Bidding jobs really isn't all that hard to be honest, and I find that guys with a sales/estimating background do better at it than tree guys. To cut down trees you need to be good at cutting down trees. To sell tree work you need to be good at selling. Lots of awesome tree guys are hopeless salesmen and drastically underestimate the amount of time they need to complete a job.
To put realistic bids on jobs you need to know some base costs for your operation. It starts with what gear and employees you have, insurance etc. For myself, I'm a small time operator with a mid size truck and small crew. I set my base rate at $90 an hour for myself, my gear and my truck, plus $25/hour for every guy on my crew. If I go out with 3 guys then my base rate is $165/hr. I charge $250/hr for chipping but I can chip most jobs in an hour or 2 at most. I do residential work in the city so most trees I'm dealing with aren't that big. A full day job for me needs to come out at 8hrs x $165 + 1 hr chipping @ $250 = $1570. A more realistic charge for me for a full day job is $1700.
You then need to factor in where you will lose time. I start out with 1 hour allowance for unpacking and packing gear, setup etc. I add half an hour for cleaup. I add extra for all the following reasons plus many more;
the job is far from the street (extra crew)
the passageway is narrow (the tree needs to be cut up smaller)
there is delicate paintwork, brick work, stone work (smaller pieces, more crew)
there are powerlines around
It's a big tree - add extra crew
It's more than 13m3 of chip - I need to do an extra load in my truck
The trunk size is over 24" - I need to do more ripping
It's a technical tree
It's a species I don't like to cut
It will need a lot of lowering
There are stairs
I need to hire extra equipment (EWP, crane)
For smaller jobs I price them according to what portion of a day I think they will take, allowing for travel and setup/packup and cleanup. If I dont think I can get another job in the area then I price
it as a full day.
My basic approach to most jobs is to pace out the distance form the street to the tree, measure the DBH height and spread, then make an estimate of how many cubic metres of chip there will be. I then look at what the ground is like around the tree (lawn, pavers, concrete?) and what else is under the tree (driveway, shed, house, precious garden, fence, footpath, road, powerlines). Then I look at the conditions of the path to the street (width, surface material, stairs) and make a note of all these things. I add up how many hours I'll need to chip and how many crew I'll need. Then I add in setup, packup, cleanup and travel and come up with a number. If I feel that number is light I add to it. Those jobs are cream. Then I sell that number to the customer.
For an inexperienced guy, the hardest thing is working out how many days a tree will take to climb. If you have a top climber on your crew then he can probably take down almost anything in a day. You'll get an eye pretty quick for 'one day or two'. The finer details of the takedown can be worked out by the crew. Jobs with a few trees end up being more cream. Jobs with lots of trees end up being underbid by every idiot out there and aren't worth doing. Pruning is a hard sell and always ends up taking more time than what you think. Not many customers are happy with what they get on a prune, and most prunes need to start at the $500 range and go up from there. It's easy to make money on removals and lose money on prunes.
Shaun