Pest Control - price guide

[borderboy 80]

very interesting thread... How many of you guys went straight into pest control...?

Edited January 10, 2008 by borderboy

[Waz 4,262]

I've recently started pest control - working for myself. Am just doing fur and feather at the moment - mostly mole trapping. Could you give me a rough price guide for mole trapping and other pest control. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

 

My advice is to be competitive in YOUR area. & as with any business try to keep the overheads right down without cutting down on service. I learnt the business side of pest control whilst earning poor money working for a big firm & it was invaluable, but most of the practical skill is self learnt and or by others mistakes.

 

Good luck in your venture.

[moley 115]

Bugger me, Moles! How often does That job come up these days?!? Well done, mate and the very best of luck with it! Enjoy!

cheers shitty , i intend to

[TOMO 26,121]

i think most of us would like that moley , nice one.

 

is there a tied house or any other perks . just being nosey pm me if ya like or tell me to feck of for being to nosey

[Matt 160]

£15 per hour? How the hell does anyone survive on that with diesel at £1.12 per litre, insurance at £300+ and 100% loading on van insurance?

 

If you want to know what to charge, its easy. Work out what it will actually cost you to work, add on what you need to earn, then divide that by the number of actual chargable hours you can work in a day. Don't forget that you will be lucky to actually work four hours a day by the time you have driven to the jobs, done the paperwork, swept out the store, etc etc. The all day ferretting and proofing jobs are not the norm; most of your jobs will take around an hour.

 

For the record, most commercial companies in the UK charge between £60 and £100 per hour, for work in normal hours.

 

I always advise anyone who wants to work in pest control to go and work for one of the established big boys first. They will train you, get you qualified, and most importantly of all, give you experience. Do that for a couple of years and then see if you want to go it alone. In the meantime, keep the fur and feather stuff as a hobby which you may be able to use in the day job.

 

I have seen hundreds of people wanting to get into pest control over the years, and few survive if they go it alone without getting the experience (and qualifications) first. Even then, its a tough business to break into.

 

When I started in pest control in 1988, there were around 700 pest control 'businesses' in the UK. Today, there are between 2 and 3 thousand.

 

Anyone who wants help to get into the industry is welcome to PM me.

[TOMO 26,121]

read my post again mat, obviously going to a house doing a rat or mouse i dont charge £15 per hour.

 

its a set charge for the job,

 

15-20 is for labour intensive ie jobs where im going to be there all day.

 

please show mw the farmer thats going to give ya £60 an hour to ferret

 

befor going alone i worked for a medium sized local company. thay charged £25 labour intensive work, that covered gassing rabbits, gassing grain stores , and cleaning grain stores

[Matt 160]

please show mw the farmer thats going to give ya £60 an hour to ferret

 

I realise that most farmers are not going to pay that kind of money for something which they can get done for free.

 

The point I'm trying to make is that you need to work out your operating costs. If it is going to cost you (lets use some easy numbers) 100k per year to operate, and you can work for 200 days each year, that gives you a cost of £500 per day. If you do an average of 4 hours per day (excluding travelling, paperwork etc) that gives you a price of £125 per hour based on four hours per day. You can break that down further by charging £500 for a whole days work (like a ferretting job) or £250 for half a days work.

 

Before anyone gets out of their tree, I've used these figures as an example. I am not suggesting that £500 per day is a real amount for a one man band!

[RatSnatcher 0]

And If you divide the figures by 4 you have used....equalling 25k a year which would be very nice you would end up at £125 a day

[TOMO 26,121]

please show mw the farmer thats going to give ya £60 an hour to ferret

 

I realise that most farmers are not going to pay that kind of money for something which they can get done for free.

 

The point I'm trying to make is that you need to work out your operating costs. If it is going to cost you (lets use some easy numbers) 100k per year to operate, and you can work for 200 days each year, that gives you a cost of £500 per day. If you do an average of 4 hours per day (excluding travelling, paperwork etc) that gives you a price of £125 per hour based on four hours per day. You can break that down further by charging £500 for a whole days work (like a ferretting job) or £250 for half a days work.

 

Before anyone gets out of their tree, I've used these figures as an example. I am not suggesting that £500 per day is a real amount for a one man band!

 

why dont you answer the original question , and tell this young fella what you charge an hour, for a labour job like ferreting or gassing or gassing a grain store. and dont use an example as you have done

 

 

there must be other pestys on here that charge around the £20 an hour rate, and not £100 as sugested by mat.

 

Mat i work for my self i dont employ any one , apart from ocasionaly having the odd hand

[moley 115]

£15 -£20 per hour is about the going rate for round here for a self employed sole trader, one off jobs are usually charged per job or priced accordingly, i suppose it also depends in which part of the country you are

[Matt 160]

please show mw the farmer thats going to give ya £60 an hour to ferret

 

I realise that most farmers are not going to pay that kind of money for something which they can get done for free.

 

The point I'm trying to make is that you need to work out your operating costs. If it is going to cost you (lets use some easy numbers) 100k per year to operate, and you can work for 200 days each year, that gives you a cost of £500 per day. If you do an average of 4 hours per day (excluding travelling, paperwork etc) that gives you a price of £125 per hour based on four hours per day. You can break that down further by charging £500 for a whole days work (like a ferretting job) or £250 for half a days work.

 

Before anyone gets out of their tree, I've used these figures as an example. I am not suggesting that £500 per day is a real amount for a one man band!

 

why dont you answer the original question , and tell this young fella what you charge an hour, for a labour job like ferreting or gassing or gassing a grain store. and dont use an example as you have done

 

 

there must be other pestys on here that charge around the £20 an hour rate, and not £100 as sugested by mat.

 

Mat i work for my self i dont employ any one , apart from ocasionaly having the odd hand

 

Sorry! I thought I had!

 

I now work for one of the big nationals, and we charge around £60per hour.

 

When I had my own business (which I sold eight years ago) I charged £35 per hour. That was based on a four hour day. If I was, for example, rabbit fencing, or ferreting, it was £140 per day. If it was a wasp nest, or one off job it was £35.

 

It all depends on what your operating costs are. Everyone is going to be different. The most important thing is to allow for everything, including training, BPCA/NPTA membership, public liability, employers liability, printing, office costs, capital investment, wages etc.... and not forgetting the most important thing - PROFIT!

 

I used the 100k figures as an example because it made the maths easy. If your business is going to cost you 15k to run, and you want to earn 20k, your operating costs are going to be 35k. Simple as that. If you turn over 25k, you have lost 10k.

 

The most important advice given to me is to treat the business as an individual which you work for, rather than falling into the trap of believing that all the money the business takes is your wages.

 

Some businesses have lower operating costs than others. If you are just mole catching (good luck to you if you are) then your costs are going to be lower than if you are doing general pest control. Probobly the biggest cost these days is travel for all types of business; If you do a budget for fuel, be careful - three months ago diesel was 95ppl, its now 112ppl!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[stephen58 1]

Hi to TOMMO / MATT THE RAT at the end of the day all our pricing seem to roughly equal the same!! To MARKGOOD it is a hard life but a good one I;ve had a great week here is a sample of my working week : TUESDAY 6 am start travel from brighton to Suffolk help mate with a seagull netting job ;home 8 pm :THURSDAY 2 Mole jobs in the morning then gave a mate a hand to proof a chimneystack against birds on a roof with ridge~ladder absolutlely freezing!! then home quick bite of food then of to Twickenham to help a mate with pigeon netting job in a bus depot;back home 4 am Friday morning 3 hours sleep!!! FRIDAY 8 am follow~up 20 bed sit in Brighton for cock roaches then of to check my 2 mole trapping jobs (5 moles trapped) two happy customers !! by now my eyes are feeling like a couple pee~holes in the snow I;m that tired ;the best piece of advise I can give you is" that if the phone dose not ring next week! what you have earnt this week must cover the bad week"(ie rent/food/etc) and this applies to me as well. Hi MOLEY great news that you got job I;m really pleased for you well done!! thanks for your advise on mole trapping in the past good luck Wayne best regards Steve

[martinbb 0]

I started up Fur and Feather in September last year and up to now its all been spending rather than making money with advertising being the biggest cost.

But as an example i charge 15.00 per hour for labour. I find every job is different and took a decision not to have set prices, so to trap a squirrel in a loft can be 25.00 plus my labour that would inc the trapping, destruction and removal in the 1st 24 hour period,then its 10.00 per day plus labour for each day i have traps in the property, this price can vary depending on difficulty of the job eg access, equipment required etc.

The way i charge for moles is different again i charge 15.00 ph labour and then charge from 8.00 per mole caught again depending on the site, but i wouldnt charge a farmer the same as i would charge a golf club with 2000.00 per year membership fees.

To live trap a fox including the trap removal and destruction starts from 45.00 plus the labour again depending on the customer/site.

I hope this helps and as i say every job is different, this way of pricing suits me but its not for everyone.

Best of luck with the business.