Pricing a mini job

[sir1]

This is a first. Need to cut and remove a 30 ft?, dead birch trunk. Its just half a tree. Its one dead trunk attached to another live tree. Both in a clump. Both trees stem from ground. The dead one is leaning towards a fence. Would hit if not dropped carefully. Tree is in very poor shape. Then clean up.

This should be a very simple quick job. But as I pretty much never come across really quick jobs how much do I charge? Do you have a min price for any tree felling and without it the saws dont run, like $75 $100, $150?

Thanks

 

[Pelorus]

I've do lotsa $75-$150 treework. Usually stuff like just felling a tree (that is sometimes even leaning the right way), that the owner can't do themself. Make a mess, and drive away.
Sometimes translates into repeat customers and referrals.
And you can rattle off a bunch of these little jobs in a day, and go home not beat up and worn out.

 

[no tree to big]

Is it somewhere u do a lot of other work? Stop by real quick n hit it for 80 bucks? Or is it far out of the way?

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[treebilly]

I've got a hundred dollar minimum. For that it's me and a saw and less than 30 minutes

 

[jefflovstrom]

Well, I would give it away,,
$1000 dollar minimum.
Jeff

 

[treebilly]

But you don't do residential Jeff

 

[mauldinoutdoor]

We have a $400 minimum, if less I refer it out. But if I already on the property then I'll tell the customer about the minimum and then evaluate the property and find other items, majority of the time this works out into full size jobs with inspection finding a major item that the customer wasn't aware of - ie. cracked limb, dead top rotted bases, etc. If there's no other work then we'll give them the choice of waiting til we are on another job close by or calling the referral out. The referral I use is an older guy that'll tell them to call me first if they need anything in the future

 

[sir1]

That all kind of makes sense. We service this property for just about everything else. We are there at least once per week.

 

[mauldinoutdoor]

With customer like that it only makes sense to get over there when they call, maybe just to tackle the "emergency" stuff right then but to start a list to take care of on Friday or once or twice a month. But bringing equipment everytime might be costing as a much as your making if the job is too small

 

[mckeetree]

I've got a hundred dollar minimum. For that it's me and a saw and less than 30 minutes

Unbelievable.

 

[no tree to big]

Unbelievable.

To cheap?

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[jefflovstrom]

But you don't do residential Jeff

The few residential jobs we do are jobs are certain people that pay very well. Sometimes we will take on a residential if it is in an HOA that we are working in if we can fit it in during our time frame. Most HOA jobs we do take 2 weeks or more.
Jeff

 

[sir1]

Unbelievable.

Ambiguous

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[jefflovstrom]

To cheap?

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Up to you,,we can not say,,,,
Jeff

 

[mckeetree]

To cheap?

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Absolutely. These guys that are actually in business and paying all the overhead a legitimate business does and maintaining minimums of $50 or $100 are just making the industry appear a cheap unprofessional joke. We technically have a minimum of $250 stated in our policies but I very rarely fool with anything under $600.

 

[Pelorus]

I've paid, and continue to pay my dues, and reckon I run every bit as legit an operation as you do, mckeetree.
A tree company's high business overhead and Caribbean retirement villa dreams are not a valid excuse to be extortionists ripping customers off.
Treework got my mortgage paid off, and the kids have never gone to bed hungry.

 

[GrassGuerilla]

As with any other job large or small, bidding should go the same. Know your costs and bid accordingly. Know your costs, know your costs, know your costs. It ain't rocket science, just a matter of knowing where your money is coming from and going to.

 

[fordf150]

Absolutely. These guys that are actually in business and paying all the overhead a legitimate business does and maintaining minimums of $50 or $100 are just making the industry appear a cheap unprofessional joke. We technically have a minimum of $250 stated in our policies but I very rarely fool with anything under $600.

No offense but locally to me....$600 minimum would mean you would only work a few days a month. Local school district bid out getting 50-60 trees trimmed and couple completely removed. $3200 won the contract and there was a bid of $3000 but they took the higher bid because that guy was located inside the district. Local guy that won the contract was tickled to win... 3 man crew, 4 days working 5 minutes from the house, picked up another dozen jobs from parents that saw them doing the school trees.

Blanket statements about what someone charges misses a few key factors..... Local conditions dictate prices more than anything else because based on your $600 minimum I would guess your locality has a average income above $50k vs my local market of $17k a year average.

 

[DR. P. Proteus]

This is a first. Need to cut and remove a 30 ft?, dead birch trunk. Its just half a tree. Its one dead trunk attached to another live tree. Both in a clump. Both trees stem from ground. The dead one is leaning towards a fence. Would hit if not dropped carefully. Tree is in very poor shape. Then clean up.

This should be a very simple quick job. But as I pretty much never come across really quick jobs how much do I charge? Do you have a min price for any tree felling and without it the saws dont run, like $75 $100, $150?

Thanks

Maybe learn the business before you go into business? What? Do you want me to smoke it for you too?

 

[mckeetree]

No offense but locally to me....$600 minimum would mean you would only work a few days a month. Local school district bid out getting 50-60 trees trimmed and couple completely removed. $3200 won the contract and there was a bid of $3000 but they took the higher bid because that guy was located inside the district. Local guy that won the contract was tickled to win... 3 man crew, 4 days working 5 minutes from the house, picked up another dozen jobs from parents that saw them doing the school trees.

Blanket statements about what someone charges misses a few key factors..... Local conditions dictate prices more than anything else because based on your $600 minimum I would guess your locality has a average income above $50k vs my local market of $17k a year average.

Ok. This thread has gone ridiculous now. Most of that didn't really make any sense to me but that $17k a year got my attention...that is below the damned poverty level. No, no I'm not working for people below the poverty level. My average client has an income of around $250k a year. Some more...much, much more. Like I posted somewhere else...in ten years as a member here this place has taught me at least one thing, that at least 75% of us are basically working for peanuts. A guy that I bought some stump grinder teeth from emailed me a photo about five years ago of some dude in New Jersey holding a sign at an intersection that read "will do tree work for food". Now, I wrote that off as a joke but the one that sent it to me swears it was 100% real. He claimed at the time the photo was a couple of years old but he knew the guy and the guy was actually a decent climber and wasn't known to be a bum. I still didn't believe him at the time...but now...now I actually do. After the sh!t I have read in this place the last five years I do. $17k a year for an average client's income is plenty pitiful but someone, I can't remember who it may have been ropensaddle but I'm not sure, said their average client's income was $15k a year.