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I live in Boston and have 12 clients... All of whom want fall leaf removal and I need advice on how much to charge...a fair price so I can make money but don't want to overcharge and lose my customers trust. I have a 4.5 Hp Craftsman lawn vacuum shredder and and a new Hasqvana 150BT backpack leaf blower...please help!!!

How big are the yards? How long do you think each will take? Where do you have to put the leaves once they're cleaned up?

One of the more common ( and not very good ) ways of charging for leaf removal services is to take mowing cost multiplied by two. That's a guess. Don't guess. Charge for it like you charge for any other related service, by calculating your labor hours needed to perform the service. The amount of time and effort needed to collect and remove leaves varies from property to property and can literally change from day to day.

If you have to bag and haul the leaves away, you may spend more time doing this than the actual cleanup. Just bagging the leaves is time consuming.
A machine that finely chops up the leaves will allow you to put more in one bag making your system more efficient.
I usually pickup 1,200 to 1,700 bushels in the fall, all of which I dispose of on the customers properties or very close by. The collection systems on my Scag ZT and Ingersoll GT get a lot of use both spring and fall.
Mad Mackie in CT

I bid 25 an hr or 350 for a day

I charge my normal labor rate of $140 an hour and from experience i can make an educated bid. Once the bid is set then i wont charge more then my bid/estimate leaving room to come down. Charges to haul the leaves off the property are charged by the bushel basically $2 per bushel. I don't even try to estimate how many bushels it will be i just tell the customers it's $2 per bushel. I realize $140 an hour seems high, but mowers, blowers, collection systems, trucks, insurances and taxes, don't run on pixie dust and dreams. In order to accurately bid you need to understand your cost then ad on about 2.5% for wear Ann's tear.

Ok. What the heck is a bushel..? My pick up truck can hold 2 cubic yards. In terms of cubic yards, how much $$$ should I charge per cubic yard of Oak/Maple Fall Leaf's?
I will be doing my Fall clean-ups alone ... I use my Hasqvana 150BT blower and rake when needed...put leaf's onto tarp... Drag tarp to truck and then use my 4.5Hp Craftsman Yard Vacuum Shredder or my new Toro 6.5Hp Yard Vacuum Shredder w/ hose and shred leaf's before dumping into bed of truck.
Also, it is impossible to remove all the leaf's before the winter by doing a single fall cleanup for any of my clients... I usually have to do each client yard twice...( 1st cleanup -1/2 of leaf's have fallen from tree...2nd cleanup I try to get it done when 90% of leaf's have fallen ...or as long as their isn't snow on the ground.) do you guys charge for each visit or do you charge a flat rate...regardless of the # visits?

Though ill advised by task force, I use the method of doubling the cost of mowing for leaf mulching and dispersion throughout the yard using gator blades. When asked to actually remove leaves(which is rare) from the property I charge by the amount of leaves collected. How much that you charge is up to you on your expenses and the amount of profit you look to make of the job. I think you're actually fishing for numbers but those numbers are up to you.

LoCo86 said:

Though ill advised by task force, I use the method of doubling the cost of mowing for leaf mulching and dispersion throughout the yard using gator blades. When asked to actually remove leaves(which is rare) from the property I charge by the amount of leaves collected. How much that you charge is up to you on your expenses and the amount of profit you look to make of the job. I think you're actually fishing for numbers but those numbers are up to you.

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I don't think he was ill advised! Our leaf removal is similar, starting at our hourly rate plus removal per cubic yard. I don't see how you can simply "mulch" the leaves in. We clean yards that fill out 1 ton dump 4 times, and that's after running it through the debris loader that chops them up as fine as the mowers would! Comes down to your own decision, what's your per hour rate, how long it's gonna take, how far do you have to haul it? Only your can know your price.

Instead of ill advised I should have said not recommended. And to clarify my mulching the leaves. I use side discharge with gator blades and mow over the property twice. Usually leaving the yard leaf less. Except for the leaves falling as I'm mowing. Your method is great for removing leaves form the property, but in my area residential clients really can't afford the $300-$500 charge they will receive for actually removing leaves from the property. I would love to use the method of loading the leaves into a dump bed it's just not affordable by everyone. Also keep in mind that my clients property's range from a small 1 acre yard to 3 acres. With the time it would take on the larger property's the cost would be too much for my clients to bear. Which is why is use the double cut method with gator blades, cutting the leaves up to pretty much dust.

I also side discharge with gator blades. Why anyone would remove leaves any other way I don't understand.

Blow them in a pile put them on a tarp empty the tarp on the trailer drive around with them then find a place to unload them

By the time you blow them into a pile I am on my way to the next yard. Just seams like a waste of time

In the Boston where I work and live.. it cost between $12 and $15 to dump a yard of leaves. The average lawn cost is $30...with that being said $60 feels really really low in terms of leaf removal. The properties are small and very close together which often leads to a neighbors tree/leaves blow into other neighbors yards creating an impossible prediction year to year in the amount of leaves a client might have own their property.

NadRash said:

In the Boston where I work and live.. it cost between $12 and $15 to dump a yard of leaves. The average lawn cost is $30...with that being said $60 feels really really low in terms of leaf removal. The properties are small and very close together which often leads to a neighbors tree/leaves blow into other neighbors yards creating an impossible prediction year to year in the amount of leaves a client might have own their property.

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What part of Boston do you live in?
As a kid I spent a lot of time in the south end. Grew up on the cape.

TaskForceLawnCare said:

One of the more common ( and not very good ) ways of charging for leaf removal services is to take mowing cost multiplied by two. That's a guess. Don't guess. Charge for it like you charge for any other related service, by calculating your labor hours needed to perform the service. The amount of time and effort needed to collect and remove leaves varies from property to property and can literally change from day to day.

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I'm still waiting on you to respond to my question... how do you take any account you want any time you get ready from "little guy" as you put it?

LoCo86 said:

Though ill advised by task force, I use the method of doubling the cost of mowing for leaf mulching and dispersion throughout the yard using gator blades. When asked to actually remove leaves(which is rare) from the property I charge by the amount of leaves collected. How much that you charge is up to you on your expenses and the amount of profit you look to make of the job. I think you're actually fishing for numbers but those numbers are up to you.

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Yeah I think Task Force is full of iLL advise

I got a flyer in my mailbox for a service runned by kids
I don't know them
There price is 15 an hour
It sounds good to me
Better then a big service
Should I take it

dude said:

I got a flyer in my mailbox for a service runned by kids
I don't know them
There price is 15 an hour
It sounds good to me
Better then a big service
Should I take it

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15 an hr but fast do they work?

They work fairly fast I saw them doing someone else's yard
Only one of them follows the other kid to make sure they don't miss one leaf
I think that I should hire them
What do you think?

if they are a regular customer i charge the same amount as cutting their grass.....in south alabama i dont do a lot of leaf clean up so i just look at it as a way to keep a customer......if i dont cut their yard i charge more.....2 times a year is about the most i do on leaf clean up down here....probly wont work in other parts of the country

I live in northeast ohio (there is no corn fields that i can see) the leaves are falling and the grass is growing
There is a lot of leaves in my yard

Box on the 1ton. Leaf vac on the trailer. Time to do some cleanups

I don't do commercial work but cut grass and help neighbors. I don't know If I should branch out for the hood but I think these little kids should take a turn.

BHLC said:

Box on the 1ton. Leaf vac on the trailer. Time to do some cleanups

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Nice Billy Goat vac!

dude said:

I don't do commercial work but cut grass and help neighbors. I don't know If I should branch out for the hood but I think these little kids should take a turn.

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Maybe let them cut it once and see how they do....then hire them if you are satisfied.

lawn mower fanatic said:

Maybe let them cut it once and see how they do....then hire them if you are satisfied.

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That sounds good
These kids seem to work faster now

NadRash said:

I live in Boston and have 12 clients... All of whom want fall leaf removal and I need advice on how much to charge...a fair price so I can make money but don't want to overcharge and lose my customers trust. I have a 4.5 Hp Craftsman lawn vacuum shredder and and a new Hasqvana 150BT backpack leaf blower...please help!!!

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on my weekly customers we get the leaves up each week for the same price as a mow it insures we keep them for the next year. For my 10 day customers i charge 3x cutting price to clean up when all are down. On e note I do not have to pay to dump leaves. Really does not take much longer than a mowing if you have a good leaf collection system.

Here in MO we charge 50/hr/person to all customers

It should be dependent on the size of the yard and the number of trees in the yard. The number of leaves will also depend on the season. There are a lot of things to consider, but to make it easier, just build up packages. It will better than making individual pricing or add them on your existing packages and increase the amount that you charge.