Striping price for Georgia (Atlanta Metro)

Can someone HELP, with pricing? I’m fairly new, so my overhead is a little higher than someone with paid for equipment. Do these prices seem reasonable?? By the time I pay a helper and expense, I'm making $10 to $30 per hour, also depending on the Asphalt Companies planning, sometimes I have to make 2 or 3 trips. I don’t mind roughing it until the equip. is paid for; I just don’t want to over charge the customer and lose the market or under charge and go out of business. Any help would be appreciated. Layout: Min. Charge $300 Layout (under 100) per stall $7 ea Layout (over 100) $.25 per foot H/C blue/white with access isle $50 H/C blue/white $30 Arrows 6’ $30 Arrows 4’ $20 Speed Bumps 24’ $24 Speed Bumps 36’ $36 Re-stripe $.18 per foot Thanks Linda

Your pricing would make money here especialy if you did the work yourself.

Linda- You must have some very high expenses because based on your prices, you should be left with a little more than $10 to $30 per hour.

In the Nashville area, you would not get any work at those prices. Things are cheaper here. I tried raising them, but suddenly was getting under bid so I had to go back down. I am stilling making $30.00 an hour at cheaper prices.

Thanks for replying I calculate my hourly revenue on my hours worked. I’m so focused on doing a good job; I don’t know what the normal time for an experience striper would be for the jobs. I just wish I knew the price that is fair for my market, and then I could price the jobs and hope that I get them because of the quality of work. I don’t believe in the “how much will this customer pay” bidding. I want to be consistent. Finding the fair market price is very difficult for a new striper. For now, I will stop focusing on the hourly $, and just continue to focus on the quality. As my speed picks up the hourly will rise. Also, what do you pay for a layout helper? I try to do all the work myself, but when I need help, I pay $20 per hour, with the sporadic work and taxes it seems fair. Thanks!

I'd rather have a Lazy Liner than a helper.

I think everyone is cheap in Tennessee, I have always turned down every chance to work there. Must be cheap to live there? I'm about done up north here, I will bring my lazy liner and help you.

Sound pretty close to me. I've been wanting to go up on prices but weve been so slow lately. Earnest

I think those prices are good, only about 5 dollars on H/C and 10 dollars on arrows higher than people around here. We have a 325 min.

I say this allot, but the best way to figure your prices are to JOB COST. Add up all your expenses, overhead (payroll, fuel, rent etc..), material, labor, equipment costs etc.. Then come up with a daily OH number, you can apply that to jobs you bid. For example say you are bidding a 40,000 lf job, your OH is $500 a day, your equipment is $100, paint is $1600, Labor $300 for the 10 hr day. Grand total of $2500 now add PROFIT, I would go no less than 10% but for example lets say 30% that's $750 with a new total of $3250 for everything divide that by 40,000 LF and you have .08 per ft. That's what you should bid, you can play with the profit number a little, just set a point like 10% that you will not go below. If you can be disciplined and make sure you cover all your costs, and include some profit, you should be fine on your bids. You can see where some guys have trouble when they just pull out numbers and thorw a low ball bid in with out figuring costs.

Those prices are real high for the New York tri state area. Good luck if you can get it but you may want to rethink some of your prices. You are double, triple and more than the average price around here. Even with the price of paint and fuel going up, I could not justify those types of prices. Jim

Like everyone says it all depends on your area. In New York you are 2 to 3 times what they charge and in Alaska you are about 1/2 what a person can get. The most important thing here is to make enough money to stay in business and make a profit. Education in running a business is more important then education in running a striper. Know your overhead, Know your profit, Know your customer base,and know your compition. From there you can determan if striping is a worth while business to be in your area.

If your market can hold those numbers than GREAT. Go for it and enjoy it for as laong as it lasts. Jim

I think some locations just like to keep the prices low and do tons of work.

If you ever get more work than you can handle in Atlanta drop me a line [email removed] . I would be glad to help. Only 140 miles west of you.

Asphaltman and Dwan, good advice, I’m going to work on getting it all down to a science. Thank you for sound advice, I may need to ask a few more questions, if you don’t mind. BrandE and usastriping, I may have to take you up on that offer. My husband is having heart surgery ASAP; I won’t be working until he is up and running again. Prayer worriers, please put him on your list (Al Eubanks). Hopefully, I won’t become a Parking Lot Planet nuisance. Late night nervous energy has me banging away on this keyboard. But I have already increased my knowledge of the business, just by reading the past post. Linda

I don't think anyone here would consider more questions a nuisance. That's what this forum is for and we have all learned from it, and as you can tell people love sharing their experience, so ask away... As far as your prices go, they sound high to me, especially for a metro area with a long season. But if you've checked around and you think your close, go for it. Someone will tell you if your high. I'm a little confused as to the rate you say you make per hour. I charge much less and on a medium sized job make at least $200/hr profit (for 2 people) after material costs. Maybe more work would help divide those equipment cost out a little.

i can't believe you guys get these prices... I simply do not understand this.... Please enlighten me... 325 a minimum!!! My min is 150.00... I am trying to raise it to 165.000. Stripers around here are very competitive. Layout or restripe 150.00 does not matter. Hc with Blue 25 or 30 Lay out Stalls 2.70 .17 or .18 L.F Restripe .11-.08 Stalls 1.5 - 1.00 Arrows 7' 12.00 2' NO PARKING 15.00 etc. These prices are supposed to be for contractors that give me so much work per season... (like 10k and up) However, it seems like these prices have become the benchmark. Not to toot my own horn but i do pretty good work. This is part of my frustration with living in the cleveland area. Too make money here you have to be super efficient.

very cheap on the new lay-out

We get a little more for ($3.30) for layout, but that's from pavers who give us a lot of work, like 80k. But there is usually other things that bring the total job price up, like RESERVED ### stencils on the curb or asphalt($5.00 per), yellow fire lane curb, speed humps, so a 2 day job, maybe 3 or 4 hours per day will total a couple thousand dollars. I wish we could get more for layout, but your right Ryankin, that's the downfall of living in a metro area (DC metro) To get a lot of work form the bigger pavers/contractors you have to be a lot cheaper than Linda, but i believe she can get those prices on smaller jobs.