Small Job #1
Equipment Used
- 3/4 Ton Truck
- Toro Dingo TX1300 With Forks
- Lamar Dump Trailer
Travel Time There And Back 1.5 hours
Total Miles Diven 62
Time On Site Working 20 Minutes
Total Load & Unload Time 20 Minutes
I use an easy formula of $250 to get anywhere within an hour and an hour minimum of equipment time. I charge $125 per hour with the Dingo and a non-hydraulic attachment. I increase that by $25 if I use a hydraulic attachment due to the extra maintenance expense and cost of the attachment. For this job, I charged $350 for simplicity's sake. The total profit for this job could be considered as approximately $290 after subtracting fuel costs.
Job #2
Hauling Stone Mix For Diveway - Nothing More
Equipment Used
- 3/4 Ton Truck
- Lamar Dump Trailer
Travel Time On The Road & Site 2.25 hours
Total Miles Driven 30
Total Cost of Stone Mix $448.59 For 17.38 Ton
For this small job, I charged $100 per trip. Each trip was 10 miles. It seems like it is a lot for the client, but it seems very inexpensive to me. The total cost for the client was $748.59. The total profit for this job could be considered as $280 after you subtract fuel, but my overthinking mind knows that there are a lot more indirect costs that need to be applied to this.
IMHO, the major items that are not included as expenses in any of these profit numbers are the overhead items.
Insurance on the truck is about $3.33 Per Day ($5 Per Working Day)
Insurance on the Trailer is about $.75 Per Day ($1 Per Working Day)
Insurance on The Toro Dingo is about $3 Per Day ($4 Per Working Day)
Maintenance on each of those items carries. The Toro Dingonormal Maintenance is inexpensive, but the repair costs have been fairly expensive. Tracks for this machine cost over $1,000 and seem to last about 500 hours. Hydraulic hoses seem to leak in the loader area about every 50 hours. The hydraulic hose is about $100, but it takes about an hour to change them. Cleaning the machine after some jobs is very important ad the attachment needs to be cleaned and lubricated. Cleaning can take an hour. Speaking specifically about the Toro Dingo, it is not used every day, so the costs per working day are low. As far as machine hours, I figure it costs $3 per machine hour for the tracks, $2 for miscellaneous Hydraulic Hoses, and $5 for average maintenance plus add in the cost of the machine. The Dingo alone costs $52,000 to purchase. Assuming we use it for 2,000 hours, we need to charge $26 per machine hour to pay for the machine.
Rough numbers of cost to run the Dingo per hour is $26 in purchase cost, $2 for Hydraulic Issues, $3 for Tracks, $5 for maintenance, and $4 for insurance. That total $40 per hour in direct costs. This does not include any liability for repairing lawns, trees or anything else with any mistake.
We can do the same thing for the truck and trailer, but we would break that down in miles rather than hours.
We also have indirect costs for storage, taxes, and other items.
So when you hear someone talk about how much they make with a specific machine, they do not normally include the amount it costs to actually use the machine, or they have much higher rates as they have a client base that will pay for the use of that machine.