Charge per hour

[Susan Gallagher]

We are design and build only just now but I have ben thinking of providing a maintenance service for my clients. I am not sure what to charge though to make it work economically...is it about
£20 per man per hour?

[Philip Voice]

This is a great question Susan and it is something I have been trying to determine on Landscape Juice. Four years ago we were charging £18.00ph plus Vat.

A lot depends on the experience of who you are employing, what market force exists in your area and what type of service you are offering.

It is so hard to determine, why can a company (and this is not aimed at you) justify £20ph and get it when a one man band, who can be equally experienced and skilful, can probably only get £12-15??

I dis find that a customer is happy to employ a firm on a higher rate than employing an individual.

It would be great to get a few more views.

Can I ask you a question Susan - do you think that there is a perception that labour rates in the south are much higher than your neck of the woods for example?

[Susan Gallagher]

I think people just expect it to be higher for a company because of the overheads. Also they expect a single person to be doing it for 'cash' I think a more casual arrangement unless that person makes an effort to have a lettered van and some sort of written contract.

Up here in Scotland one would imagine the wages being less, but in lookign through the likes of Blooming Good Jobs I see there is a wide variety of rates of pay, and maybe a slightly higher rate in the South. WE dont actually do maintanance at the moment but I am think about it, just need to make the numbers work. I also find it hard to find good staff.

[Robert and Louise]

We charge £15 per hour plus £2 extra for any petrol powered machinery, plus VAT. We find most customers accept this but would like to put our prices up becuase we don't seem to be making much money. If customers do bulk at a price increase i should refer them to this site. We are in our fifth year of busines and employ two full time staff and a part-timer, as well as myself and my wife. Our overheads seem to be massive.

[Philip Voice]

Thanks for the feedback Robert - you are definitely not alone it seems in getting this right.

If anyone is interested (in the strictest confidence) I can help with setting up a cost analysis for your business by the way of a spreadsheet so that you can identify key costs and set the right charge out rates.

It would mean sharing some sensitive information with me so this will not be for everyone.

The alternative is we start a group that all have access to an online spreadsheet and we input hypothetical data.

We would be able to demonstrate how to calculate your own costs and profit objectives.

[Andrew Fereday]

I think that being VAT registered can make a difference for the larger companies. Working on my own, I don't have anywhere near the sort of turnover for obligatory VAT registration at the moment. Would it be worthwhile setting up a separate business solely to handle the maintenance side of things?