Are my bids crazy high?

[bcg]

I'm not closing any of my mulching bids, everyone seems shocked by the pricing. Initially, I was bidding them based on $1 per sq/ft of bed and 2" of mulch so I bid a 750 sq/ft job at $750. This included cleaning the beds, trimming the bushes, mulching and hauling off all the trash. Customer could choose between hardwood, cedar or cypress mulch. Since I had a couple that flipped over that price, I changed to charging $100/yd, again including everything above, and still people feel it's too high. This put me at $650 for about 900 sq/ft of bed and that customer was surprised by the price as well. Most of these jobs have the beds full of live oak leaves and moderate weed growth. The leaves take a while to clean up though, as you all know. Also, most want cedar mulch, which costs me close to $40/yd.

So what do you guys think? Am I just too high? I've not closed on any of the 5 jobs I've bid in the last 3 days. Granted, I'd really rather just do mowing but it would still be nice to have the occasional large job.

[Seascape]

I bid @ $100 per yd installed up here. A typical maintained site ,, thatll cover edging and any detail work needed.

If a site appears rough to edge,,, i bid higher. For instance today i quoted a 10 yd. job (hardwood) w/ some pretty extensive edging for $2200.00 and they signed. Im gonna get right on that one and bump it up in front of about 20 other jobs. Its a good job. There is some hand prunning to be performed in that one also,, about 2 man hrs. 16 hr job total.

Had i not been referred on that one i would have bidded more conservitely. Probally around $1800.00. I was able to convince these folks id need some time ($$$$) to bring this one back to new.

I get probally a little more than 1/2 the mulch i bid.

I pay $17-$25 per yard depending on how i buy it.

[l&r]

I've bid two good size mulch jobs here, Both I bid really low at $60.00 per yard delivered and spread. I have not heard back from either, It's been about a week. One was for 35 yards the other was 22 yards.

[Ryan Lemons]

you have your calulations right? they can be not as accurate as you think.

[MOWANDGO]

Oh my I thought that I was high at 70 /cubic yd installed with edging...wow I didn't others were charging more. I get people outraged at me when I tell them what it costs these days to put down mulch. 100/ cubic yd would be great, is that residential or commercial or both?

[blade2blade]

let them shovel it for a few hours in the hot sun. after their shoulder falls off, theyll recognize. i've already landed more mulch jobs this year than before. gettin' good rips too. i'm confident when i'm selling them the job, & praised when i complete it. now i have the same customers wanting new trees, shrubs, & flowers planted to complement what i've done. charge what youre worth. no sense in doing the job if youre not getting paid to do the job. dig?

[DaFahza]

Don't worry about bidding too high, as long as you are getting some of the work, my partner seems to underbid a little too often, and it gets frustrating doing work and not getting paid well for it.

[PDP1]

In my town we let the lawn mowing guys do the mulching. We used to bid a lot of mulch but with our overhead we needed to charge big bucks !!! So now the mowing people in town do most mulch in the $40 range and we make the big bucks on real landscaping.