I finally have my first mole job at a church in the town I live outside of. They have a total of about 6-7 acres with the church having about 2 acres of front lawn infested by moles and about 5 acres of semi-wooded area in the back where the pastor lives. I haven't looked at the back property but figure the moles are as bad or worse there as they are in the front. I've been refining my skills with trapping moles the last few weeks for friends and family for free to get good before I accepted a paying job. It's my 2nd year in ADC work and have figured out pricing on everything else but this is new to me and some help would be appreciated from you experienced guys on here. I want to be fair but still make it worth my time as I will probably be setting this area up heavy with Steve's traps and no-mols. I have a total of 36 mole traps and think I will be using them all.

I've ran a search on mole job pricing but couldn't find results.

Charge per mole? A week's service? 2 week's service or any other suggestions on how to proceed as I will be meeting with the pastor of the church on Friday. I have listed my number in case anyone wishes to call if that would be easier or pm me if you don't want this open to the public. Thank you in advance for your input. Take care,

Jay Thompson

A & J Wildlife Control

419-307-7825

I have found that the best way to price a job is to a calculate all your costs which include your time, mileage, ect. To do this you need to know how long you plan to trap there and how many trips you will make to the job. Say your market will bear 500$ for the job. I would charge 250$ up front and then the other half when you finish. I am confident I will catch and know what conditions allow for the best trapping time. I never set a start and end date. I tell them I will trap for ten days. I can usually kill them all in that time period on 1-5 acres. I set up heavy. Maybe 20 traps on 2-3 acres. If not then I will return and kill them on a per head basis. Say 60$. If they want me to trap longer than 10 days.
Without looking at the job, knowing your skills, or how many traps you have, how long it takes you to set them, or how much you need to make your time worth, it is hard to tell you an exact price.
Most important fact is that you will learn from this job how much, and how long it takes to do it. Then when you bid your next job you will have a better idea what to charge. It was that way for me any how. I asked the same questions you did, but I had to figure it out myself. Its all about being an entreaupenur. Sell yourself and your service. Your a professional.To do the job I would charge no less than 300-500$ for 10 days of trapping with two trap checks included.

I get all my money up front!

Payment is due at the initial start of the service!

I'll phone you later!

Thank you Tioga for the input. I will take all that into consideration as that sounds like some good information. I agree, I will have to sell myself and my services (which I'm pretty good at) for this mole job. Let them know that moles may move back in which will require some smaller needs for trapping in the future. The prices you mentioned sound about right for my area.

Thanks Mr. Grey. I look forward to it. I have always required no less than a 50% payment up front for most jobs I have done. Depending on the situation and from my read on the person, I do require 100% paid sometimes. Probably a good rule to follow.

Call coming your way in 3,2,1 .....r-r-ring

LT, Tim and Tioga. Thank you for the input and to LT and Tim for taking time out to give me a call. I did get the job on a 30 day contract. Both parties are very satisfied and they have confidence knowing that I am striving for 100% removal of the moles in the time I will be there. They've gone a long time with a destruction laced lawn and look forward to me solving their problem. That's a good feeling and I look forward to starting on Tuesday AFTER I pick up my payment first thing in the morning. Wow was that lawn worse than any I've EVER seen around here. About 7 acres in total. Should be interesting how many I take from there as our mole problems around here are very spotty as we have usually clay soil in most parts.

Thanks again as I know this is a question that has probably been addressed here before.

Jay
A & J Wildlife Control

Always glad to help out.

Someone once helped me ya' know!

I reported this thread to the moderators!!! It contains some excellent information. I recommended that it be included in the ADC Archives. If anyone wants to add more information, please do. I get very few "mole problem" calls and appreciate all the information provided.

good luck, work hard, and learn alot. pricing gets easier with jobs under your belt and time. Later Tim

2-3 moles per acre is a healthy population and i would not charge per head because if it gets dry all of the suden you will end up having the moles go deep with no chance of catching them.and they'll come right back once the lawn is wet again.give them a service agreement and trap while there is activity. i run about 10-20 mole jobs at a time now in dublin ohio and most lawns i might catch one or 2 and ill solve the problem. i give a 3 month service agreement and that way it covers the season. if i were you i would only go a few times a week to check on activity and to move traps around. if they see a spike trap down have them call you that way the traps are "checked daily" even though they are all kill traps. shoot me a pm if you have any questions. and btw, dont bother trapping in the woods =)

Good stuff Trappa Charlie, thanks. I offered a 30 day contract probably cheaper than some on here charge or maybe more than some charge. Not to be too specifice but it was more than $200 and less than $600. I figure my hours there after the first 4-5 days will be limited as I will hopefully have the population about gone by then. I might end up having 11-14 hours in the job counting trap setting/checking time (give or take a couple of hours. I live only 10 minutes away. For my first official 'paying' mole job, I think I'm in the right price frame for the area I live in after getting some advice from others on here.

Why avoid the wooded areas? The property borders a semi wooded area along the river. So are you saying just focus on the lawn area or is it difficult to catch them near the woods. An active tunnel is an active tunnel regardless where it is right?

Later,

Jay

pricing is hard to discuss, but don't be the lowball guy, you won't make it very far. people wouldn't call you if they knew how to do it themselves. we run 6 month service contracts, have 85 active clients right now and should have 125 active by june. we run traps once a week, i have over 500 traps in the ground right now.

In my area those numbers are not feasible due to the soil conditions in my immediate area. VERY few areas around here that support mole populations although I'm discovering more as I expand my travels south of here. We have a very hard,clay ground in most parts but south of here it gets more rich and sandy.

As far as being the lowball guy, I agre, although I've yet to see another mole trapper, or even hear about anyone paying for mole trapping service around here. Seems a lot of people just tolerate them or are sold on the gimmick devices. I called a couple of exterminator services around here and only 2 of the 9 do mole work and not a single one of them trap them. They told me they come and treat the ground (which we all know works so well). They wouldn't give me a price on the phone though so I don't know what they charge.

I'm making a good hourly wage with what I charged and I understand that I'll know more on pricing for mole jobs after I get a couple under my belt. I never sell my service short. Like you said, I wouldn't have gotten a call if they knew how to handle it themselves. Even in these times, I won't give away my knowledge in the field of ADC.