Whats the minimal you guys will show up for?

I had a buddy show up recently for a "limb down in yard". Turned out to be a 4" diameter cherry limb, lol. He rolled his eyes and charged $30.
 
I think consulting and rolling out the rig are different minimums. My consulting fee is about half my applied fee.
 
islandedge said:
Ok maybe I'm to high..$400 minimum to show up..
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Does that include just grinding a stump? Or cutting down a little tree and shoving it in the chipper and being done in 20 minutes? If so, that's great! Those little jobs hard to make money on unless you can charge you a good minimum!

Or do you just not go for the real little jobs? Although I suppose with a $400 minimum they may just weed themselves out... Which again, is not a problem. There's no point in showing up to $200 jobs and not making any money after you travel and set up
 
It's important to impress on the prospect the value that you bring to that small job. A cheap piece of work done by a jackleg with no perspective on tree biology etc can diminish the value of their trees. Take into consideration the time spent studying and learning your craft, and the equipment and experience you bring to the job to do it efficiently, safely and according to ANSI standards. All those things should be monetized.

A mentor of mine once said "If you start out offering cheap rates, that's all you'll be known for. If you ever achieve any kind of success you'll wind up having to fire at least half of the client base you've built up, because they'll never view you as anything other than the low-cost-provider."

I don't consider this an appropriate forum to publish my rates but suffice to say, I'm never the low bid, and almost never the median bid either.
 
Gareth's Tree said:
Those little jobs hard to make money on unless you can charge you a good minimum!
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I find the opposite but that is because I don't have a crew of 4 to keep busy. The days that have two or three little jobs end up being a better hourly, and usually feel less tired at the end of the day.

Bigger companies brush off lots of little jobs and clients ("we've been waiting months for this tree to be pruned/cut...") so the owners are generally very appreciative and happy with the price. This thread is all about scale and locale though, which is cool to see differences.
 
Gareth's Tree said:
Does that include just grinding a stump? Or cutting down a little tree and shoving it in the chipper and being done in 20 minutes? If so, that's great! Those little jobs hard to make money on unless you can charge you a good minimum!

Or do you just not go for the real little jobs? Although I suppose with a $400 minimum they may just weed themselves out... Which again, is not a problem. There's no point in showing up to $200 jobs and not making any money after you travel and set up
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Gareth you're basically spot-on at what I'm getting to. Basically ties into your post. There's some jobs I just can't do cuz it's not worth it. I can't go do a $200 job. So I tell him I have a $400 minimal at which they have the choice to refuse or sometimes they'll agree and understand. And yes it may just be cutting a 15-foot Pine and running it through the chipper head to toe
 
$200 minimum to show up, $500 minimum to leave the ground. And neither one gets you much time since most of that is chewed up in travel.
 
islandedge said:
Gareth you're basically spot-on at what I'm getting to. Basically ties into your post. There's some jobs I just can't do cuz it's not worth it. I can't go do a $200 job. So I tell him I have a $400 minimal at which they have the choice to refuse or sometimes they'll agree and understand. And yes it may just be cutting a 15-foot Pine and running it through the chipper head to toe
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Sometimes if the client isn't able to raise the bridge and afford the minimum call out fee, you can help them to lower the river by showing them other tasks which could be performed as well for the same minimum fee. Help them to see the value in your work.
 
I also have a $250 minimum. I rarely have to apply it. When I do have jobs that small, I do my best to do them when I am going to be close by enough doing another job to have little or no effective travel time. It usually works out ok, but I still internally cringe every time I have to bid something that small. I have limited time to be out doing bids, free estimates are the standard around me, so I need to make my bid time count. That is why I sometimes bid large jobs on the lower end of what I want and small jobs high. If I can get a weeks worth of work lined up in an afternoon, it frees me up to be on a job site. When my company grows more, that strategy will have to be adjusted to account for the quality of my employees.
 
Minimums:

Jobsite - $100 if I do anything, $25 if all I do is offer advice and/or insults.
Motel Room - $10 and a six-pack if she's not too fat.
 
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