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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU to charge £16ph...

109 replies

flowercover · 20/02/2018 17:48

Hello everyone,

I am currently unemployed and to help myself out of this I've decided to try starting up my own gardening service in and around Norwich, and just wanted some feed back from both customers and other gardeners.

I have written a business plan and am trying to calculate what I need to charge in order to make a livable income. Would £16 p/h be too much? Would you rather employ somebody hourly or half day/full day? I can charge less for half/full as my costs would be reduced

Also, if you employ a gardener where did you find their services advertised, and what kind of service were you looking for? I am RHS trained with 5 years experience in a walked kitchen garden and a specialist nursery. Therefore I can offer from simple mowing/pruning/clearing to full garden redesign.

Anything that could help welcomed.

I'm female and 38.

Thanks so much!

OP posts:
kaytee87 · 20/02/2018 18:24

We pay £40 every 2 weeks for 2 guys to keep on top of both our front and back garden. I think the charge for the first visit was £100.
Not sure how many hours they do, there's a lot of garden though.

eggsandwich · 20/02/2018 18:24

I live in Norfolk and would gladly pay £16 an hour though he size of my garden I’d want you for full days, I’m getting to the point now where I’m finding the garden a bit much now I’m in my 50’s like the idea of a women gardener as well.

MyDcAreMarvel · 20/02/2018 18:27

We pay our gardener £30 he takes about 1.5 hours. £16 an hour is fine.

ChoccieFudgeCake · 20/02/2018 18:31

£25 ph in the Home Counties, he does 2 hours every other week from spring to autumn. Get yourself a catchy name, preferably beginning with A so you get listed first! Good luck

Avasarala · 20/02/2018 18:32

I run my own business (I'm a jeweller so my minimum costs are different but will give this a go).

First, work out what annual costs you will have no matter how much business you get for example -

Liability insurance - £200
Tool replacement/maintenance - £300 (total guess but you'll know better)
Business use car insurance - £1200 (again, total guess but you get the idea)
Petrol for jobs (hard to guess for) - £1500 ???
Website/email provider (if you choose to have a professional email and URL) - £250
Advertising/marketing materials - £1200 (choose your own budget but for this example, I've done £100 a month)
Anything else I didn't think of - ???

So, that's your expenditure no matter what - this example adds up to £4650.

Now... How many hours a week do you plan to spend in someone's garden? You'll be doing loads of hours of work outside of this - like social media, replying to queries, driving etc and you can't charge anyone for those hours; all your money comes from hours in the garden. So, let's say 20 hours a week, and you're going to take 4 weeks holiday a year.

That's 20 hours X 48 weeks = 960 hours spent working in a garden each year.

To earn your costs back £4650 per year/960 hours per year = £4.85 per hour.

Now, you're profit. Let's say you want to earn £24,000 a year -
£24,000/960 hours per year = £25 per hour.

Add £4.85 and £25 = £29.85 per hour.

If you're planning to push for full time, then you'll work more hours and bring that cost down and you might not have as many expenses as I've guessed at but you get the idea. Maybe offer cheap rates for basic work and high rates for fancy work? Someone with more gardening experience might give you a better example but that's how I work mine out.

PancakeInMaBelly · 20/02/2018 18:33

Agree to make sure you advertise as a woman. Theres a woman tradesperson near me who has a waitlist of women who feel safer hiring her and are willing to wait.

But on the flip side keep yourself safe from men that would hire a woman for the wrong reason. Not an issue for my local tradeswomen who can turn down work as she has so much tho!

FrancisCrawford · 20/02/2018 18:35

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Dons1975 · 20/02/2018 18:37

We are £15 for a grass cut takes about 20 mins of that!
My window cleaner if £4.50 😱 at £60.

Judashascomeintosomemoney · 20/02/2018 18:39

Personally I’d want to be quoted for the job and pay that, not an undefined amount of hours. I mean for a lawn cut, hedge trimming etc. You can see what’s here, so give a quote for the job. If however you were coming once a week to keep on top of things like weeding, pruning, then GBP16 sounds like a bargain to me (SE Sad)

BuzzKillington · 20/02/2018 18:41

We pay our gardener £20 per hour (he does 4 hours a week) and that's 'mates rates' as we were one of his first customers when he started out. He charges his other clients more and has to turn work away.

So very reasonable OP.

Nyetimber · 20/02/2018 18:43

We pay £17 an hour but he does five hours a week basic and occasional extra hours for pressure washing the terrace and fencing.

abitoflight · 20/02/2018 18:43

£17 an hour for my last gardener

KnittingOnEmpty · 20/02/2018 18:45

Get the Paul Power 'how to run a gardening business ' and join the Gardeners Guild. £16 an hour too low. You're qualified and know your plants. Harder to raise your prices later. Get some decent pro tools and market yourself to your target market. Do a simple website. You will get plenty of clients and will be able to take your pick so don't sell yourself short.

DanglyEarOrnaments · 20/02/2018 18:48

I would think a bit more, it sounds on the low side. Maybe £20 per hour is more fair?

Otherwise you may find yourself wanting to raise on your customers quite early on, so I'd start as I meant to go on.

DanglyEarOrnaments · 20/02/2018 18:50

Actually, I've now seen other posts and think £20 per hour far too low!

pp gave better advice.

JoJoSM2 · 20/02/2018 18:53

I'm in outer London and the going rate seems about £30ph although I do think that's extortionate. I think your rate sounds good. I'd suggest a minimum charge so you don't waste time going to someone's for 1h.

extinctspecies · 20/02/2018 18:56

I'd pay up to £20 an hour for basic garden maintenance.

More for design.

Rural area, S of England.

MrsKoala · 20/02/2018 18:57

WE pay £15 ph in Kent. But he just mows and weeds and does what i ask/maintenance. I'd pay more for someone who would have specialist knowledge and would help redesign the garden etc

MeganBacon · 20/02/2018 18:59

We pay £15 just outside the M25 but on the basis of this I think we will offer him a pay rise.

BlumAndFlip · 20/02/2018 19:01

And charge a set (higher?) rate for a garden design. We have quite a big garden (1/3 acre) and got a couple of quotes just for a design - £800 was around ball-park I think. Which was fair when you think about the time it would take to measure out/plot shade areas etc and work out a plan.

No planting/work - just the expertise and experience to plan/know about planting etc Otherwise you risk people asking for a plan and then doing it themselves.

clarehhh · 20/02/2018 19:03

I pay £21 an hour

Mymouthgetsmeintrouble · 20/02/2018 19:03

I would say £20 is reasonable with a minimum charge of 1 hour as lots of people will want regular grass cuts in summer and a small garden wont take long at all

Bowerbird5 · 20/02/2018 19:11

Local does gardening for £12 an hour I'm not sure how knowledgeable he is. North west. Window cleaner £7:00 charges £1 per window.

Calvinlookingforhobbs · 20/02/2018 19:17

If I were you, I’d offer grass cutting plans too. A monthly fee of whatever for 5 months over the summer to keep the grass in order? These deals are popular round here

ChristmasFluff · 20/02/2018 19:28

£16 per hour is very cheap - my gardener is cheap for around here (midlands), and he is £20 for front and back lawns and general odd jobs, but he's rarely here for an hour - can often be done and dusted in 20 minutes if he's busy. I pay him by results, not time :-)