I have always charged "per animal" since day one.

Well I have finally saw the light and now am charging "flat rate" and wish I would of did this years ago. Here are the benefits for me:

1. No more chasing money. I get paid up front.
2. No more lost money if I happen to chase the animal away instead of trap it.
3. No more calling the customer and asking if they want to pay to remove that opossum that we caught in our raccoon trap.
4. No more having customers get cold feet because they don't know how many are in the house.

I always had a great close rate but since I went flat rate it has really gone up. About to raise the rate again because I am too busy and need some people to start telling me "NO"

You aren't charging enough if you don't get an occasional NO. Or so the experts say.

Yrep,,,,,,charging 100 percent more will create less jobs that that pay twice as much,,,,,,,,........win/win

Nate, I'm about to join you! I've recently gone up on my bat work and I'm starting to look at the squirrel work the same way. All ready started doing my raccoon jobs like this. But my issue is what sort of warranty do you put on a residential job? I don't put a warranty on squirrel work, except that they will not get back into the exact same spot that I sealed up. If they do have an issue, I charge them my service call fee of $75.00 not my trap setting fee, which is considerably higher, and then per animal till the situation is solved. My worries is that the customer will keep me on the job much longer than needed, simply because they are paying per job. By paying per animal, they want me in and out, but then I have to fight to stay on the job till I feel that the job is complete, with the customer bugging me to seal up when I know good and well they still have an issue.

Opinions?

I do not offer any warranty on anything except bats (5 year) and repairs/exclusions (10 year).

When I show up I remove the squirrels and then give the customer an estimate to do the repair (exclusion) work. If they decline and more move in they pay the same as they did originally. Actually dealing with this now. Customer declined to have us seal roof vents to prevent re-entry and now we are back again. What would of cost him $200 is now gonna cost him almost $1,000 when it is all said and done.

I do see your concern especially when dealing with wandering animals that are not denning on location. If we set traps and do not catch anything (say they thought they had a skunk under a shed) I am pulling my traps and telling them to call me if the animal returns. If it is within a day or two I will come back at no additional cost. If its over a week later they are paying again (but will discount it) if its been over a month its full price.

nate,,,,,,,I made 950 trapping coons for one week (per animal charge),,,,,,tough to flat rate this one,,,lol...

I think you need to look at every job differently,,,evaluate and charge accordingly

One other way to charge is "per trip"......... this way you get paid to pick up your traps,,,,,,......

I get an occasional "NO"; five calls today and three new jobs for tomorrow.

I always thought anything over 75% close rate was charging to low. But when I tell a customer triple just because I don't want the job and they still say yes I decided that the 75% rule was a joke.

Some guys get calls all day from people looking for free services and others get calls from people willing to pay top dollar. Its all a crap shoot.

If my truck moves for an ADC job I get paid, period. No free trips to pick up gear, etc.

I agree. I remeber one flyer job. 25 flyers! Now I will cap it tho. I like showing up and having a colony trap full of flyers. The set up fee and per animal charge I will stay with. I have had to many jobs where I would of lost. On coon/litter jobs I do a flat rate. I have thought of doing a flat rate before for all jobs and changed my mind real quick

I know how it works; I charge by the animal and there is only one, so I lose my shirt.

So I switch to "by the job" and then I get 28 animals and lose my shirt again.

Vinke's right. A little flexibility goes a long way.

NC, have you ever set trail cams to prove to the customer that you should continue trapping? Pictures worth a thousand words.

I do. I even use Plot watcher, it will take a time elapsed video all day long for up to five days. These are real handy on squirrel jobs.

Other nuisance wildlife folks often wanted to challenge my policy of a set up fee and a per trip billing policy for most all our animal trapping or removal work. A per trip fee pays you for every trip regardless of the reason.A per animal charge can be good or bad at times. At times it can gouge the customer,benefit you or cost you $$ for wasted trips.

Adjusting a good per trip fee handles your time compensation and expenses very well in most cases once you learn to rate price what you are worth.

Loss of potential revenue and wasted trips at no charge will eventually sink into your business sense forcing you to consider another billing approach. Inexperienced individuals fall into this syndrome quite often.

It takes time for some to walk the walk for a while for things to make good sense at times.

We rarely do a per animal fee except in potentially high capture rate scenarios that will require frequent maintenance trips.However, in some cases we will do a flat rate at times for a potential one catch ground hog situation etc. but prefer a set up fee and per trip fee as our standard billing policy.