Starting a Tractor Work Business
Making Money with a Tractor.
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Starting a tractor work business is an effective way to make extra money. Learn how to make money with a tractor with these tips.
by Jeremy Chartier
Making money with a tractor isn’t usually the initial reason small farms and homesteaders buy their equipment; however, many small farm tractor owners will eventually dip their toe into the pond of contracting. If you’re looking at doing side work with your machinery, here are a few things to consider.
Insurance, licensing, and taxes are beyond the scope of this article, so if you decide to tackle any jobs from paying customers, be aware that this isn’t a be-all and end-all article. Research and draw your own conclusions on whether contracting is right for you.
Understand Your Expenses
Before you jump into making money with a tractor, consider your expenses. Fuel is an obvious one, but what about your service intervals? How much does it cost you per hour to maintain your equipment? What does an oil change cost? How many hours of use do you expect your tires to survive?
Understanding what it costs you to operate your tractor per hour will assist you in gauging your profitability, even if it’s a rough guesstimate.
Time is Money
What’s your time worth? Your experience operating your equipment is valuable, and you must be compensated for it. Consider your pay rate at your usual job. If it’s more profitable to work overtime instead of contracting, your pricing is either wrong or contracting isn’t for you.
equipment-intensive than smoothing dirt out with a york rake.
Fee Schedule
You won’t get jobs if you can’t quote someone a price for the project. A basic fee schedule will help you accurately quote jobs and remain consistent with recurring customers. Are you trailering your equipment to the job? There’s an expense to do that. What kind of equipment do you need? Is the particular job rough on your equipment? What repairs do you expect to incur on the job? These are all parts of the puzzle to consider when quoting jobs.
Be Transparent
I’ve learned that communication with the customer makes all the difference. Be upfront about the limitations of your equipment and skill set. Explain how you’ll achieve the goal, and be sure you’re on the same page with the customer. You aim to have a happy customer and cash in your pocket, not a sour customer and a bad reputation.
Watch Your Appetite
Never take on more than you can handle. Start with small jobs and work your way up because your skill and equipment will determine how long something will take, and only experience will tell you how long that’ll be. Even if you know how long it’ll take, over-estimate the time-on-task. It’s always better to underpromise and overdeliver versus running overtime because a surprise came your way. Try not to get in over your head, but if you do, level with yourself sooner rather than later.
Upsell
Consider what else you can do for the customer while you’re at it. Perhaps there’s something the customer didn’t think of or isn’t aware that you can do with your machine. Does their ditch need some work? Maybe you could swap over to your 3-point backhoe after mowing that field and tidy up their drainage. Are there logs in the way? You could move them to a more convenient spot with your bucket forks. How about that pricker patch next to the driveway scratching cars? Could you hit that with your brush hog? Maybe the driveway could use a little attention with the york rake. These are all reasonable add-ons that could benefit the customer and your pocket, so don’t be afraid to mention a few offerings when talking to the customer. Just be sure they approve the work before you do it.
Versatility
Making money with a tractor is easier when you have options. Are you mowing overgrown fields? Consider a third-function kit for your tractor. With the correct kit, you can run front grapples to grab brush or add a front-mount brush hog on your loader to beat back the field’s edge without having to back into it. Do you plan on moving a lot of dirt? Consider adding a grader box and a york rake to your equipment repertoire. Do you have some small farms or big-time gardeners in your area? Consider a plow and harrow, or better, a PTO-driven rototiller. Soil conditioning services are a pretty easy sell, especially if you can add fresh material with your bucket and work that material into the growing area. Also, breaking new ground is easier if you have a bucket loader to skim the sod off first.
Marketing
When contracting with my equipment, I primarily relied on word-of-mouth advertising. I didn’t want to travel all over the state, so I kept it as local as possible. I avoided online ads like Craigslist and Facebook, but that would be a very effective advertising route. Most small feed shops have a community board; make a simple flyer and ask if you can advertise farm-relevant services to customers. Many small farms don’t have equipment but still have livestock, and now and again, they need to contract someone to muck out a pen, drill new fence post holes, manage paths and farm roads, or mow fields.
Starting Right
There’s only one way to find out if making money with a tractor is right for you: trying it out. Start small, work your way into it, and let your customers tell you what services they want. Consider doing pro-bono work for your neighbors first to gain a reputation and experience. It’ll sow some goodwill with your neighbors, and they can be your best word-of-mouth advertisers.
At 12 years old, Jeremy Chartier became involved with his local 4-H group, later joined the local FFA chapter, and showed livestock until his college years. After graduating from the Ratcliffe Hicks School of Agriculture at UConn, he joined the University of Maine’s Poultry Service Provider training program. Today Jeremy sells started pullets to local backyard farmers, is still involved with 4-H as a poultry showmanship judge, and writes about his passion for farming.
Originally published in the March/April 2024 issue of Countryside and Small Stock Journal and regularly vetted for accuracy.
