How much to charge for snow plowing: per push or seasonal, worked out
Time the whole stop, cover fixed and per-push costs, then test seasonal terms against your own records.
Published 6 min read
To work out how much to charge for snow plowing, time the driveway and the drive from your last stop. Add the job’s share of your fixed winter bills and its per-push costs. Set a price that leaves a margin. If you offer a seasonal price, test it against both a light and a heavy winter. Say what each visit past the cap will cost.
Per push, per event, per inch or seasonal
- Per push: Charge for each visit. Define what counts as a second push.
- Per event: Charge once for a storm, even if you return. Spell out when an event starts and ends or you may make several trips for one fee.
- Depth tiers: Set a base price and higher prices for deeper work. State whether the price changes per visit or for the whole storm.
- Seasonal: Agree on one price for a stated period, with an agreed number of visits and a price for any extra ones.
Don’t give someone four ways to pay unless you can keep track of four sets of terms. Start with the terms you can actually service and bill.
Count travel as truck time
Time each driveway from when you leave the previous stop until you leave this one. Include shoveling, getting back into the cab and waiting at busy roads. In a 2019 PlowSite thread, an operator reported 6.5 hours out, including 4.25 hours on site for one storm. He said most of the extra time was travel, plus a half-hour break.
Divide 60 by your average door-to-door minutes to get drives per hour. A 15-minute stop yields 4 drives an hour; a 10-minute stop yields 6. Use your slower times when you bid a hard-to-access drive.
Find your floor before you quote
Use your own bills and route logs. For this made-up example, the route has 25 drives, 10 pushes in a typical winter and $5,000 in fixed winter costs. Fuel and other per-trip costs are separate.
| Item | Calculation | Example | Yours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fixed winter costs | Insurance, truck and plow payments, planned repairs | $5,000 | |
| Fixed cost per drive per push | $5,000 ÷ 25 drives ÷ 10 pushes | $20 | |
| Your pay per drive | $60/hour ÷ 4 drives/hour | $15 | |
| Fuel and other per-push costs | Assign the cost per stop from your own logs | $5 | |
| Cost per push | $20 + $15 + $5 | $40 | |
| Price at a 20% margin | $40 ÷ (1 − 0.20) | $50 |
Margin is a share of the price. Here, $50 charged minus $40 in costs leaves $10, or 20% of the price. Adding 20% to $40 would not give you a 20% margin. Fewer drives or pushes than planned would also raise your fixed cost per push. If you have no past season to check, leave room for that risk in your bid.
If local prices are below your floor, don’t copy them and hope fuel will cost less. Recheck your time, your costs and the streets you serve. The driveway capacity guide can help you find where travel is eating the route.
Before sending a quote, walk the drive with the owner. Ask where to pile snow and whether to clear the walk. Parked cars or a shared entrance can mean extra backing and hand work. Add that time before quoting, not as an unexplained charge afterward. If the owner needs an early finish, check that stop in your route order first.
Test a seasonal price against your invoices
Use the $50 per-push price above. In this example, you expect 10 pushes but price the seasonal agreement as 13 pushes ($650). It includes up to 16 visits, then costs $50 per extra visit. An operator in a 2016 PlowSite thread uses his area’s average number of storms plus 5 to 10 trips for seasonal bids. That’s his practice, not a number to use without checking your own winters.
Now compare your own lightest and heaviest recent winters. The example below uses 5, 10 and 18 pushes. Fixed costs total $200 per driveway for the season ($5,000 ÷ 25 drives). Each push adds $20 in pay and fuel. The last column takes both costs off the revenue:
| Pushes | Per-push revenue | Per-push left after costs | Seasonal revenue | Seasonal left after costs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | $250 | −$50 | $650 | $350 |
| 10 | $500 | $100 | $650 | $250 |
| 18 | $900 | $340 | $750 (2 over cap) | $190 |
With five pushes, $250 of per-push revenue doesn’t cover the $200 fixed cost plus $100 for those visits. With 18, the seasonal price earns less than per push, even after charging for visits past the cap. Test more than 18 visits too. If the extra-visit rate doesn’t cover its cost, change the agreement before offering it.
Price the walk or deicer separately unless you have included their labor and materials in these costs. For deicer, multiply the bag price by the bags one application takes (half a bag counts as half), then add the minutes to spread it at your hourly rate. A “seasonal” price doesn’t make extra visits or supplies free.
Charge for the detour
Two equally sized drives can cost different amounts if one sits near your stops and the other sends you across town. Time both routes before giving a price. The far drive might need a higher minimum, or it might not belong on your route at all.
For a one-off request, count the round trip and the stop you’re moving later before quoting it. Don’t promise a route rate to someone who calls only when their drive has become hard to clear.
Set the trigger and the billing unit
Use one trigger for the whole route so every drive gets cleared on the same run. Check your town’s rule for public walks when you set it; the walk and driveway may need different service terms.
When a visit might require a second pass, state whether you bill by push, by depth band or by event. If you use depth bands, define how depth is measured. Put the seasonal visit cap and rate beyond it on the same page as the base price.
To price a deeper-snow visit, compare how long the same driveway takes at each depth. Charge for the extra time at your hourly labor and truck rates, plus fuel or materials those rates don’t cover. If you must return, price that trip too. Put both the depth band and what you charge for on the quote. “Per push at this depth” and “per storm at this depth” are different bills. If you can’t measure depth consistently, consider charging by visit.
Put these terms in the agreement
- The start and end dates, trigger and when the service window begins.
- The surfaces covered and whether clearing the street-plow ridge takes another visit.
- Whether walks, steps and deicer are included or billed separately.
- How deep work changes the charge, and what counts as a repeat push.
- For seasonal work, the payment schedule, included visits and price after the cap.
- Which obstacles the owner should mark and how damage concerns will be handled. Have local counsel review liability terms rather than copying a waiver from a forum.
Enter your own price, expected visits and customer count in the calculator on the snow plowing page to see added revenue, not profit after costs. To find drives that fit your route, see how to get snow plowing customers.