I have just started a small agricultural contracting service in west somerset.

We have a David Brown 780 tractor and power loader we have a selection of impliments for the tractor which are a 6' topper,haybob,roller,7.5 tonne hay/tip trailer,we are soon to have a dung spreader,grass harrows grass mower etc.

I now have to work out how much to charge.

I know the tractor has a 36 ltr fuel tank which cost £25 to fill up with red deilse at 70p per ltr,My labour charge is £6 per hour

What would the wear and tare of the tractor and impliment be?

if anyone knows how to add this up/work it out it would be very helpfull.

 You don't use maths

 Ask the local contractors what they charge and that's your guide (if you can believe them)

 

 

You don't use a business plan either! Would it not have been wiser to research the local market first, then calculate your costs & work out if the whole thing had been viable in the first place??

Try a NAAC google search to find typical contractors rates nationally. Farmers Weekly publish these every year too, so try a search on FWi too. There are regional variations according to competition, owner drivers not knowing what their costs are or doing a bit of outside work on marginal cost basis etc.

My starting point would be to anonymously ring a contractor a few miles away & say you had a job that needed doing, what would it cost?

A copy of a pocketbook e.g. Nix, ABC, would also give some guide prices but these would be at least one year out of date.

FarmerHill:

My labour charge is £6 per hour

 

No offence, but thats less than minimum wage.  Man + small tractor £25 hour minimum.

 Yes, if your £6 is a self-employed rate that I can invoice you, then you had better leave the tractor behind and head up here. Apply the Tesco Test - will I get more if I just stacked shelves somewhere? If yes, then forget it, unless you prefer mud and breakdowns to airconditioning and staff discount.

Farmer Dan 6465:

No offence, but thats less than minimum wage.  Man + small tractor £25 hour minimum.

 

I agree that £25 hour is a realistic figure but you're not going to get much work with an old tractor at that rate I'm afraid. Although you don't want to be working for nothing, you mustn't price yourself out of work either.

I would suggest £16 to £18 per hour based on half for you and half for the tractor. You can vary the rate according to the job i.e. high revs pto work or jobs with more potential breakdowns will command a higher rate. When you have newer or bigger kit and returning customers you can charge a bit more. 

Its not much good to take to much notice of NAAC charges I wish I could get them I would love to go flat rolling at there rates

Its only a small tractor you ae useing But you cant do much for less than £20 hour, You should charge from when you leave your yard till you finish the job, Then a good customer should put there hand in there pocket and pay you, Work done money due, But that wont happen to often

Topping and mowing £8/acre or £22/hour which ever is most

Haybobing £6/acre or 20/hour

Rolling it would be nice to get the £9.50/acre that NAAC quote that would be around £75/hour with a good tandam set but I recon you could get About £4/acre or £20 hour

A light job with your trailer should see you £20/hour

Dung spreading £25/hour

These sort of charges will get you going but if its someone that looks like they have a bit of money and you do a little job for them just charge a price

Be carefull of chargeing different people different prices I never do cos they talk to each other

I topped someones large lawn a couple of years ago as I was passing it took about 10 mins he asked what he owed and I was going to say £10 but I said what do you think and he gave me £40

 

 

welshnwilling:

You can vary the rate according to the job i.e. high revs pto work or jobs with more potential breakdowns will command a higher rate.

Good point If you are messing around with a little job you can charge a bit less and somtimes make more

henarar:

I topped someones large lawn a couple of years ago as I was passing it took about 10 mins he asked what he owed and I was going to say £10 but I said what do you think and he gave me £40

 

Was there anyone we'd know in this dream you had ............... 

i run a 6920s and i charge £25 a hour and the farms that io am on put the diesel in the tractor

I agree with what Henarar said - not much good to take much notice of the NAAC contractor charges with some things, I'd like to know just how they work some particular charges out exactly, e.g. man + tractor + post knocker is £41/hour - how? Along with charging for mowing/topping by the acre, all very well in big, open, flat 20+acre fields, but what happens when you're mowing a couple of acres and end up spending as much time maneuvering/turning as you are actually cutting anything! This is where we've decided to just charge £30/hr for almost everything as we simply could not justify charging by the acre, as we don't have the acreage to be able to charge by. Hopefully most of that makes sense, my excuse is that it's late and the continuation of rain is driving me insane!

mursal:

Was there anyone we'd know in this dream you had

 

No it did happen it shows what we think of as a fair price and what others do is very different. I spose if he had contract gardeners in to cut it with strimers what would it cost? it had gone past mowing with a lawm mower so it would of taken a long time if he had strimed it himself.the job was done so it did not matter to the owner how long it took it was worth so much and that is that.

Some jobs it is difficult to price EG I have a hydrocut hedgesaw I never new how much to charge for it I havent used it for a few years but it will cut off up to 18 inch branches and if the hedge has nothing bigger than a foot in it it will cut the lot off

A few years ago I cut some hedges off for someone it took me two hours to do what it would take a bloke with a chainsaw a week to do. how much do you charge for something like that?

 

 

charge aweek for a bloke with a chainsaw, minus 10%

as to charging per hour, that doesnt really work either, you have to charge by the half day to eliminate down time and all the wasted time of getting into small fields, losing mirrorson uncut hedges, gates too narrow or awkward. chainharrows lying in the grass.etc

glasshouse:

as to charging per hour, that doesnt really work either, you have to charge by the half day to eliminate down time and all the wasted time of getting into small fields, losing mirrorson uncut hedges, gates too narrow or awkward. chainharrows lying in the grass.etc

 

Sounds ok in theory but you will lose customers like that. I once had a casual labourer charge me two days wages for a day and a half's work. He had gone to the dentist after lunch on the second day and it wasn't worth him coming back. 

I quibbled his bill and he told me that because he'd worked for me in the morning, it had spoilt his day (as far as going somewhere else was concerned). I paid him a day and a half and never asked him back again !!

I think he struggles to find enough work these days.

glasshouse:

charge aweek for a bloke with a chainsaw, minus 10%

Yes you are right but if I did that It would be one hell of alot for what still is only a copple of hours work with some very old and shabby looking tackle

dont do yourself down so much. it may be shabby, but what about a big repair on it?

Funny you should say that A few yards from the end of the job a stick broke a hydrolic pipe and that cost me not much less that the job came to

But lets face it, most would expect you to cut that hedge on your way home from a days paid work. Regardless of how long it would take to cut, with  a  chainsaw.

Then, snigger at you if the kit breaks down, and think you are doing to well if you arrive with new.

We often find its not the actual job, but the people that take the effort.  

 

mursal:

We often find its not the actual job, but the people that take the effort.

 

I don't do contracting as such but about 15 yrs ago neighbour asked me to top about 25 acres of  rough grazing for him as his main farm is 25 miles away. Anyway it took me best part of a day and one blade + a few shear bolts. He asked me how much I wanted and I asked him for £60, which would just about cover the parts and fuel then. By the look on his face he must been expecting me to do the job for nothing and it took a few months for him to pay me.

I don't think he would have ever spoken to me again if I'd charged him at the going rate. The ground hasn't been topped since.

 I do a little bit of hedgecutting for a few houses that adjoin our fields (their roadside hedges), most would be about 20 yards long and take 10 mins in total to do.  I don't charge these people for the simple fact that they will ring up if a cow is calving/sick/escaping in the field behind their house.  Despite the best of efforts, sometimes a cow will do something unexpected, and when that does happen it is good to have another pair of eyes about. A 2 grand heifer with a 3 hundred pound hereford bull calf coming out can pay for a hell of a lot of hedgecutting.

Works both ways, shaft others and they will shaft you.

i still get people ring up asking if i would "like" some free grass off their small 1/2 acre paddock rather than pay to top it and i eagerly agree on the understanding that they cover the mowing/raking/baling /wrapping/hauling(disposal)  bill which on an hourly basis works out at 150/200 quid, But i will give them a few quid for the grass(ragwort infested) ,.................or we can top it for 40 quid, they choose the second option every time,

i started out in the equine feed business 10 or more years ago and soon found that if you were too cheap you got the worst jobs with the worst customers/conditions, raise your prices and you got customers who were more interested in the quality of the work or product than rock bottom price and often more inclined/able to pay.  You cant be greedy mind,

we help with some local digger work too and the difference in attitude is huge, turn up to dig a simple hole and people happily expect a bill of 2 or £300 a day, turn up with 40 grand of tractor plus kit and people think £100 a day is steep 

skrutch:

turn up to dig a simple hole and people happily expect a bill of 2 or £300 a day, turn up with 40 grand of tractor plus kit and people think £100 a day is steep 

Yes how much do plumbers ETC charge to turn up with an old van and a blow lamp they have nothing much invested in the job low costs but still charge more

  i don;t do a lot of  general contracting but a couple of things i do insist on, my rates r competive so don't ask for mates rates/neighbour rates,i have a minimium flat rate charge for all jobs or coupling and travelling time charges nothing worse than putting the grass seeder on for 7 acres and finally i expect to be paid i,m not a bank you,ll get normal terms,then a polite call with possible a polite  if a big bill of offer of a spread out payement plan,if still no money i,ll start debt recovery even for £50 as i say i,m not a bank or hp company,but if all this happens to the end i will never work for the person/company again some would say thats cutting my chance of money off but the dealers/seed companies etc dont give credt to bad payers so why should i.  

henarar:

Yes how much do plumbers ETC charge to turn up with an old van and a blow lamp they have nothing much invested in the job low costs but still charge more

yes and on last weeks telly london plumbers on 80 - 90K and they didnt even have to own a van !!!!

skrutch:

yes and on last weeks telly london plumbers on 80 - 90K and they didnt even have to own a van !!!!

 

Yes I have always thought that we farmers need an awful lot of money tied up just to scrape a living. As I've mentioned before my father in law is a builder, a very good one, and he makes a tidy living with just an old van, a mixer and a few hand tools. If he needs any other kit he just hires it in and the customer pays. Us farmers are going wrong somewhere along the line.