Developing Customer Pricing

Developing an easy Tree injection Pricing Schedule

Pricing a Mauget micro-injection trunk injection treatments will vary with the cost of the product used, the area of the country and also the economic demographics of your city.

An applicator in Omaha, Nebraska, will have a different price for the same treatment as one in Los Angeles, California.

Industry standards for developing costs of chemical treatments or tree valuations are usually expressed in terms of “per inch of trunk diameter.” This method makes it much easier to standardize a selling price and encourages consistent selling prices within the service company.

Starting:

The best way to start to develop a pricing program for your company is to figure out the cost of materials: Using a product for a 24-inch dbh tree, add one-half to one hour of labor and then divide by 24 to get the “per inch dbh” cost.

Develop a table that has a price for total cumulative inches, say 4-12 inches, 13-24 inches, and so on, for each product sold. The more trees you treat on a job, the lower the selling price per inch dbh.

For single tree pricing, the cost per inch dbh will be higher, reflecting the fact that there are constants, such as travel time, which is the same no matter how many trees are treated.

Example:

To fertilize a 24″ tree using 12 capsules of Stemix Plus

  1. Calculate the total cost of materials.
  2. Add labor cost, including travel time.
  3. Add #1 + #2, and then divide by 24 to arrive at the “per inch dbh” price.
  4. Using this as a starting point, develop your pricing table based upon cumulative inches of dbh.
  5. For example, your table may use $10/inch dbh as a starting point for less than 24 inches, go down to $8/inch dbh from 25-36 inches, and $6/inch dbh for 36 or more inches.
  6. Some companies will use a multiplying factor based upon an individual capsule cost. This price will vary, as the unit cost of a master case (12 boxes of 24 capsules) is usually much less than it is for the purchase of a single box of 24 capsules. However when competition gets stiff, this method often loses out to those that take the time to create the tables as described in the above example.

With the easy availability of information on the Internet today, the plant healthcare customer has become better informed about our industry and will appreciate your consistency in competitive pricing for your services.