How much do gardeners charge?

[spod]

I am just starting my own gardening business and am finding it difficult deciding how much to charge.... am trying to offer fixed rate rather than hourly charges... for general mainenance and mowing etc... what do you think?

oh are you spod, what sort of services are you offering...£10 an hour minimum I would say up to about £20 if you are very experienced.....would you mind if I chatted to you about this a bit as have been thinking about it too for a while?

would say hourly is good, you don't have to answer last one (sorry to go on)., or say do 4 hours a week at someones and charge £60 minimum...if you're doing more than mowing and it involves some specialist knowledge such as pruning, knowing the plants in your clients garden and knowing exactly what to do then £60 to £80 is reasonable...it is hard work and people with gardens will pay if they haven't the time to do it....£300 a month for nice looking garden isn't much...

where are you?
we are in the nw and pay £15 an hour

Hi Spod, our's charges £9 per hour, for what I call general maintenance gardening. We use her fortnightly through the winter then weekly in the summer. We also then contract a "heavyweight" at the beginning and the end of the season to do an serious prune and clear up (costs a fortune !!) Bu that's because I don't have the time to do probably what needs to be done....hope this helps

We pay £12 an hour, for whatever, mowing, beds, jobs etc.

blimey, thats more than i expected... I just gave someone a qhote for 55 per month... which includes 2 grass cuts and general mantenance/further garden development of 1.5 hours per month... is that reasonable? I thought i shol charge nearer 70, but need to build up a client list so willing to do a few cheapies while i get going... quite a lot of grass to cut....
lavenderr... feel free to chat away... be good to talk to someone about it all! I'm not ding any heavy landscaping.... i'll do mowing, hedges, pruning, tidying, weeding, planting, plant buying, design, and also want to grow and sell my own plants as a sideline. can recommend you a great book on how to get started if you like.

i now have three clients! yipee!

well done spod!

Please move to London spod! I do nearly all my own gardening- only problem is the lawn in the summer because I get bad hayfever. The prices round here are enough to make me want to invest in a full face mask. Well done on the clients though

Congratulations

It feels so good doesn't it?

spod you are me, that is so what I am planning to do but not sure, can I give you me yahoo, hotmail address?

spod where do you live? I could do with a gardener to help me out while i have to young children to look after.

Spod,

We pay £20 per visit to ours - it's just garden maintenance and they come once a month a winter and twice a month from around now.

HTH and good luck!

i live in norfolk... is that any use to you?

£20 per visit, for how long?

I went to give an estimate for a potential client today, quoted him £13 per hour.... since what he wants is fairly physical... i use all my own tools, dont charge extra for travel etc etc etc... he said something along the lines of 'it seems to me that 13 ounds an hour for a bit of hoeing and pruning is quite high'.. to which i politely replied that he could indeed find someone to do it cheaper , but I charge that amount because I know what I'm doing. Then he told me some tale, the point to which was that if he wasnt saitisfied he would fire me. I replied that if at the end of the job he didnt want to reemploy me I would take no offence. Standing back, looking at his MASSIVE house and garden, set in a very beautiful and EXPENSIVE village, I wondered when was the last time he earned less that £13/hour. Wish I hadnt said I would work for him now... given me the hump.

sounds ideal but i live to far bath area, i wish you great success in your venture!

Spod, my DH is a self employed gardener and charges £10/hour minimum for basic grass-cutting. He also does tree work and pond cleaning which he tends to price by the job - this can go up to £15 per hour and he also has to charge extra for getting rid of the rubbish (which he finds is the worst problem). His top tip was that you need to try to get jobs that are close to each other, or that last for a decent amount of time. The first time he was self emp he had plenty of work but it was 2 hours here then 3 hours down the road etc. Now he aims for a minimum of half a day in one place or perhaps a full day a fortnight rather than half a day a week (not possible for grass cutting etc!).

Generally I think you will find that the grander the house and the posher the car in the drive the more the people moan about the money - and the less likely you are to get a cup of tea and slice of cake !!

I pay some rather useless gardeners £50.00 per month to mow, weed, keep tidy, I only have grass and shrub borders. They havent been for 4 weeks so my garden looks a right mess as the grass has really grown. Two of them come and they stay an hour maximum.

well i now have six cutomers, so am pretty booked as i only do part time at the moment... and nopearls... absolutely right! the richer they are the less the wanna pay... and as for being given a cuppa tea... only one client has so far! two clients (who have both hired me) have said that they think gardeners should only charge 6-7 quid an hour!

Spod - they are here about 20-30 mins but there are 3 or 4 of them working at the same time. They don't do anything flash!

spod.. I started up 2 years ago... Spent quite a bit tho on machinery... You have to buy Professional tools tho.. Don't waste your money on the B&Q Crap, cos it won't last 5 minutes....

my business picked up almost straight away and progressed thru-out the year.. I mainly focused on the commerical side which took a little time... you have to advertise tho. advertising in shops can be expencive so it may be of interest looking into the internet and get a FREE listing on Google etc!

As 4 charging, I have broken away from an hourly rate. I offer a fixed price on everything.
I use 2 charge per hour, but wanted to break away from that.. There's so many gardeners out there that charge hourly and they poodle about the garden in order to get more money out of the client.. So it's to your interest and your client to have a fixed price. You have to take into considerion the tools your using, petrol etc... Remember, the quicker u finish, the quicker u move on to the next job...

Oh Yeah, be careful of the people with money... There the worse.. They hate parting with any money.. I had lots of bounce cheques and struggled to get the money.. But i DID get it back eventually tho (after I re-aranged the garden for them at no exter charge)That's how these people get the money in the first place... Some of these jobs are best past on to older person (OAP)as they potter around!

it mote be a good idea 4 u to stay with small lawns first. But remember liability Insurance is a must..

To give you an idea, for an acre, i would charge £45.00 and that would take me max 30 minutes... YOU GOT TO HAVE THE RIGHT TOOLS FOR THE JOB!!

All I do now is cut grass and cut back.

I usually have a starting price of £25.00 for domestic (pending on wot the job is and the size and i'm there for about an hour.

Hope this helps.

spod we live in Norwich and pay £12 an hour though the woman who helps me doesnt do mowing, sadly...
I always make her several cups of tea!!

Spod, in London it is between £15 and £25 an hour.

London: £150 a day for a decent professionally trained gardener