How to price a snow plow contract: per push vs seasonal
Short answer: every contract model is a bet on the winter. Per push pays for every storm, so a heavy winter pays more and a mild one less. A seasonal flat price is fixed, so it pays best when it barely snows and worst when it snows a lot. Count the storms in a low, normal and high year, price the hours and the cost of each, and compare what every model earns per hour. The calculator does it for your route and for your past seasons.
Everything below is arithmetic on invented numbers. The prices, depths, storm counts and costs are illustrative, not market rates, not a price survey and not advice. Replace them with your own tracked numbers. For one property's winter and its break-even storm count, see the snow removal bid calculator.
The arithmetic
Pick the storms: how many light, medium and heavy storms in a low, a normal and a high year. A storm shallower than a site's trigger depth is not plowed there.
Hours: each plowed visit takes the site's hours scaled for the storm (0.8 light, 1.0 medium, 1.5 heavy) plus the deadhead minutes nobody pays for.
Cost: hours x (truck and driver + fuel + blade wear) plus pounds of salt x salt cost per application.
Revenue by model: per push = plows x price; per inch = inches x price, with a higher rate past a tier break; seasonal flat = the flat price however it snows; capped = the flat plus per-push for plows beyond the cap; hybrid = a base plus a share of the per-push price each visit.
Effective hourly = (revenue - cost) / hours. The target hourly is profit you want on top of cost.
The flat price that hits target in a year is that year's cost + hours x target. The price that loses money is that year's cost. The walk-away price is normal-year cost + hours x target x a floor share.
A worked route
Three sites: a 1.5-hour plaza lot, a 0.75-hour dental office and a 3-hour HOA that is only plowed from 3 inches. Truck and driver $55.00 an hour, fuel $15.00, blade $5.00, 12 minutes of deadhead per visit, $0.10 a pound of salt, a $35.00 target. Storms of light, medium, heavy: low year 6, 3, 0; normal year 10, 6, 2; high year 14, 10, 5, at 2, 4 and 8 inches.
Quoting seasonal flats of $3,200.00, $1,500.00 and $5,600.00 totals $10,300.00: $250.89 an hour in a low year, $55.75 in a normal year and -$4.82 in a high year. It first falls under target at 21.2 storms and loses money at 30.2.
The flat price that hits target is $3,661.50 in a low year, $8,763.50 in a normal year and $15,543.25 in a high year. The price below which a high year loses money is $10,934.63, so the quoted $10,300.00 is under water if it really snows.
The walk-away price is $8,115.56.
Per push, the same route earns $62.27, $49.54 and $44.09 an hour across the three years: steady, a little worse as storms get heavier.
Per inch, with a higher rate past 6 inches, earns $29.88, $51.10 and $60.17: it lags in a light year and wins in a heavy one.
A capped flat, with each plow past 10 per site covered at the per-push price, earns $250.89, $94.64 and $63.07: you keep the low-year cushion and give up the high-year loss.
A hybrid at 40 percent of the flat plus 60 percent of the per-push price earns $137.72, $52.02 and $24.53.
The same route is a steady $44-to-$62 an hour on per push and a swing from $250.89 to -$4.82 on seasonal flat. The seasonal price that looks generous in October is the one the winter decides.
A worked audit
Nine past site-seasons, $39,700.00 in revenue for 344 hours, blended $40.41 an hour after $75.00 an hour of running cost.
Three of nine earned under the $35.00 target; the shortfall to target across them is $4,490.00.
By model, net of running cost: per-push $94.88, hybrid $48.53, per-inch $40.38 and seasonal $0.78 an hour.
The lowest is an HOA on a seasonal flat: $6,800.00 for 92 hours.
What to feed it
Hours you actually tracked per visit, including travel between sites, not the hours you quoted.
Storm counts from your own past winters for a low, a normal and a high year, not a forecast.
Your real cost per hour for truck, driver, fuel and blade, and what salt costs you.
Your contract, insurance, liability for snow and ice and local rules come first. This is arithmetic, not a view on what a customer should pay.
Questions
How do I price a snow plow contract per push or seasonal?
Count the storms you expect in a low, normal and high year, work out your hours and cost to run each, and divide what each contract model would pay by those hours. On the worked route, a $10,300.00 seasonal flat earns $55.75 an hour in a normal year and $250.89 in a low year, but loses $4.82 an hour in a high year.
What seasonal flat price loses money in a high snow year?
Any price below your cost to run a high year. On the worked route that is $10,934.63 for 73 plows and 131.7 hours; the $10,300.00 quoted falls short. A price that hits a $35.00 target in a high year is $15,543.25, while one that hits it in a low year is only $3,661.50.
Which contract model has paid me best per hour?
Divide each past site-season's revenue by the hours you really spent, take off your running cost per hour and group by model. On the worked audit of nine site-seasons, per-push earned $94.88 an hour net and seasonal earned $0.78.