Tree service
Tree Crew Utilization Calculator
Measures crew utilisation, where weather and daylight set a ceiling nobody controls.
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 AuditHow the calculation works
Billable hours divided by paid hours, with the unbilled hours valued at what they could have earned and what they cost in wages. In tree care the unbilled share has a structural floor: travel between jobs, yard time loading and unloading, equipment maintenance, and days lost to high wind, ice and heavy rain when working at height is unsafe. Those are not inefficiency, they are the operating conditions.
What moves the number
- Weather days lost, which in this trade are genuinely unavoidable.
- Travel and yard time, which is paid and unbillable.
- Equipment maintenance, which the crew usually performs.
- Daylight hours, which limit the working day seasonally.
Where this one goes wrong
Do not target a utilisation figure borrowed from an indoor trade, because wind alone makes a meaningful number of days unsafe for climbing and rigging and no amount of scheduling discipline recovers them. The useful question is whether unbilled time is weather and travel, which are structural, or whether it is yard time, poor routing and waiting for equipment, which are addressable. Separating the two is what makes the figure actionable rather than demoralising.
Before you quote
- Separate weather losses from addressable unbilled time.
- Track yard and loading time, which is often larger than assumed.
- Compare against outdoor trades rather than indoor ones.
Questions
About this calculator
What utilisation should a tree crew achieve?
Lower than an indoor trade, structurally. High wind makes climbing and rigging unsafe, ice and heavy rain stop work, and daylight limits the day seasonally. Those days are genuinely unrecoverable, so a target borrowed from a trade that works in all weather is the wrong benchmark.
Is travel time unavoidable?
Some of it, and more of it is routing than crews are usually credited with. Jobs grouped geographically reduce it substantially. The distinction worth making is between travel that the work requires and travel that the schedule created.
Should maintenance time count as unbilled?
It is unbilled and it is necessary, which makes it overhead rather than waste. Equipment in this trade needs daily attention, and a crew that skips it produces breakdowns mid-job that cost far more. Counting it honestly rather than hiding it gives a truer picture of capacity.
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 3.
- Rate charged per hour ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $145.
- Cost per paid hour ($). 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 | 3 |
| Rate charged per hour | $145 |
| 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 | 185 |
| Revenue those hours would have carried | $26,796 |
| What the unbilled hours cost in wages | $6,283 |
65.0% of the paid day reaches an invoice. The rest is 185 hours a month, costing $6,283 in wages and carrying $26,796 of revenue that never happened.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only rate charged per hour, this is what happens to billable share of the day. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Rate charged per hour ($) | Billable share of the day |
|---|---|
| $73 | 65.0% |
| $109 | 65.0% |
| $145 example above | 65.0% |
| $218 | 65.0% |
| $290 | 65.0% |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Paid hours per day
- A number, between 0 and 24, starting at 8.
- Hours that reach an invoice
- A number, between 0 and 24, starting at 5.2.
- Number of technicians
- A number, between 0 and 500, starting at 3.
- Rate charged per hour ($)
- A money amount, starting at $145.
- Cost per paid hour ($)
- 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. |
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.