What's the true cost of running a mower or skid steer?

Equipment is the easiest cost to miss in a job quote. You bought the mower two years ago — that money is gone, so quoting feels like it's just about labour and fuel. But every hour you run that mower is using up its remaining life, and at some point you'll write a cheque for the next one.

Here's how to turn a piece of gear into an hourly cost you can actually use.

The five components

Depreciation

The straightforward bit: divide the purchase price by the expected useful hours. A $12,000 zero-turn mower expected to last 5 years at 1,500 hours/year (so 7,500 lifetime hours) is depreciating at $1.60/hr.

If you trade in or resell at end of life, subtract the resale value first. A mower bought for $12,000 with a $2,000 expected resale is $10,000 ÷ 7,500 hrs = $1.33/hr.

Fuel

Measured. Not guessed. A commercial zero-turn under load burns roughly 3-5 L/hr; at $1.80/L diesel, that's $5.40-$9.00/hr. A 6kW skid steer at $2.00/L diesel might be $24-$32/hr. Big numbers — worth getting close to right.

Maintenance and servicing

Service intervals, oil, filters, hydraulic fluid, belts, blades, tyres. Pull out your invoices for the last year and divide by the operating hours. As a rough rule, expect 30-50% of fuel cost again for maintenance on outdoor power gear.

Consumables specific to the gear

Mower blades, line trimmer cord, chainsaw chain and bar oil. Easy to ignore individually but they add up. A typical mowing setup might use $300-500/year in blade replacement and sharpening — at 1,500 hours that's $0.20-$0.33/hr.

Insurance and registration

Vehicle and equipment insurance, registration where applicable. Divide annual premium by working hours.

A worked example: commercial zero-turn mower

Purchase $12,000 - resale $2,000, 7,500 hrs = $1.33/hr
Fuel (4L/hr × $1.80) = $7.20/hr
Maintenance (~$3,000/yr ÷ 1,500 hrs) = $2.00/hr
Blades + consumables = $0.30/hr
Insurance share = $0.40/hr

True hourly cost: ~$11.25/hr. That's the number that should be in your quote when this mower runs on a job — not zero, because “I already bought it.”

A worked example: skid steer (small, hired)

If you hire it on a per-day basis at $350/day for a 7-hour working day, plus $40/hr diesel and consumables, your hourly cost is $90/hr flat — easy to quote.

If you own it (say $50,000 purchase, $10,000 resale, 4,000 hrs over 5 years), the maths is:

Depreciation: $10.00/hr
Diesel (5L × $2.00): $10.00/hr
Maintenance: $4.50/hr
Insurance + rego share: $1.50/hr

True hourly cost: ~$26/hr. Quote at $40-50/hr and you're recovering cost plus margin. Quote at “I've already paid for it” and you'll be writing the cheque for the next one yourself.

Chargeable vs non-chargeable equipment

Some equipment runs on jobs (chargeable) and some supports the business broadly (non-chargeable — like the office printer). Allocate the chargeable gear's cost to the services or jobs it runs on, and bundle non-chargeable equipment into overhead.

Doing this in Bizzie

Bizzie has a dedicated Equipment section where you enter purchase cost, expected life, resale value, and ongoing costs. It calculates the true hourly cost and applies it to any job the equipment is assigned to — automatically. No spreadsheet maintenance.