Pricing the work

Your price is a bet on the weather. Say who is holding it.

Published 2026-08-22 5 min read

The short answer

Divide the seasonal price by the per-visit price and you get the number of visits where the two are equal. Below it he saves by paying per visit, above it by paying the season.

You quote two ways because two ways make sense: six hundred dollars for the season, or seventy-five dollars every time you come out. The customer looks at both numbers and cannot compare them, because one of them depends on something neither of you knows yet.

So he does what anyone does with an incomparable choice. He picks the smaller number on the page, or he calls somebody else.

The division nobody does out loud

Six hundred divided by seventy-five is eight. At eight visits the two prices are identical. Below eight, he is better off paying per visit. Above eight, he is better off on the season. That is the entire comparison, and it takes one line.

Every operator in this trade knows that number for their own pricing. Almost none of them put it on their website, because it feels like handing the customer a reason to choose the cheaper option. It is not. It is handing him the only thing that makes either option meaningful.

Example figures. The crossing point is where the seasonal price stops being the expensive one.

What the seasonal price actually is

It is insurance. He is not buying snow, he is buying a number that will not move, and you are the one carrying the risk that the winter is long. In a mild year you keep money you did not work for; in a hard year you work days you were not paid extra for. Over enough winters that evens out, and in between it is a service with a real cost.

Saying this plainly removes the suspicion that otherwise sits under every seasonal quote — that you are hoping for a mild winter at his expense. You are not hoping for anything. You are pricing a risk, and he can decide whether he would rather carry it himself.

The one number you have and he does not

How many times did you actually go out in each of the last few winters? He has no way to find that out and no reason to distrust it. Put the real figures on the page, including the quiet years. A run like four, eleven, seven, nine tells him more about his decision than any amount of writing, and it tells him something else as well: that you keep records.

It also protects you. The customer who signed a seasonal contract after reading that last winter took eleven visits is not the customer who rings in March to say he only saw you twice.

Five sections and what each prevents. Our own reasoning, from where seasonal contracts actually go wrong.
What the page says	What it prevents
The break-even, divided out with your own two prices	Two numbers the customer has no way to weigh against each other.
Your real visit counts from recent winters	The argument in March about whether he got value.
That the seasonal price is you carrying the risk	The suspicion that you are quietly betting on a mild winter.
What counts as a visit, and at what depth you come	The dispute about the morning you did not turn up because it was two inches.
What happens in a storm that needs three visits in a day	A bill he did not expect from a contract he thought was simple.

The two-prices block — copy it and put your own figures in the brackets

Heading, in his words: “Season or per visit — which is cheaper for me?”
The division, done for him: “Our season is [$X]. A single visit is [$Y]. That means [$X ÷ $Y] visits is the point where they cost the same. Fewer than that and per-visit is cheaper for you. More and the season is.”
Your own history: “Here is how many times we came out in the last few winters: [real numbers, including the quiet ones].”
What the season really buys: “A price that does not move. If the winter is long we absorb it; if it is mild we come out ahead. That is the deal on both sides, and we would rather say so than have you wonder.”
What counts as a visit: “We come out at [depth or condition]. That is one visit. [What you do about drifting, refreeze, second passes.]”
The storm case: “If a storm needs more than one pass in a day, [what happens on each contract type].”
The honest recommendation: “If your drive is [short / flat / sheltered] and you can wait a few hours, per-visit usually suits you better. If you have to be out at six every morning, take the season.”

The last point costs you the customers who were never going to be worth the paperwork, and it wins the ones who were wondering whether you would ever tell them something that was not in your favor.

What this does not pretend

Nobody knows how many storms are coming. The break-even is arithmetic and it is exact; the number of visits is a guess and it always will be. The page is not there to predict the winter. It is there so that when the winter is over, both of you knew what you were choosing between.