2023 Contract Climber Rates?

Chief said:
As I'm making out my 2023 contract for companies I climb for, I was curious to see what other climbers are charging for contract climbing.
Just to be clear my definition of a contract climber is someone who has all the right insurance, all their own gear/saws and can do any job.
I know rates vary widely in different areas but just curious.
In MN I charge $150/hr with a 4 hour minimum.
Crane work I charge $175/hr with a 4 hour minimum.
Anything over 50 miles from my house gets a travel fee of $150 one way.
Thanks
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Clearly prices vary drastically! I can hire a top notch climber in this area for $500-600/day, and that’s figuring 8-10 hours onsite, and no travel charge.
 
Rates in our area are very similar to Reach. We use several different contract climbers regularly.

At $1400/day for doing crane work you would get laughed off the jobsite around here. By the time a company paid the climber plus picked up the workmans comp(22 percent here, so $308 additional) and paid the crane rental, there would be basically nothing left on most jobs. But i understand our market is way different than yours. Only you know your market.
 
Reach said:
Clearly prices vary drastically! I can hire a top notch climber in this area for $500-600/day, and that’s figuring 8-10 hours onsite, and no travel charge.
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8-10 hours....does that mean you typically keep your contract guy around for cleanup? Legitimately curious. Most guys I know pay for the climber to come in, put the tree on the ground, and GTFO.
 
Fivepoints said:
Rates in our area are very similar to Reach. We use several different contract climbers regularly.

At $1400/day for doing crane work you would get laughed off the jobsite around here. By the time a company paid the climber plus picked up the workmans comp(22 percent here, so $308 additional) and paid the crane rental, there would be basically nothing left on most jobs. But i understand our market is way different than yours. Only you know your market.
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I'd like to see a job you guys bid (price wise) that would be 8 hours of craning and you're not bidding 10k plus. 1,400 is a drop in the bucket at that point.
 
Chief said:
I'd like to see a job you guys bid (price wise) that would be 8 hours of craning and you're not bidding 10k plus. 1,400 is a drop in the bucket at that point.
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Obviously areas differ. Crane rental here is $350/hr so at 8 hours their bill would be $2800. A 4 man crew with two chip trucks, chipper, mini, and log trailer runs $5800 for the day. So all told that's $8600. And that is an extreme example that I've never actually witnessed. Usually the crane is sent packing as soon as the tree is down and the rest is crew time spent processing, cleanup, dumping. Longest I've ever seen a crane on site is 5 hours, so that knocks $1000 off the price.
 
I just got back into to subbing so I don't really know the market here very well. One guy was giving me 400 cash for a few days a week last summer, pretty easy work most the time. My brother gives me 100 per hour and splits the extras, we own the biz together technically but I backed out of the admin end so I just call it subbing. Just linked up with an old friend who said he'd start me at 450, I got the feeling that number could go up but I'm not sure. I'm not an every tree kinda guy though more like a b- or c+ level climber. I do have gear and insurance. Mostly taking whatever scraps I can get right now.
 
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