Quoting per hectare: what a landscape contractor should put in the line

A contractor I know lost about 9,000 dollars on a 12 ha revegetation job, and the loss sat in a single line of his quote: 60 kg per hectare of water retaining gel, supply and incorporate, at a rate he had carried over from a previous job. The specification said the polymer had to be present through the top 300 mm. His rate was calculated for 150 mm. He did the work properly at half the specified depth and spent the next eleven months arguing about it.

Quoting gel per hectare is not hard arithmetic. It is hard because five different people in the chain each assume a different basis for the number, and the quote is the only place where those assumptions are visible. Here is what belongs in the line.

Six components, not one price

The product cost is the part everyone quotes and the part that matters least once something goes wrong. Build the line from these:

• Product, at the dose you actually calculated, with the basis written next to it in the same cell: kg per hectare at 300 mm incorporation, or grams per plant, or kg per cubic metre of backfill.
• Freight to site, including the last kilometre. A pallet of 25 kg sacks is awkward on a low-loader and impossible on a ute tray at volume.
• Mixing labour, in hours, not percentages. If the dose needs to be blended through 300 mm of soil, that is a second machine pass on most sites.
• Water for pre-hydration, if you are swelling the granules before incorporation. This is a real cost on a site with no mains supply.
• Wastage, honestly. Between 5 and 10 percent is normal on broadcast work, higher on windy days. Quoting zero wastage means absorbing it.
• Contingency, for the part of the site that turns out to be rock at 100 mm.

The basis is the argument you will have later

Two quotes can both say 45 kg/ha and be 40 percent apart in delivered material. One is 45 kg spread over the surface, the other is 45 kg mixed through 250 mm of profile over the same hectare. Those are not the same job, and a client comparing the two lines side by side will not know that unless your quote says so.

Write the basis in the description, not in a covering letter. Then write the depth. Then write whether the quantity assumes a bulk density or a volume. It looks fussy on paper. It is the difference between a variation order and a argument.

Exclusions that protect both sides

Three things should be excluded explicitly on any per-hectare line: rock and existing vegetation removal, additional water beyond the first establishment watering, and re-application after a washout event. The third one is the one contractors forget. If 40 mm falls in an hour on a freshly worked slope three days after installation, some of your material is now in the drain, and the client will expect it replaced under the same rate.

Say instead: re-application after a rainfall event exceeding 25 mm in 24 hours is a variation, priced at the schedule rate plus mob. It is a fair clause and it changes the conversation from blame to scheduling.

The escalation clause nobody wants to write

Polymer prices move with feedstock, and a 12-month program quoted at a fixed rate carries that risk for free. On jobs longer than six months, quote a firm rate for the first 90 days and a stated index for the remainder. Most clients accept this once you explain that the alternative is a fatter contingency hidden in the rate, which they pay whether prices move or not.

What is not acceptable is substituting a lower grade mid-job to hold the number. The failure mode is quiet: the block looks the same for eight weeks, then the shoulders of the slope dry out faster, and by the time anyone notices, the install is signed off.

Presenting it so it gets compared properly

Put the rate, the basis and the depth in three adjacent columns, and put the total hectares treated underneath. A landscape architect pricing three tenders will read those columns and nothing else. If your number is higher because your depth is greater, the columns say so without you having to write a paragraph defending your price.

Before the next tender goes out, put the rate, the basis and the depth in three adjacent columns and read them back to yourself. If the depth and the dose disagree, the application guide spells out the relationship, and finding that error now is cheaper than finding it at the variation meeting.