# Hourly rate for plowing drives with ATV



## TommyBloodTrail (Dec 23, 2010)

Hi everyone, I'm new to the site, I have a Polaris 700 4x4 with a 60" glacier plow and my boss wants me to plow 50 driveways in a Condo site, I was wondering what hourly rate I should get. Its in Clarkston Michigan and I have to transport my machine to and from the site which is about 50 miles away.


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## ALC-GregH (Nov 26, 2008)

50 miles in a bad storm could mean disaster. I'd double what I'd normally get. Besides that, I wouldn't have time to drive that far and still get them all done. What about any other customers? Will you have time to get them all done in a reasonable time?


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## hondarecon4435 (Mar 13, 2008)

40-50hr i'd say and maybe more for the traveling time as that will be a nightmare


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## TommyBloodTrail (Dec 23, 2010)

Just giving .25 hrs per drive is 12.5 hrs plus 1.5 hr travel time if I'm lucky, I think this will be the only job I'll be doing per storm. Last storm, I plowed/salted with their truck 9 jobs and took me 24 hrs with 6yd dump with 10' blade, got $20 an hr for that.


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## IPLOWSNO (Oct 11, 2008)

you'll freeze before ya finish imo


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## TommyBloodTrail (Dec 23, 2010)

IPLOWSNO;1165736 said:


> you'll freeze before ya finish imo


Carhartt Extremes take care of that


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## sublime68charge (Dec 28, 2007)

from the hip I'd want $25-35 per hour for you and machine. but then your covered under there ins.
that is also from the time you leave home till the time your done. is there a time these drive have to be done by? it might be an all day thing with an ATV.

if you have to have your own ins then factor that in and adjust upwards to $50 for that.
are there sidewalks in this as well?

avg size of drive in this 2 car wide by 2 car long?
just guessing from the hip on this.

your still gonna be cold by the time your done.
what is your avg amount of snow you gotta push?


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## IPLOWSNO (Oct 11, 2008)

TommyBloodTrail;1165956 said:


> Carhartt Extremes take care of that


keep telling yourself that lol


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## Dave T (Feb 11, 2009)

TommyBloodTrail;1165155 said:


> Hi everyone, I'm new to the site, I have a Polaris 700 4x4 with a 60" glacier plow and my boss wants me to plow 50 driveways in a Condo site, I was wondering what hourly rate I should get. Its in Clarkston Michigan and I have to transport my machine to and from the site which is about 50 miles away.


For gas, wear and tear on your tow machine and ATV, plus insurance costs (you better be bonded and insured or you might be sorry), plus your time, which would include travel time to the site, and back home... probably $60 to $75 and hour depending on the going rates. Anything less, and you are doing it for free.


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## perrysee (Jul 30, 2009)

hi,i average about $25.00 for a drive-way which i can do in about 30 minutes or less. anything less makes it hard to make money doing ,after you take out your expenses .


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## apik1 (Mar 25, 2007)

I would tell my boss to get bent being 50 miles away. That is a 15 hour day if the snow stops. So if it takes you 12 hours to do and it snows for 6 hours you are going to be out there for 24 hours on an atv, because you will have to do it twice. So if you charge 60.00 an hour he is paying you 1440 to plow every time it snows. That is a bad call on his part. I would up fit a small truck and pay a driver to do it it 5-6 hours. 

Just my thought


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## NicholasMWhite (Oct 5, 2008)

Lets be realistic here. In my opinion you can't charge more than say $250-400. Your boss probably has it bid at not much more than that. A skid loader can do that in 2-3 hours and they usually get bid at $150-175 meaning your boss probably bid on the low end $300 and the high end $525. The way I see it you can't do the job at all. You're not set up for and it's too much. Even if you were to take it, you would hate your life. Your boss is going to be yelling at you because the customers aren't going to like not being plowed out for 12 hours. Just take the $20 an hour in your boss's truck. You'll end up making more and you'll be much warmer.


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## zundappchef (Dec 26, 2010)

so this wil be my first reply to this forum

i love forum`s like these as they are not full of crap


i wil charge between 15 and 85 euro`s for a proparty looking @

how big the terain is
how dificult it is to plow it
where can i put the snow
how many angles


if its to big say bigger then the 85 euro boundry that means i have to puch to much snow with a machine that is to small for the jobe to consider you wil need a new plow every year on an atv is you are plowing allot 
that is 500 euro every year also you need 50 euro`s of feul a day 
lets say you can plow for about 3 weeks a year 
that would be 21 days of 10 hours 
210 hours 
50x21=1050
1050+500=1550
that is without waer and tear of your atv and maintenance 
1550/210=7.38 
7.38 would be your cost to opperate the machine if you could only plow 3 weeks
then you want to earn something yourself and that is for yourself up to calculate
i would make for a morning of 4 hours 175 euro`s ( i can only work for the morning part as i way to bussy in the afternoon)
that is a avverage of 43.75 
that minus the operating cost is 36.37 an hour
i would say after all things cost and maintenace of your atv you would be making between 20 and 25 euro`s an hour


so everything that falls in that range what can you plow in a hour

i have a quit big machine that is become custom over time

my ride

suzuki kingquad 750 eps bighorn tires 26 inch
special computer and exhaust on it

it has the 54 inch plow from warn what has become a 61 inch blade with 2 nives and a waer rubber
i dont use the stock hang points anymore as it has broken of or failed 
the angle hook is still perfect as you can adjust it for straight to 22.5 and 45 digrees
the height adjuster are of as i dont use those as i always plow with full force
also on that same blade i adjusted the angel that the plow is using to dig in 
it digges way more eficient then stock as it will not ride on top know
for that reason i even could lose some weight that was making the plow heavy


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## IPLOWSNO (Oct 11, 2008)

welcome to the site zunda


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## Diesel59 (Aug 20, 2010)

So I actually do only residential driveways here in Delaware.... We don't get that much snow but when we do it normally puts the state in a panic mode. 

If you have 50 Driveways to do... that are 50 miles away... and you have one operator and one machine. THATS INSANE! It will take forever! 

Heres a senerio: So the average driveway take approximately 25 mins in good conditions. 25min x 50 Driveways = 1250 Mins (Over 20 Hours) So that means 20 hours straight with no breaks. So anywhere from 26-30 hours with food, bathroom breaks, travel from driveway to driveway, etc. 

Other issues. If your machine breaks... Then what? Does he send someone else? Or do you grab a shovel. 

If it was me... I would rather have a small crew of say 6 guys. 2 with shovels, 2 with snowblowers, 2 with ATV's. This way one guy shovels, one guy does the edges of the drive way with the snow blower, and one guy does the bulk work with the blade. This way you can cut down on the time spent per driveway and the job will get doen much faster with two teams. Also I would rather get paid per driveway..... But thats just me. I wanna work smarter and faster, not harder and longer. 

A plow truck would be nice but they don't do a super nice clean job when it comes to detail work. Can't get into tight spaces.


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## RCsLawncare (Oct 24, 2008)

I also would not do any snow work by the hour unless I was working under someone else, his insurance and equipment.


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