Short YouTube conversation (uploaded Aug 22, 2022) in which Mike Andes explains why charging $100/hour for lawn care is not price-gouging by breaking down real-world deductions: ~30% wasted time (driving/loading) reducing billable to $70, paying crew ~$20–$25/hr (leaving about $30), then subtracting fuel, equipment, rent, and overhead, yielding roughly a 20% margin (~$20/hr profit).
Hey, Mike, people on YouTube have been saying that charging $100 an hour for lawn care services is price gouging. You're a lawn care millionaire. What do you think?
Okay, so let's take $100 per hour and break that down. First and foremost, that's $100 per hour on the job site. Usually there's about 30% waste in someone's day if they're even halfway efficient because of drive time, loading and unloading their equipment, all the rest of it. So now we're going from 100 to $70 per hour. They're actually working. Now we take a take out labor. If we pay someone 20, $25 per hour after taxes, you're looking at $30 easily. So now we're going from 70 all the way down to 40. Now you got fuel, equipment, rent. You got to have overhead staff like dispatchers, office people, managers, et cetera. All of a sudden you're running a 20% margin business, only making $20 per hour of profit on someone who you're actually charging $100 per hour on.
Thanks, Mike.
