For a commercial property the choice between a fixed-price grounds contract and an hourly arrangement is not really about which is cheaper. It is about which one you can budget, defend and hold someone to.
What each model actually gives you
Hourly looks flexible and often looks cheaper on the rate. You pay for time on site, so a light month costs less. The problem is that you are buying inputs rather than outcomes, and you cannot forecast the line.
Fixed price, either per job or as a set monthly rate, buys a defined result for a known figure. A wet fortnight that doubles the growth is the contractor's problem, not a variance in your budget.
Why this matters more on a commercial site
Three things push commercial properties toward fixed pricing that do not apply the same way at home.
- Budgeting. A number you can put in a forecast and defend at review is worth more than a marginally lower rate that produces a different figure every month. Variance is what gets a line questioned, not size.
- Long-term maintenance planning. If the property is a unit title development, the body corporate must keep a long-term maintenance plan covering at least ten years. A fixed annual figure drops into that plan. An hourly arrangement does not.
- Accountability. A fixed price is a commitment to a standard. If the grounds are not at that standard, there is something specific to point at. Under an hourly model the honest answer to "why does this look untidy" is often that fewer hours were booked, which is a conversation about invoices rather than results.
The case for hourly, honestly
Hourly genuinely suits some situations. Reactive or unpredictable work, a site where scope changes month to month, or a short arrangement while you work out what the property actually needs. It is also reasonable for a first catch-up visit on a site nobody has assessed, where a fixed price would have to carry a large unknown.
What it does not suit is ongoing upkeep of a site whose needs are broadly known. That is precisely the case where the uncertainty is unnecessary.
The comparison people get wrong
An hourly rate cannot be compared with a fixed price directly, and putting them side by side in a tender summary is misleading. The hourly figure is a rate; the fixed figure is a total. To compare them you need the contractor's honest estimate of hours per visit and visits per year, at which point you are comparing two totals and can see which is actually lower.
Ask for that estimate explicitly. An operator who will not put a number on expected hours is asking you to sign an open-ended commitment.
The scope of work is what makes a fixed price real
A fixed price is only as enforceable as the description attached to it. Without a scope document, "monthly grounds maintenance" is a phrase both parties interpret differently, usually in opposite directions, and the first disagreement has nothing objective to resolve it.
A workable scope names four things:
- The tasks. Which areas, which jobs. Hedge lines, garden beds, car park edges, footpath boundaries. Named, not implied by a category.
- The frequency. Per task, not per contract. Hedges and beds rarely want the same cadence, and lumping them together means one is over-serviced and the other under.
- The standard. What finished looks like. This is the hardest to write and the most valuable, because it is what an argument gets measured against.
- The exclusions. What is explicitly not included, and how it gets priced if you want it. Green waste removal and larger tree work are the two that most often sit outside a base contract.
Where the two models can be combined
The models are not mutually exclusive, and the arrangement that suits many commercial sites uses both: a fixed monthly rate covering the defined recurring scope, plus per-job quotes for anything outside it.
That keeps the predictable work predictable and budgetable, while storm response, a structural tree job or a one-off clearance gets priced properly on its own terms rather than being absorbed into a monthly figure that then has to inflate to cover the possibility.
Our approach
We quote per job or as a set monthly rate, never by the hour. The figure is agreed before work begins and does not change afterwards, which means it can go into a budget line or a long-term maintenance plan and stay there.
We do that because we have found the risk sits better with us than with a client: a site that turns out denser, steeper or further overgrown than it looked is a problem we are equipped to price, and a client should not be absorbing that variance through an invoice. We are fully insured and fully battery-powered, which on an occupied office or retail site means work can run in business hours without the noise petrol gear brings. Tree and stump work up to four metres directly, anything larger referred to a qualified arborist.