What to charge for mulch installation
Price it by the yard installed. That is the cubic yards the beds take, what those yards cost you and the hours to put them down, with a price above that, divided by the yards. The boxes below do it with your numbers.
By TailGateBid. .
How many yards the beds take
- Length times width is the square feet of the bed.
- Square feet, times the depth in inches, divided by 12, is cubic feet.
- Divide by 27 for cubic yards: 27 cubic feet make 1 cubic yard.
- Round up to what you can buy. A part of a bag is a whole bag.
- How deep? University of Illinois Extension gives the recommended mulch depth as 2 to 4 inches: 2 to 3 for composted material, 3 to 4 for coarse mulch.
- If mulch is already there, check its depth first, the same sheet says. Measure what is missing, not the full depth, and the bed takes fewer yards.
What one yard covers
| Depth | One cubic yard covers |
|---|---|
| 2 inches | 162 square feet |
| 3 inches | 108 square feet |
| 4 inches | 81 square feet |
Work out what a job costs you
Start with the bed
These boxes work out the cubic yards, and what the mulch costs you, and put them in the calculator below.
More than one bed? Do them one at a time and add the yards together in the size box below.
It starts at 3, the middle of the recommended 2 to 4.
The size printed on your bag. It starts at 2; change it to yours.
With delivery, if you pay for it. Leave it empty to see only the yards.
Type the length and the width of the bed. The yards show here.
Two people for a day of 8 hours is 16.
A rental, dump fees, a sub.
Type the size of the job to see a price for each cubic yard.
If you want it checked. Leave it empty if not.
Type your hours and what an hour costs you, or your materials. The answer shows here.
One bed, worked through
An example with made-up numbers, not a going rate
Say a bed is 10 by 20 feet and the mulch goes down 3 inches deep. That is 200 square feet, 50 cubic feet and 1.85 cubic yards, so you order 2, or 25 bags of the 2 cubic foot size. Say a yard costs you $38, which is a made-up price and not what mulch costs where you are, and putting it down takes you 3 hours at $57.05 an hour. The mulch is $76, the time is $171.15, and the job costs you $247.15. Charge $354 and you keep $106.85, which is $30 of every $100: $177 a yard installed.
The same bed at five prices
An example with made-up numbers, not a going rate
| Price | You keep | Of every $100 |
|---|---|---|
| $275 | $27.85 | $10 |
| $309 | $61.85 | $20 |
| $354 | $106.85 | $30 |
| $412 | $164.85 | $40 |
| $495 | $247.85 | $50 |
The hours are yours
This page works the yards out for you and leaves the hours to you. We found no source worth naming for how long a yard takes to put down, so there is no figure for it here.
The beds you have already done are the better guide. Note the yards and the hours each time, count everyone's hours, and include the loading and the drive.
Then price those hours at what one really costs you, not at the wage: work out what an hour costs you.
Two ways to write it on a quote
Sample Lawn Care Co.
Mulch for the front beds
- Labor to spread the mulchQty 6 hours$450.00
- MulchQty 4 cubic yards$260.00
- Green waste hauled awayQty 1 load$90.00
- Subtotal
- $800.00
- Sales tax (7.25%)
- $18.85
- Total
- $818.85
Deposit due on approval: $81.89
Before you ask for a deposit on work at a home, check what your state or province allows.
The mulch is money out before you start
You pay for the mulch before the customer pays you. A deposit on the quote can cover it: work out the deposit and the sales tax, and check what your state allows before you ask for one.
In TailGateBid
Set your price for a cubic yard and for an hour once, and they are offered as lines on every quote you build. Or take a few photos of the beds, say what the customer wants, and Bid Partner drafts the quote for you to look over. Nothing goes to your customer until you press Send.
TailGateBid for lawn care and landscaping has a whole yard on one quote. The sum on this page, without the boxes for a bed, is the job price calculator.
Where each number comes from
- When this page works out a price for you, it never aims to leave you more than $90 of every $100. TailGateBid's own price suggestions stop at the same place. A price you type yourself can leave more.
- The ladder shows the prices that leave about $10, $20, $30, $40, $50 of every $100. The steps are our choice: a ladder to read across, not advice.
- A cubic yard is 27 cubic feet. That is how the square feet of a bed and a depth become yards.
- The depth box starts at 3 inches. The recommended mulch depth is 2 to 4 inches; starting in the middle is our choice. University of Illinois Extension, . (our choice, change it)
- The bag box starts at 2 cubic feet so there is something to show. Type the size printed on your own bag. (our choice, change it)
- The yards to order are rounded up to the next 0.5 of a yard. That step is our choice, not a rule. Ask where you buy your mulch how it is sold.
A calculator works from the numbers you type. Check the answer against your own books.
This page is about one kind of job. TailGateBid works for any trade, and Bid Partner is built to price a job in any of them: how it works for your trade.
Sources
Related
- Job price16 hours of work and $600 of materials cost you $1,320. See what five prices would leave you.
- What an hour costs youIn the example, $25 an hour of pay turns into $57.05 for every hour you can bill.
- Lawn mowingFrom a lot's length and width to the hours on the mower and a price for each 1,000 square feet.
- Deposit and sales taxOn a sample quote, 7.25% of $2,035.00 is $147.54 of tax, and a 10% deposit on the total is $225.75.
- Lawn care and landscapingQuotes by the 1,000 square feet and the cubic yard, and jobs that repeat by themselves.
Quote the mulch by the yard and the labor by the hour, or one price for each yard installed. TailGateBid adds it up either way.
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