What to charge for snow removal
Price one push first: the square feet you clear, the minutes it takes you, the salt you put down and the trip. A season is that same push as many times as you choose to price for. Nobody knows that number ahead of time, so work the price out at more than one.
By TailGateBid. .
Per push or per season: what each one bets
Per push, you are paid each time you come. A heavy winter brings in more and a light one less, and your costs move the same way. The customer carries the weather.
Per season, the price is the same whatever falls. The customer buys a bill with no surprises, and you carry the weather. In a light winter you keep more than you planned. In a heavy one the price can run out before the snow does.
Nothing on this page says which to offer. Both come from one sum, and the boxes below do it: leave the number of pushes empty and you have the cost of one, type a number and you have the cost of a season.
Work out what a job costs you
Start with the driveway
These boxes turn the driveway into square feet, and one push into a season when you say how many. The size, the hours, the salt and the trips go in the calculator below.
Walks, steps, the apron by the road, a turnaround.
From a storm you timed. Two people for 20 minutes is 40.
Leave it empty to price one push. For a season, the number you choose to price for: nobody knows the real one ahead of time.
Your own rate. Leave it empty if you do not salt. This page quotes a state manual on what a rate depends on.
The price of a bag divided by the pounds in it.
Type the length and the width of the driveway. The size shows 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 1,000 square feet.
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 driveway, priced for a season
An example with made-up numbers, not a going rate
Say a driveway is 20 by 60 feet with 300 square feet of walk: 1,500 square feet. Say one push takes you 30 minutes and you price the season at 7 pushes: 3.5 hours, which at $57.05 an hour is $199.68. Say you put down 2.25 pounds of salt on each 1,000 square feet each time, 23.63 pounds in all, and a pound costs you $0.30: $7.09. Say each trip costs you $15: $105. The season costs you $311.77. Charge $446 and you keep $134.23, which is $30 of every $100. That is $63.72 a push, or $42.48 for each 1,000 square feet you clear.
The same season at five prices
An example with made-up numbers, not a going rate
| Price | You keep | Of every $100 |
|---|---|---|
| $347 | $35.23 | $10 |
| $390 | $78.23 | $20 |
| $446 | $134.23 | $30 |
| $520 | $208.23 | $40 |
| $624 | $312.23 | $50 |
The same price in two other winters
- Hold the flat price at $446 and change only the winter. With 1 push all season, the work costs you $44.54 and you keep $401.46. With 16 pushes it costs you $712.60, and the price is $266.60 short of that.
- Those three numbers of pushes are the only figures in the example that are not made up. Minnesota's climate office counted the days with two inches of snow or more in each Twin Cities season from 1891 to 2025: roughly seven in an average season, as many as 16, and as few as one. Its own example of who might use the count is a snow contractor and a customer, weighing a flat seasonal fee against a charge for each visit: Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Snowfall Event Count and Seasonal Snowfall Summary Statistics (Twin Cities, 1891 to 2025).
- That is one city's record. It says nothing about your town and nothing about this winter. Look up the record for where you plow, from your state's climate office or the National Weather Service office for your area, and put its low year and its high year through the boxes before you sign a season.
Three ways to write a season down
- A flat price that names its number. "This price covers up to so many pushes; each one after that is so much." The price for one more push is this page's sum with the pushes box left empty.
- A price for each push, with the rule for what counts as one: how deep the snow is before you come, and that a long storm cleared twice is two.
- A flat price with nothing after it. Then the heavy winter is yours, and the price has to be worked out at a number of pushes you could live with, not at the one you hope for.
Salt is a material, and it is measured
- The sum is the area in thousands of square feet, times the pounds for each thousand. Minnesota's manual on salting parking lots and sidewalks works one through: for dry salt on a 2,000 square foot sidewalk, with the pavement at 20 degrees and rising, its table recommends 2.25 pounds for each 1,000 square feet, so about 4.5 pounds: Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Smart Salting for Parking Lots & Sidewalks (August 2022). The example on this page borrows that rate. It is the rate for that one situation.
- No one rate is yours for the winter. The same manual says one application rate will not fit all situations, and that its rates assume a surface that was thoroughly cleared first. Clearing well is hours. Salting snow you left behind is more salt.
- The product changes with the cold. The manual says not to use dry salt on pavement below 15 degrees, because it takes too long to work. Whatever you use in its place has its own cost for a pound, and that is a different number in the box.
- Whose cost the salt is. The manual asks contractors to consider billing for the service and not by the ton or gallon put down, and says that contracts built on fees for material encourage overuse. In the sum here salt is one of your costs inside the price. It is a Minnesota agency's advice, not a rule for where you work: ask your state or your town what it asks of people who spread salt.
The same driveway is not the same job twice
- Snow is not one weight. FEMA's guide on snow loads puts a foot of fresh snow at 3 pounds on each square foot when it is light and dry, and at 21 when it is wet and heavy: Federal Emergency Management Agency, Snow Load Safety Guide (FEMA P-957, January 2013). That is seven times the weight on the same driveway, and it is why the minutes of a push are yours to time. Time a light storm and a heavy one, and price with the heavy one in mind.
- Write every visit down: the day, how deep it was, how long you were there and what you put down. Minnesota's manual says a record of that kind can provide a great defense in a dispute. It is also next year's price: your own minutes and your own pounds, by storm.
What gets missed
The trip, every time. A push on a route of neighbors costs little to reach. A lone driveway across town costs the drive again with each storm, and the sum multiplies it by every push: what a trip costs you.
The machine. A plow, a blower and a spreader cost money in the months they sit still. If the hour you price with does not already carry them, work out what an hour of the machine costs and add it to what an hour of you costs. Once, not twice.
The walk and the steps. They are few square feet and many minutes, done by hand. Put their minutes in the push, or price them as their own line.
The pile. Snow that has to leave the property is loading and hauling, which is another job with its own hours.
On a quote
A line on a TailGateBid quote has a quantity, what it is counted in and a price, so the clearing can be a line counted in thousands of square feet and the salt a line of its own. Say on the quote how many pushes the price covers and what one more costs, so your customer has read it before approving. How quotes work.
If you clear leaves on the same properties before the snow comes, that job has its own sum: what to charge for leaf removal.
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 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
- Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Snowfall Event Count and Seasonal Snowfall Summary Statistics (Twin Cities, 1891 to 2025),
- Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Smart Salting for Parking Lots & Sidewalks (August 2022),
- Federal Emergency Management Agency, Snow Load Safety Guide (FEMA P-957, January 2013),
Related
- Trip and minimum chargeIn the example, a job 25 minutes away costs $93.92 before any work is done. See what your smallest job costs with the trip in it.
- What a machine costs an hourIn the example, a machine that works 500 hours a year costs $26.60 for each of them, before anyone is paid to run it.
- What an hour costs youIn the example, $25 an hour of pay turns into $57.05 for every hour you can bill.
- Leaf removalFrom the lot, the crew, the visits and the loads to a price for each 1,000 square feet cleared.
- QuotesOptions, add-ons and a signature on your customer's own phone.
Write the price, the pushes it covers and what one more costs on a TailGateBid quote, and send it before the first storm.
Start free trial30 days free. No card needed.