# Sidewalk



## Keith moxcey (Oct 18, 2020)

This is the first year that we’ve gone big. We got some commercial lots and asked to put in a bid on some local sidewalks in a housing development. How is every bidding work on sidewalk? I keep thinking but I just can’t quite figure out what’s best for the company and for the customer


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## Kinport (Jan 9, 2020)

What kind of equipment will you be using to clear sidewalk? How wide are the walks? Are they long straight shots or are they cut up with lots of turns? It shouldn’t change price very much but knowing how long it’s going to take you is a good starting point.


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## Keith moxcey (Oct 18, 2020)

Kinport said:


> What kind of equipment will you be using to clear sidewalk? How wide are the walks? Are they long straight shots or are they cut up with lots of turns? It shouldn't change price very much but knowing how long it's going to take you is a good starting point.


Almost all of it is straight. They are about 60 inches wide. I haven't quite decided what we're going to put for equipment on it. I figure it's gotta take close to 4 hours or so.


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## Kinport (Jan 9, 2020)

Its challenging, trying to give hard number on questions like this because of variances from region to region, but I think most people are charging $65-$75 per hour for a laborer. If you hire a laborer and it takes them 4 hours to do it with a shovel then you know that 4x$65-75 is a starting place for price.

A couple things that will also affect your price and most likely require you to raise it:

-is it in your service area? Don’t lose money on travel time. Raise the price to compensate for extra travel time or politely decline the bid.

-the unusual nature of snow removal. It requires being on call and available 24/7 for 5 months out of the year. Sometimes (usually) you get called out in the middle of the night. Your working in slick, cold conditions. All of these things combined can create challenges and you should be getting compensated for dealing with them to keep peoples property clear

-owners profit. You get to decide what you’ll charge for profit, but I think most people are getting around 10-20%. This is not your hourly wage.

There’s more that I’m forgetting and others will chime in but that’s sorta how I would go about pricing it.

ps: I feel like this is obvious but just to clear-I used the number of $65-75 as to what people are charging for a laborer. If your going to be using equipment(4 wheeler/tractor/snowblower)than that price needs to rise considerably to offset the cost of operating the piece of equipment. If they cost $65 to run a shovel, their going to cost $95 to run a wheeler.


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## Kvston (Nov 30, 2019)

Route density and location are #1. Second figure out what machine you can afford (make $$ on) does it best. Third figure out the cost per hour to run that equipment. Fourth figure out how many hours of use. Jumble all that together with your calculation on # of events or services and out comes a number for how much it costs per event. Slap on your profit margin and some $ for repairs and viola!


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