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Pricing by the acre is popular with customers, but it is only profitable if you know how many acres you really cover per hour. Contractor pricing acres per hour turns hourly cost into a per acre price. Get the rate right and the quote holds. Get it wrong and a job that looked profitable eats its own margin before lunch.
This guide gives you a four step method: work out your true hourly cost, estimate a realistic acres per hour rate for the actual job, divide one by the other, then add travel, setup and margin. Every dollar figure here is an illustration only. Use your own costs, your own machines and your own ground.
Step 1: Know Your Hourly Cost
Add up the cost of running machine and operator for one hour. Include fuel, maintenance and repairs, depreciation, insurance, labour and a share of overheads. Your accountant, equipment records or local extension machinery cost publications can help. The aim is a single honest figure for one working hour, not a guess.
Fuel is the easiest part to measure from your records. Maintenance and repairs arrive in lumps, so add up a full year of parts, servicing and repairs, then divide by hours worked that year. Depreciation works the same way: a machine that loses value every year costs money every hour it runs.
Labour means the full cost of the operator, including time loading, travelling and servicing, not only time in the field. Overheads mean the costs that keep the business running: yard, truck, phone, insurance and paperwork. A share of those costs belongs in every working hour, or profit pays for them.
Step 2: Estimate Realistic Acres Per Hour
Use the Acres Per Hour Calculator with a conservative efficiency for the specific job. Small, obstacle filled properties deserve a lower figure than open fields. The formula is acres per hour equals width in ft times speed in mph times efficiency divided by 8.25. Width is working width, which is the actual swath minus overlap, not machine width. Speed is average speed held safely, not top speed.
Efficiency is where contractor pricing acres per hour fails most often. The bands published on this site are 55 to 65 percent for small or irregular fields, 70 to 75 percent for average fields, 80 to 85 percent for large rectangular fields, and 85 to 90 percent for ideal fields with GPS guidance. Use the band that matches the job in front of you, not the band you wish it matched.
Walk the job before you quote. Count the obstacles, look at the slopes, check the gates and feel the ground. Heavy growth, wet patches and many turns all push the rate down, and a field that looks open from the road can hide ditches, stumps and wire in grass. Read the field shape guide to see how shape alone changes the rate.
Step 3: Contractor Pricing Acres Per Hour
Contractor pricing acres per hour means hourly cost divided by acres per hour. That single division is contractor pricing acres per hour at work, because it turns a cost you know into a price the customer understands.
Work through the live post example. Your total hourly cost is 90 dollars and a 7 ft cutter at 4 mph and 70 percent efficiency covers 2.3758 acres per hour (2.38 when rounded). Divide 90 dollars by that unrounded rate and the cost is 37.88 dollars per acre before profit. The dollar figures here are an illustration only. Use your own costs.
Try a second example with a wider cutter. A 10 ft cutter at 4 mph and 75 percent efficiency covers 10 times 4 times 0.75 divided by 8.25, which is 3.64 acres per hour when rounded. The rate before rounding is 3.6364 acres per hour. At an hourly cost of 75 dollars, the cost is 75 divided by that rate, which is 20.63 dollars per acre before profit. The wider cutter covers more ground per hour, so the cost per acre falls even though the machine costs more per hour. That is why width matters so much in pricing: it spreads the hourly cost across more acres.
The table below shows how cost per acre moves with hourly cost and rate. It is worked from the rounded rates, so small rounding differences apply. Use it to see the pattern, then work your own figures.
| Acres per hour | Hourly cost 60 dollars | Hourly cost 90 dollars | Hourly cost 120 dollars |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2.38 | 25.21 dollars per acre | 37.82 dollars per acre | 50.42 dollars per acre |
| 3.64 | 16.48 dollars per acre | 24.73 dollars per acre | 32.97 dollars per acre |
| 5.45 | 11.01 dollars per acre | 16.51 dollars per acre | 22.02 dollars per acre |
Read the table from left to right and the lesson is clear. A small rise in acres per hour cuts cost per acre far more than a small cut in hourly cost. That is why realistic rates matter: a rate that is 20 percent too high makes the price look 20 percent too low, and the job loses money on every acre.
Step 4: Add Travel, Setup and Margin
Charge for travel time and setup separately, or build them into a minimum charge. Travel is real time with fuel, wages and wear, and it is often the largest hidden cost of contractor pricing acres per hour on a small job. A job that takes one hour in the field and one hour on the road costs two hours of the day. If the price covers only the field hour, the road hour is worked for free.
Setup means loading, unloading, greasing, checking the machine and walking the ground. It also means time talking with the customer and agreeing the scope. Put a figure on it. A minimum charge is the simplest way to cover it on small jobs, and it protects you from jobs too small to be worth the trip.
Add your profit margin on top of cost. Margin is not greed. It is the money that pays for breakdowns, quiet weeks, new equipment and the risk that a job runs long. Decide your margin before you quote, write it into every quote the same way, and do not let a difficult negotiation remove it.
Adjust for difficulty. Heavy brush, slopes, wet ground or many obstacles justify a higher rate, because they lower acres per hour and raise the risk of damage. Say so in the quote. Customers accept a higher price far more readily when they can see the reason in writing.
Contractor Pricing Acres Per Hour: Per Acre, Per Hour or Per Job
| Method | Best when | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Per acre | Conditions are predictable and the area is known | You lose money if the job is slower than estimated |
| Per hour | Conditions are uncertain, such as overgrown land | Customers may find it harder to budget |
| Per job | Small, repeat properties like lawns | Needs a good estimate of time per visit |
Per acre suits open ground where you can measure the area and predict the rate. The customer knows the total before you start, and you keep the gain if the job goes faster than planned. The risk sits with you, so contractor pricing acres per hour must rest on a realistic rate.
Per hour suits rough or overgrown land where the rate is hard to predict. The customer pays for the time actually spent, and you do not carry the risk of hidden obstacles. The risk is that the customer worries about an open ended bill, so agree a cap or a review point in writing before you start.
Per job suits small repeat work, such as a lawn cut every two weeks. The price is fixed, the customer can budget, and you can plan the round. It only works when you know the time per visit from experience. A new property needs a timed trial before you fix its price.
Check Your Local Market
Many university extension services publish custom rate surveys that show typical charges in their region. They are a useful benchmark, but your own costs and productivity should drive your price. A survey tells you what others charge. It does not tell you what your costs are, and a typical regional price can still lose money for your machines.
For bush hog work, the bush hogging cost per acre guide explains how cost per acre is worked out from time, and the bush hogging cost calculator works out total hours, job price and cost per acre from area, cutter width, terrain and your hourly rate. The cost per acre calculator covers the same conversion for other jobs. For lawn work, the how much to charge for lawn mowing guide gives a time based pricing method for per visit, per acre and two acre quotes.
Putting It Together: A Full Quote
Take a 40 acre pasture with a 10 ft cutter at 4 mph and 75 percent efficiency. The rate is 3.64 acres per hour, so cutting time is 40 divided by 3.64, which is about 11 hours. At an hourly cost of 75 dollars, the field cost is 11 times 75, which is 825 dollars before travel, setup and margin. Those figures are an illustration only.
Now add the rest. Allow one hour of travel and half an hour of setup, which is 1.5 hours at 75 dollars, or 112.50 dollars. Add your margin on top of the full cost, not only on the field hours. The total is the quote, and every part of it can be shown to the customer if they ask.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How do I price a job per acre?
A: Work out your hourly cost, estimate realistic acres per hour for that job, then divide hourly cost by acres per hour. Add travel, setup and margin on top. As an example, 90 dollars per hour divided by 2.3758 acres per hour (2.38 when rounded) gives 37.88 dollars per acre before profit.
Q: What should I include in my hourly cost?
A: Include fuel, maintenance and repairs, depreciation, insurance, labour at full cost and a share of overheads. Spread yearly costs across hours worked in the year, and review the figure at least once a year.
Q: Should I charge per acre or per hour?
A: Charge per acre when conditions are predictable and the area is known. Charge per hour when conditions are uncertain, such as overgrown land with hidden obstacles. Charge per job for small repeat properties where you know the time per visit.
Q: What efficiency should I use when quoting?
A: Use the band that matches the job: 55 to 65 percent for small or irregular fields, 70 to 75 percent for average fields, 80 to 85 percent for large rectangular fields, and 85 to 90 percent for ideal fields with GPS guidance.
Q: How do I cover travel and setup?
A: Charge for travel and setup separately, or build them into a minimum charge. A job that takes one hour in the field and one hour on the road costs two hours of the day, so the price must cover both.
Q: Why does a wider cutter lower my cost per acre?
A: Because it spreads the hourly cost across more acres. A 10 ft cutter at 4 mph and 75 percent efficiency covers 3.6364 acres per hour (3.64 when rounded), so at 75 dollars per hour the cost is 20.63 dollars per acre, against 37.88 dollars per acre for the 7 ft example at 90 dollars per hour.
A good quote is arithmetic, not optimism. Know your hourly cost, use a realistic rate, divide honestly, then add travel, setup and margin in writing. Do that on every job and contractor pricing acres per hour will hold.
