What do you expect to make per tank load (gross)

[ajmctree]

I have a TT 300 machine and i am just wanting to know what companies with similar size machines expect to gross for each tank they spray. When i am doing work for contractors i charge them one price due to the amount i spray for them and for the single shot i do for other people i charge them a  few cents more per square foot.
 How does this relate how you do  business, is it just one price for all or do you make exceptions for they guys that send business your way.
 
 

[hydroservice]

We priced work more by the size than anything. Generally the bigger the less per sq.ft.

[Turboguy]

I am using a 300 gallon machine as well.  I do much the same as you do.  I figure my minimum at somewhere between $ 250.00 and $ 295.00 depending on distance and any complications of the job and also the seed involved.   If I am spraying crown vetch which I do a lot of I use the $ 295 for my minimum charge.  

Usually I figure the job by the square foot.  I do price jobs cheaper for other contractors who may or usually will give me repeat business.  Often with the minimum charge I am getting 15 to 20 cents a sq. ft.    Medium sized jobs I usually try to get about $ .10 a foot.  Bigger jobs I am about 7-8 cents a foot.  Once I get up to acres, my per acre price varies from $ 2250 to $ 2500 per acre.   I vary my price by travel distance and any complications of jobs.  Not having water on the site would be one complication.  Very steep hillsides could be another if I have to drag hose up them.  

My cost for a load that I spray is

Mulch    $ 27.00
Seed        35.00
Fertilizer     8.00
Tackifer      5.00

That works out to $ 73.00 per load or right about 2 cents a foot.  Of course there are other costs such as travel, water, gas, etc.  

For one tankload my charge is going to be between $ 250.00 and $ 295.00.  My cost is $ 73.00 and since you asked aobut the gross profit, averaging what I  charge my customer, my gross profit per tankload is about $ 200.00 per tankload on small jobs and $ 175.00 on larger jobs.

[TB-300]

Here's the link to our price list:

http://thecorporategrounds.com/Hydroseeding_Cost_Calculato.html

1,000 - 2,000 square feet * $0.18 per square foot 
2,001 - 4,000 square feet * $0.15 per square foot 
4,001 - 6,000 square feet * $0.12 per square foot
6,001 - 10,000 square feet * $0.11 per square foot
10,001 - 20,000 square feet * $0.10 per square foot
20,001 - 43,560 square feet * $0.09 per square foot
43,561 - 100,000 square feet * $0.08 per square foot
100,001 + square feet * $0.07 per square foot

Looks like we're charging about the same as Turboguy. I would also say our cost on a job of this nature, is about what Turboguy said his is.

On a side note... we get calls from all over the World for hydroseeding. Jobs can range from a few sq. ft. to 5,000 acres or more. However, it's not profitable (on some smaller jobs) for us to travel... So if anyone is interested in subcontracting, email info to: Opportunities@TheCorporateGrounds.com

[TB-300]

Sorry, I didn't really answer the whole question...

"is it just one price for all or do you make exceptions for the guys that send business your way?"

We give other contractors a discount, and expect the same when we're the one handing out the work. To us it's like wholesale & retail... we do hydroseeding for many of our competitors, other contractors, and even sod farms. We want them to bring us more work, so we wholesale our services to them. This allows them to remain more competitive in their pricing. I've had customers show me 2-3 other bids, all from contractors/landscapers we hydroseed for. These guys don't even have hydroseeders, they just sell the service and sub it to us.

[Turboguy]

Nice post and good answers.  I will agree that it is worth giving some discount to a landscaper or contractor who can give you repeat business. 

Sometimes I do things for them in other ways.   For example one landscaper who gives me usually 2 to 3 good sized projects a year.  (Usually 2+ acres) in his real world job is both the Principal and Football Coach of one of our local high schools.  For basically the cost of materials ($ 100.00) I go out and reseed damaged areas in his football field each spring.  The job is a pain in the butt since it is a lot of little spots, mostly midfield and in the kicking areas but it earns me a loyal customer and I think doing that more than pays for itself.

This may be off the topic of the question but relates to what I talked about in the last paragraph.   This past Sunday, I seeded the newly redone soccer field for the town I live in.  I was basically doing it for free.  The Soccer group was buying the materials.  The city furnished a water truck and I did the seeding at no charge.  Well, As we are seeding and filling it becomes clear the guy who volunteered to run the water truck on not only a Sunday but a Steeler sunday was one of the heads of the street dept and it looks likely I will pick up a lot of seeding business for the city.  Sometimes you do things to help people never expecting a payoff or even for anyone to know you did it and they do pay off.

[hydroservice]

The prices for most of the work we did weren't even near TB 300's lowest price. Because our prices were already low we couldn't really charge less for contractors that we did alot of work for. Service, like being there the next day, was what we could do to help our repeat customers, and sometimes we would do waste dumps or things like that cheaper than what the basic job went for. We to seeded our towns athletic fields at our middle school for basically the cost of the materials which did bring in a few jobs. The downside was now every time the town has a seeding job we end up doing it for cost which isn't all that bad as we really don't mind helping our own town.

[TB-300]

Hydroservice,

Please don't take this wrong... I just don't understand. Why are your prices so low? Do you have lots of competition in your area?

We had set our prices about $0.02 less per sq. ft. in 2007. We were smoking the competition in price. In addition we offer a guarantee that even covers erosion! Our only restriction to this guarantee, is that we reserve the right to audit their water bill. We also offer 6 month, no intrest, in-house financing options for landscaping and hydroseeding services. All this puts the value of our service above the rest. There was just no reason we should be cheaper. Especially when we were/are offering a superior service/product. We actually started getting more jobs after we raised the price. I think, when you're real cheep, some people look at that like, "it's to good to be true" or "you get what you pay for". So most will chose the guy who is priced in the middle. Around here everyone seems to be penny for penny, about the same price as us. However, we have a guarantee that none of our competition seems to be willing to match.

[hydroservice]

TB 300

         35 years ago when I first started seeding we were the only ones in maine doing it and even though we could have charged whatever we wanted we charged what we thought was a fair price that allowed us to make a decent profit. In the late 80's early 90's as hydroseeding started to become more popular which started to create more competition the price seemed to kind of stagnate. I saw prices last year on a state job that were the same as 1975 and we weren't even bidding on it so those prices had to be due to the amount of seed contractors that wanted that job. Also keep in mind that almost all of our work was big jobs. It wasn't untill the late 90's before I did my first residential small job which we could get more money for but the competition even kept that price down. I don't believe price had anything to do with quality of work as we were the best around and we always gave 100% to the customer regardless of the size or price. We learned as material prices changed but more people were doing it we had to buy materials right because the seed price wasn't going up that much. We new how to bid work and got alot of jobs by being low 1/4 to 1/2 of a cent per sq ft. Fuel prices going up was the hardest thing to cover so we learned to bid jobs differently by adding a mobilization charge on jobs the required several trips to complete. We could keep the seed price low enough to get the work and the mobilization charge helped pay for added fuel costs. But again competition would bid low with no extra charge just to get the work. We never did any job that we lost money on but had jobs taken away where the contractor that got the work had to be if not losing just breaking even which never would have kept us in business as long as we were. We would rather park the equipment then do work we would lose on or only break even.