
Glenn

 

[Spurlucky]

Thanks guys,

You've given me a lot to think about. Still scratching my head about taking the plunge and starting a legitimate side "business".

Spurlucky

 

[goldenpsp]

So I'll throw this idea out from the opposite direction. You may have already thought about this, but this is a common trap of many small businesses.

It is less important to decide what you want to charge for your services. It is far more important to understand what it costs to provide those services. Without understanding your costs you run the risk of making money but ultimately losing money, which is what happens to many people who undersell their services.

Since buying my BX last fall I've been kicking around the same idea of making some money on the side. I still haven't wrapped up my costs but here's what I've done so far.

I called my dealer and asked about their charges for service. Now I expect I will be doing my maintenance intervals myself, but from a cost perspective using their numbers includes a proper buffer. Also it gives the option to use them instead if I wanted. It is also important to factor in your time when doing your own maintenance. Your time has value.

Anyhow, their 50 hour maintenance runs $400. When asked he also said most maintenance intervals would be in that range. So I decided on $500 per 50 hour for maintenance, or $10/hour. Now you have to look at implements. They have maintenance as well. This one I haven't really factored very "scientifically" and just added $5/hour for maintenance of the implements (FEL BH MMM) And you also have fuel costs. in 30 hours I've used almost 2 tanks, so say 12 gallons. At $3/gal average for diesel around here that works out to about $1.20/hr. So I rounded up to 2.

So with that Im up to $18/hour just to run my BX. Now I'm sure I am overestimating, but this is a side thing to make some cash if I can, not a competitive business feeding my family. However I'd rather overestimate vs add wear and tear to my BX and realize I lost money on top of it. But we still aren't done.

It is also good to add some "fudge factor" for unexpected damage. I added a 30% buffer rounding up which now brings my running cost to $24/hour. But I'm still not done.

I got a nice 0% payment for my tractor. That is a cost to factor in. I've had a hard time figuring out how though. To roll it into an hourly cost what hours do I use? There's on average about 9,720 hours in a month, but you aren't running the tractor that much. So I made an arbitrary decision that I'd average say 2 saturdays a month doing side work, say roughly 18 hours a month. At a monthy payment of $237 that makes it $13/hour.

So now my "costs" are sitting at $37/hour, which includes no labor. Time is money. If I am off doing some side job on saturday, I'm not at home working on my own yard, or playing with my kids etc. What is that time worth for me? (the answer is a lot).

So overall, I don't think I'd bother for myself to do anything for less that $125/hr.

 

[heclara]

I noticed in my area a person has a $100 charge for a normal size home garden which I think is very reasonable considering the investment you have made . I don't do that for some of the reasons already stated , just isn't worth it due to wear and tear etc. .

 

[prof.fate]

good start on the math.

if you're not covering your costs you are PAYING out of YOUR pocket to till others' gardens. Sorry, but if you want to do charity there are probably mroe worthwhile folks than suburbanites that need garden tilled.

You said you're a teacher- well, gardens need tilled mar/apr/may and maybe sept/oct. So much for filling your summer with work. School let out here June 7..if your garden isn't in by now it's too late now.

OK - back to the math - what is your time worth? A teacher here is paid $55,000 to $90,000 dependingon school district. I don't know how many hours a year you work, but 180 days, 20 training, 10 hours a day is 2000 hours - do your TIME is REALLY worth $27-45/hour. Now a business owner is worth that..is a tractor operator? Probably not.

There is the TIME to talk or meet (sell) the client, time to load your equipment, fuel/miles to get there and back. Plus any advertising you might do. Sure, craigslist is free to use, but it takes TIME to do an ad, respond to inquiries, etc.

Insurance...is your tractor covered? trailer and truck? ALMOST ALWAYS if you're doing it for profit your insurance WILL NOT cover it (higher risk and exposure for the insurance company so they want mo money). You can lie if something happens...but that's called insurance fraud.

Yeah, odds are small something will happen. But it DOES happen. Hit a fence, turf a yard..the client will expect you to pay to make it right. Back your trailer into their fence, kids bike, etc? Yeah, it's possible. LIability is pretty cheap. $300/year depending.

So if you do 10 hours of tilling that's 30/hour in insurance costs. Ouch.

then you have the unknown of where you're going to till - I tilled my 2400sf garden with a friend's rear tine self propelled unit - 45 minutes. Big garden. Wouldn't have been any quicker wiht a tractor realy..more load/unload time, more parking issues, access issues perhaps...

I"m considering brush hogging..so doing the same thinking and math process. $45 / hour is common here, maybe up to $60, 2 hour min is pretty typical.

Not sure there is actually any profit in there..just hassles.

 

[CaveCreekRay]

Great advice.

The fastest way to kill your competition is to undercharge them. It will fill up your schedule.

The fastest way to kill your business is to charge less than your cost of doing business. That will break the bank.

Nobody minds paying a fair price except those who want something for nothing.

 

[Spurlucky]

So I'll throw this idea out from the opposite direction. You may have already thought about this, but this is a common trap of many small businesses.

It is less important to decide what you want to charge for your services. It is far more important to understand what it costs to provide those services. Without understanding your costs you run the risk of making money but ultimately losing money, which is what happens to many people who undersell their services.

Since buying my BX last fall I've been kicking around the same idea of making some money on the side. I still haven't wrapped up my costs but here's what I've done so far.

I called my dealer and asked about their charges for service. Now I expect I will be doing my maintenance intervals myself, but from a cost perspective using their numbers includes a proper buffer. Also it gives the option to use them instead if I wanted. It is also important to factor in your time when doing your own maintenance. Your time has value.

Anyhow, their 50 hour maintenance runs $400. When asked he also said most maintenance intervals would be in that range. So I decided on $500 per 50 hour for maintenance, or $10/hour. Now you have to look at implements. They have maintenance as well. This one I haven't really factored very "scientifically" and just added $5/hour for maintenance of the implements (FEL BH MMM) And you also have fuel costs. in 30 hours I've used almost 2 tanks, so say 12 gallons. At $3/gal average for diesel around here that works out to about $1.20/hr. So I rounded up to 2.

So with that Im up to $18/hour just to run my BX. Now I'm sure I am overestimating, but this is a side thing to make some cash if I can, not a competitive business feeding my family. However I'd rather overestimate vs add wear and tear to my BX and realize I lost money on top of it. But we still aren't done.

It is also good to add some "fudge factor" for unexpected damage. I added a 30% buffer rounding up which now brings my running cost to $24/hour. But I'm still not done.

I got a nice 0% payment for my tractor. That is a cost to factor in. I've had a hard time figuring out how though. To roll it into an hourly cost what hours do I use? There's on average about 9,720 hours in a month, but you aren't running the tractor that much. So I made an arbitrary decision that I'd average say 2 saturdays a month doing side work, say roughly 18 hours a month. At a monthy payment of $237 that makes it $13/hour.

So now my "costs" are sitting at $37/hour, which includes no labor. Time is money. If I am off doing some side job on saturday, I'm not at home working on my own yard, or playing with my kids etc. What is that time worth for me? (the answer is a lot).

So overall, I don't think I'd bother for myself to do anything for less that $125/hr.

Much to think about. Thank you all for the insights.

 

[skeets]

And now some more things to think about,, How would you get to the job site? Do you have a trailer that is capable of the load? How about ins ,liability, trailer ins. and the list goes on and on. If your going down the road to the guy next door you might not have a problem. But any start up business has a ton of hidden costs