Why snow contractors quote per push, then sell the season
Every snow price starts as one push, because a push is the unit of work: one storm, one visit, one trip around the lot. Seasonal, monthly and per-inch prices are all that push multiplied out.
Even an all-inclusive seasonal bid starts there. You work backwards from the true yearly cost of the business to a price per push, then multiply it by the pushes you expect. Skip that step and a seasonal number is just a guess about the weather.
Property managers want the season because it fits a budget. Splitting a seasonal price into five equal payments from November to March is common, so nobody gets a huge January invoice and your cash comes in steadily.
The 20,000 sq ft dental office lot, priced push by push
The worked example plows a 20,000 sq ft lot, clears 200 ft of walks and 3 entry doors, and salts the lot and ice-melts the walks after every push, at a 1.5 inch trigger. It prices at $380.12 a push.
| A | B | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dental office lot, one push at 1.5 to 6 in | Amount |
| 2 | Full cost: salt, ice melt, crew, truck, drive and forgotten costs | $266.76 |
| 3 | Markup on salt, cushion and profit | $113.36 |
| 4 | Price per push | $380.12 |
| 5 | Per month, 15 pushes billed over 5 months | $1,140.36 |
| 6 | Per season | $5,701.82 |
Salt and a bag of ice melt come to $56 a push, and the time on site is a little over an hour of crew time, with the plow truck minutes costing far more than the shovel minutes. The $113.36 above cost is 29.8% of the price, left after the owner has already been paid a wage.
Spread over every minute the push takes, drive and paperwork included, the crew earns about $165.52 per labour hour against a break-even of $83.71. Deeper storms get their own higher push prices from the same numbers, and the first visit carries a one-time charge for staking and walking the lot.
Why a snow hour costs more than a summer hour
A snow company has to pay a full year of insurance, yard rent and truck payments out of a few months of storms, so each plowing hour has to carry far more overhead than a mowing hour. The sample company carries about $11,700 of yearly overhead and breaks even at $83.71 per billable hour before the truck and before profit.
The gap shows in what owners charge. One landscaper in our research bills about $80 per man-hour for summer work and $245 an hour for snow. How the break-even rate is built, and what markup sits on top, is on the snow removal hourly rate page; the general method is in the free true hourly rate calculator.
What plow owners charge per push and per hour
Plow owners in our research charge anywhere from $50 for an easy driveway to $245 for a 1-acre commercial scrape, and the gap is mostly lot size and what comes with the push. These are single owners' examples, not market averages.
| A | B | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | What was priced | What owners charge |
| 2 | Base push, 1-acre commercial lot, 1.5 to 3 in | about $245 |
| 3 | Plow truck, by the hour | about $110 to $165 |
| 4 | Skid steer, by the hour | about $185 |
| 5 | Shoveler, by the hour | about $60 |
| 6 | Sidewalk hour | about $85 to $90 |
| 7 | Residential driveway, easy, medium and hard | about $50, $79 and $120 a push |
One owner's full-service season for a 1-acre lot, with plowing, walks, bulk salt and ice melt, comes to $12,450. Scaled to the sample's 20,000 sq ft, about 0.46 of an acre, that is roughly $5,700, or $380 a push. The sample, built from its own costs, lands at $5,701.82, so two different routes reach the same answer.
Turning one push into a seasonal contract
A seasonal price is one push times the pushes your town averages, plus a cap for a record winter. In a market with 45 inches of snow a year and a 3 inch average storm, that is 15 pushes. Owners in our research counted anywhere from 10 to 12 storms in milder markets to 15 to 22 in Minnesota.
The cap is what keeps a big winter from being free. A common way to write it: the seasonal price covers up to a set total, say 45 inches, and billing goes back to per push after that.
Some owners add a buffer to lump-sum seasonals in case the winter is heavy, because the customer never sees a per-push price. The sample instead carries a small cushion on every push, which does the same job without a guess about the weather. Pull your own storm counts from local snowfall records before you pick a number.
Salt and ice melt: where the snow money is
Salt is often the most profitable line on a full-service site, so it has to be priced as its own line, never thrown in with the plow.
Bulk salt that costs $80 to $100 a ton should sell for at least $200 a ton applied, and $240 to $300 is better. Many owners bid about two salt runs for every plow run, 30 against 15 in a 15-push season, because refreeze brings you back with no new snow to push.
Ice melt works the same way. Count about one bag for 1,000 sq ft of walks and doors, and charge for it applied, around $30 a bag in one owner's market. Putting it down for $12 to $15 a bag gives away the product and the labour.
Pre-trip, refreeze runs and staking: costs that slip off snow bids
On the sample lot, the forgotten-cost list adds $27.14 to every push. Leave it out and the same rules price the push near $344 instead of $380.12, about $537 lost over the season on one site.
Every storm, before and after the lot:
- Pre-trip time. Loading salt, warming the truck and checking the hydraulics happens in the yard at every storm, so split it across the sites on the route.
- The site log and photos. Time stamps, depth and pictures at each visit are what answer a slip-and-fall claim, and salting after every push is done for the same liability reason.
- Invoicing and event reports. Property managers want a report for every event, written when you are most tired.
- Drive time from the last stop. Price the drive from the previous site, not the yard. A lot off your route costs more every storm.
Wear and damage:
- Cutting edges, hydraulic hoses and plow repairs. The bills land mid-season in bulk, so add up last winter's and divide by the pushes.
- Curbs, turf and snapped lot markers. Turf repair and property damage deserve their own sections in a snow contract; the spring repair bill comes after the last snow payment.
Once a season:
- Staking the lot. The stakes and the time to put them in come before any snow money arrives. Charge it once, on the first visit.
- The site walk. Measuring, finding pile space and marking hazards before you bid.
- Insurance and a checked contract. A contract reviewed for your state or province limits your liability. Both belong in overhead.
- Equipment security. Trailers and plows get stolen; a tracker or a locked yard is part of the cost of doing snow.
Anything that changes after signing, like a new lot section or dropping salt, goes in writing as a change order.
Deep storms, steep driveways and islands: when the push price is wrong
A single push price loses money on the big storms, because deep snow takes several times as long. A 2 inch event can take 30 minutes and a 12 inch event three hours on the same lot, so price tiers are not optional.
Owners step their tiers up in different ways: 50% more for pushes over 6 inches, 1.5 times per tier, or about 30% per tier. The sample sets one push price for 1.5 to 6 inches and two higher tiers above it.
The lot itself changes the time too. A 9 ft plow might do about an acre to an acre and a quarter an hour on an open lot; owners in our research used figures from 12,000 to 28,000 sq ft an hour depending on the plow and the site. Islands, parked cars and tight pile space put you at the slow end, so time your real sites for a storm or two.
Driveways: easy, medium and hard
Residential snow is priced the same way on a smaller visit, with a minimum so a quick driveway still pays for the stop. One simple system sorts every driveway into easy, medium or hard from a street-view photo, at about $50, $79 and $120 a push.
A short but steep driveway goes in the hard tier, because it's slower and riskier. Selling a set number of pushes for the winter up front, with no refund in a light year, avoids customers asking you to hold pushes or credit them back. Charging more, say 25%, for sign-ups after December 1 tells you early how many shovelers to hire.
Unlimited driveway seasons are easy to underprice. If you sell one, work out what 15 or 20 pushes cost you first, and price the season from that.
Snow bids that lose money
Losing snow bids usually come from pricing salt cheap, bidding the average winter, and guessing at the lot. Each has a fix you can put in the quote.
Cheap salt. Ice melt at $12 to $15 a bag, or bulk salt passed through near cost, gives away the best-paying line on the site.
Bidding the middle of the range. Plan seasonals for the top of your storm range, not the middle. On a seasonal, a light winter is your gain only if a heavy one is covered by the cap.
Quoting from a satellite photo alone. Measure the lot, count the islands and find the pile space before you commit to a number the property manager will hold you to all winter. The quote vs estimate guide covers why that matters.
Never checking. Log real hours and salt per site each storm, the job costing habit. In the sample Job Log, one plaza ran over its hours and lost money, which you want to catch in January, not April.
What our snow research doesn't cover
No owner in our research gave prices for roof snow removal, snow hauling or dump fees, or a skid steer bid in enough detail to use, so we don't quote any. None gave an insurance premium either; get a broker's quote before you set your rate.
Run your own lot through the Quote tab
The Snow Plowing Pricing Calculator takes your lot, your salt prices and your crew, walks the forgotten-cost list and hands back the push price, the deep-storm prices, the monthly and seasonal totals and a one-page quote with snow terms, in Excel or Google Sheets. For the markup math behind the profit line, see markup vs margin and overhead and profit.