Believe it or not, there are still snow removal contractors that aren’t adding the cost of driveway markers into their snow contracts. Just like any job that a contractor takes on, the cost of materials is always added into the final price for the customer. For some reason, snow stakes have been an expense that snow plow companies have taken a hit on.

The first part of rolling this out to your customers is listing the benefits of staking. Obviously, using high quality markers to protect the properties that you are plowing is a great selling point. Having the properties staked with fiberglass markers keeps the grounds looking clean and professional and gives the plow drivers the heads up to where the road ends. Most property managers are going to be on board adding a small cost on the front end rather than dealing with a potentially significant back end cost when the snow melts and the property is banged up.

So what would a fair price to charge the customer be? Let’s say the account needs 1000 4 ft PRO Line driveway markers and you pay $.99/stake. It takes about an hour and a half for one employee to stake the whole property effectively. Obviously this can vary depending on drive time etc. But overall, it isn’t a huge labor cost to stake a decent size property. I would say a fair price would be to charge the account about $2/stake. I have heard a lot higher and I’ve heard of companies simply charging a stake fee, let’s say $500 even.

Are you building the cost of staking into your contracts? If so, what is your policy, price and methods?