Hourly Rate Questions....

[Parker22]

I have some questions regarding how to calculate what I should charge if I were to charge by the hour. I work along side my father and uncle and this is a side business that I sort of run for the time being. We have a 410G hoe, a 320D skid, and a few farm trucks as well as a single axel FL70 dump truck.


I do a lot of gravel driveways and never really charge by the hour, often the drive just needs a quick coat of 3/4" rock and the skid is not needed, if I were to charge by the hour what would be a fair rate for this type of work? (single axel that hauls 8-9ton of rock) Work would be tailgating a coating of rock over established driveway, raking by hand, and overall just dressing the drive up. I pay for the rock for my customers, and by the time it is all said and done I am operating at a profit margin of around 25-45%. Does this seem right? I seem to be cheaper than the competition, and I consider myself to be netting decent money.

We also do some bigger jobs but 60% are by bid, for example on a hourly wage the last big job we did the bid came out to $411 an hour and used the skid and hoe, not too bad if you ask me. But, what are typical rates for a 410 sized extandahoe machine? We are around $80 if it is hourly, and I am around $50 for the skid.

All equipment is paid for, and the hoe has less than 1500 hours and the skid still doesn't even have 300.

Is there an online calculator that can help me estimate equipment costs?

TIA!

 

[monster76]

i have different hourly rates in different area some areas i charge 65-70 an hour running the backhoe and some places the competition is retarded and the going rate for backhoe work is as low as 55 an hour.south Florida they don't care if its a 410 or 310 as long as the job gets done and mind you it is jam packed with heavy equipment i generally try to avoid the cheaper hourly work for obvious reasons, but in Miami people run around with no insurance stolen equipment run stolen fuel some times all three at the same time. ive made some money just going the route to sub out work a few time because some guys are running around charging 45 an hour for backhoe and not even charging travel time. obviously i would only do this for the not so critical work

 

[monster76]

i know its different where you are at but i was just sharing what i deal with in my area

 

[jaclo]

I have some questions regarding how to calculate what I should charge if I were to charge by the hour. I work along side my father and uncle and this is a side business that I sort of run for the time being. We have a 410G hoe, a 320D skid, and a few farm trucks as well as a single axel FL70 dump truck. I do a lot of gravel driveways and never really charge by the hour, often the drive just needs a quick coat of 3/4" rock and the skid is not needed, if I were to charge by the hour what would be a fair rate for this type of work?

So you're asking how to charge per hour with your truck?

Well the first you need to have a handle on what your costs are, namely how much you pay yourself to operate the truck and then about how much fuel you burn on an hour long trip. We do a lot of by-the-hour truck work as we do demolition/tree removal, things where the trucks may have some idle time simply due to the dynamics of the project. We get around $150/hr for a semi-sidedump. Remember, it doesn't really matter how small the job is, there has to be a bare minimum you are willing to accept before you leave the yard, tack a few more bucks on top of that, and then be happy with it.

cheaper than the competition, and I consider myself to be netting decent money.

The advantages of being self employed. However, as I said above, you have to figure in what you are paying YOURSELF to sit in the truck. This is where competition between owner operators varies when it comes to the $$$.

We also do some bigger jobs but 60% are by bid, for example on a hourly wage the last big job we did the bid came out to $411 an hour and used the skid and hoe, not too bad if you ask me. But, what are typical rates for a 410 sized extandahoe machine? We are around $80 if it is hourly, and I am around $50 for the skid.

That 411/hour for those two machines is actually pretty decent. We don't have a rubber tired backhoe like that, but assuming you got paid 125/hr for that little skid, you were getting damn near 300 for that 410hoe...which I would never hire anyone at that number for that machine.

All equipment is paid for, and the hoe has less than 1500 hours and the skid still doesn't even have 300.

Is there an online calculator that can help me estimate equipment costs?

We are around $80 if it is hourly, and I am around $50 for the skid

You just have to decide what you are happy with. 125/hour for that little skid would be a pretty good number considering how little material it is actually capable of moving. I would have a hard time justifying much over 200 for that rubber tired hoe.

DON'T FORGET TO PAY YOURSELF.

 

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . . . Just out of curiosity . . . .

There have ben several of these sort of threads and I am afraid I just don't follow the logic.

How can you quote a job unless you have established an hourly rate which is based on what the competition charges/the market can bear or, more properly, your costs to finance, insure, maintain, fuel and provide an operator for each rig?

Surely this number times the yards or miles gives a starting point for all quoting calculations . . . any "what the market will bear"/ "we don't really want this job" mark-ups can be added on from there.

Cheers.