Landscaping
Landscaper Utilization Calculator
Work out what share of paid crew hours turn into billable work.
Result
Not all unbilled time is waste. Travel, restocking, training and warranty calls are necessary and will never be zero. The useful question is whether the share is drifting, not whether it reaches 100%.
Get a Free Business AuditWhat moves the number
- Travel between properties, which on a maintenance round is the dominant loss.
- Loading, unloading and yard time at each end of the day.
- Weather days, which in this trade are frequent.
Where this one goes wrong
Treating utilisation as a crew effort problem. In landscaping it is mostly a routing problem, and the fix is scheduling rather than supervision.
Questions
About this calculator
What utilisation is achievable?
It depends almost entirely on route density. A tight urban round and a scattered rural one produce very different figures with identical crews.
How much time goes on loading?
More than most owners estimate, at both ends of the day. It is worth timing, because it is a fixed daily cost that a longer day amortises better.
What improves it most?
Clustering properties geographically. It is the single biggest lever in maintenance landscaping and it compounds across every day of the season.
The formula
utilisation = billed hours / paid hours
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How to use this calculator
- Paid hours per day. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 8.
- Hours that reach an invoice. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 5.2.
- Number of technicians. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 6.
- Rate charged per hour ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $72.
- Cost per paid hour ($). Wage plus burden.
- Working days per month. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 22.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to billable share of the day, and change it back. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or saved.
A worked example
These are the figures the calculator opens with. Every number in the results column below is produced by the same calculation the page runs, so you can follow it through before putting your own figures in.
What goes in
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Paid hours per day | 8 |
| Hours that reach an invoice | 5.2 |
| Number of technicians | 6 |
| Rate charged per hour | $72 |
| Cost per paid hour | $34 |
| Working days per month | 22 |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Billable share of the day main result | 65.0% |
| Unbilled hours per month | 370 |
| Revenue those hours would have carried | $26,611 |
| What the unbilled hours cost in wages | $12,566 |
65.0% of the paid day reaches an invoice. The rest is 370 hours a month, costing $12,566 in wages and carrying $26,611 of revenue that never happened.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only rate charged per hour, this is what happens to billable share of the day. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Rate charged per hour ($) | Billable share of the day |
|---|---|
| $36 | 65.0% |
| $54 | 65.0% |
| $72 example above | 65.0% |
| $108 | 65.0% |
| $144 | 65.0% |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Paid hours per day
- A number, between 0 and 24, starting at 8.
- Hours that reach an invoice
- A number, between 0 and 24, starting at 5.2.
- Number of technicians
- A number, between 0 and 500, starting at 6.
- Rate charged per hour ($)
- A money amount, starting at $72.
- Cost per paid hour ($)
- Wage plus burden.
- Working days per month
- A number, between 0 and 31, starting at 22.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Billable share of the day | The headline result. A percentage. |
| Unbilled hours per month | A number. |
| Revenue those hours would have carried | A money figure. |
| What the unbilled hours cost in wages | A money figure. |
Seasonality is not in this
Coverage and material figures assume the area you enter. Slope, access for machinery, existing growth and the time of year all affect both quantity and labour, and none of them appear in a calculation like this.
Estimating is the easy part
The jobs you never hear about cost more than the ones you mis-measure. BDEVY builds the marketing, systems and automation that bring them in.