Solo plow operators: price the seasonal contract off your real per-visit cost, then stress-test it against a heavy winter before you sign. Free, no signup. All defaults are editable starting points, not market rates.
Price the visit you actually make: plow time, shovel time, and the drive there and back. The drive is part of every push whether the contract says so or not.
Use your local history, not hope. A seasonal price is a bet that the winter lands near the average. The heavy and light lines show what the bet pays when it does not.
A seasonal plow contract is a bet on the winter. The customer bets it snows more than average, you bet it snows less, and the price decides who wins. Most solo operators set that price from what the last guy charged, then discover in February that a heavy winter turned the contract into unpaid overtime. This calculator prices the bet from the ground up. Enter your target hourly rate and margin, then describe one account honestly: plow minutes, walkway minutes, and the round-trip drive, because the drive is part of every visit. Add salt per visit if the contract includes it. Then set the season lines from your local history: average events, a heavy winter, and a light one. The tool builds your true cost per visit, a per-push price, and a seasonal price from the average year, then shows what that same contract pays in a heavy winter with no cap, in a heavy winter with a visit cap and per-push overage, and in a light winter. Finish with the route planner to see whether the route still fits inside one storm.
Example only, not typical pricing. A standard 2-car driveway at a $100 target rate: 15 plow minutes, 5 shovel minutes, and a 10-minute round-trip drive make a 30-minute visit, $50.00 of labor, $4.02 of vehicle, and $12.50 of salt, a true cost of $66.52 per visit. The recommended per-push price is $80 and the seasonal price for an 18-event average winter is $1,450, paying $128.07 an hour in that average year. A 26-event heavy winter runs $279.52 under water with no cap. Add a 21-visit cap with $80 per-push overage and the heavy winter finishes $120.48 ahead. A $1,200 gut seasonal pays $100.29 an hour in an average year but only $2.64 of profit, and loses $529.52 in the heavy winter.
Seasonal contracts pay you in a light winter and give customers a fixed budget number, but every extra event comes out of your pocket. Per-push pays for every visit but earns nothing in a dry winter. Many operators cover fixed costs with seasonal accounts and make the margin on per-push work. Run both numbers here before choosing.
Use several years of local history, not last winter. Count the events that would have tripped your trigger depth in each of the last five to ten seasons and average them. One monster winter or one dry winter will bend the price the wrong way.
A cap is the number of visits the seasonal price covers. Past the cap, each extra visit bills at your per-push rate. It is the clause that keeps a heavy winter from erasing the season, and customers accept it more easily when the cap sits above the average year.
Only if you price it per visit and count the applications honestly. Salt is a real per-visit cost in money and in spreader wear. If the contract includes unlimited salting, a icy season can cost more than the plowing. Many operators bill salt per application instead.
Add up the visit minutes across the route. Twenty accounts at 30 minutes each is a 10-hour storm before fuel stops and breakdowns. If one event eats more than a long night, the route is too big for one truck no matter what it pays.