Snow Removal Contracts: Per Push, Per Inch or Seasonal

“Should I sell seasonal snow contracts or charge per push?” is really a question about who carries the weather. Charge per push and the customer does: a heavy winter costs them more and a light one costs them less. Sell a season and you do. Per-inch pricing splits it by the size of each storm. None of them is the right answer everywhere, but each can be priced from numbers you can look up tonight, and each can be written so a bad winter does not ruin either side.

The contract types, in the industry’s own terms

The Snow and Ice Management Association (SIMA) publishes a standard glossary of the terms snow contractors use. Its fee structures:

• Per service (per push, per visit): a fee each time a salt application, a clearing or both is completed. SIMA notes this can mean several billable services in one storm.
• Per event: a fee for a defined set of services each time an event occurs, with the event defined in the contract, typically by a range of accumulation in inches, ice events and extreme conditions. This is where per-inch pricing lives: one price for a 2-to-4-inch storm, another for 4 to 8, and so on.
• Per season: a set fee, typically paid monthly over the contract, for a defined set of services. Also called seasonal, lump sum or fixed fee.
• Time and materials: fees for the time of labor and equipment plus the materials used. Also called hourly.

Per push and time and materials leave the weather with the customer. Per event shares it: the customer pays more for a bigger storm, and you carry whatever extra pushes fall inside one band. A season puts it on you, unless the contract caps it.

Trigger depth sets the push count

SIMA defines the trigger depth as the agreed, measurable amount of accumulated snow or ice at which service is dispatched. HomeAdvisor’s snow removal cost guide, updated June 19, 2026, says a residential contract’s trigger can be as little as 1.5 to 2 inches or as much as 4 to 6, that a lower trigger means more visits, which can raise the cost, and that a heavy storm can need several visits, one for every 4 to 6 inches. So before you price a season you need to know how often your town gets a snowfall at or above the trigger you are selling.

Price a season from your town’s snowfall normals

NOAA’s 1991–2020 U.S. Climate Normals publish, for weather stations across the country, the average annual snowfall and the average number of days a year with snowfall of at least 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 and 20 inches. NOAA’s documentation says the seasonal and annual normals cover more than 15,000 stations with at least precipitation normals. Five airports show how far apart the answers are:

Pick the column that matches your trigger and you have a starting count. Then adjust it, for three reasons. These are counts of days, so two days of 1.5 inches each put 3 inches on a driveway without ever making a 2-inch day. A big storm needs more than one push. And these are 30-year averages: any one winter can land well above or below them, which is what the cap below is for. Use the station nearest your routes, not the nearest big city, and after one season replace the estimate with your own push log.

Here is a worked example; the costs are illustrative, so use your own. Say you plow a two-car-wide, 60-foot driveway near Minneapolis on a 2-inch trigger. NOAA’s normals give about 8 days a year with at least 2 inches of snowfall there. Plan 12 pushes: the 8, plus 4 for snow that piles up over several days and for second pushes in big storms. Say a truck and driver cost you $90 an hour, or $1.50 a minute, and each push takes 10 minutes on the drive plus 8 minutes of travel. That is $27 a push.

• Per push at a 50% margin: $27 ÷ 0.50 = $54.
• Per season: 12 pushes × $27 = $324 of cost; at the same margin, $648, or $129.60 a month over five months.

As a check, HomeAdvisor’s guide puts plowing a 60-foot driveway two cars wide at $30 to $75 a session, and driveway-only season contracts from as low as $280 for a driveway two cars wide and deep to $600 to $750 for one two to three cars wide and deep with short walkways. Both of the example’s prices fall inside those ranges; yours may not, and that is worth knowing before you print a flyer.

The cap and the floor

A flat season price is a bet on the weather. SIMA’s glossary names the two clauses that limit the bet, both typically used with per-season service:

• Cap (or ceiling): an upper limit, usually a number of occurrences or inches, after which additional fees apply.
• Floor (or minimums): a discount, credit or fee adjustment that applies if a lower limit, such as a number of occurrences or inches, is not reached.

Run the example through a heavy winter. At 24 pushes your cost is 24 × $27 = $648, the whole season price: you plowed all winter for nothing. With a cap at 18 pushes, the season price covers up to 18; your cost at the cap is $486, still a 25% margin, and each push after the eighteenth is billed at the per-push price of $54. The cap protects you.

Now a light winter of 4 pushes. Without a floor the customer pays $648 for $108 of work, which makes for a hard conversation in March. With a floor, say the contract bills $54 for each push actually made whenever the winter brings fewer than the 12 the price was built on, but never less than $324, a minimum you set to cover having the truck committed and ready. In the 4-push winter the customer pays $324 instead of $648; in a 10-push winter, $540. The floor protects the customer, and the minimum inside it protects you.

What the contract should say

SIMA’s standard practice for procuring snow and ice services, SIMA-10-2020, is written around roadways, parking lots and sidewalks, but several of its points fit a driveway too. It calls for at least a one-year contract with cancellation clauses for both parties, contracts awarded by September 1, service starting at least two weeks before the typical start of winter, defined service initiators, and a contract that says whether the provider answers for damage that pre-season photos or a pre-season walkthrough did not record. Write down:

• The trigger depth, and how soon after it is reached you will finish
• What is covered: the drive, the apron, walks and steps, and whether you come back for the ridge the city plow leaves
• Whether salt or sand is included or billed per application
• The season’s start and end dates, the cap and the floor
• The payment schedule, and how either side cancels
• Who marks the edges, and how damage is reported

Which one to sell

The normals table points the way. Where 2-inch days are few, as at the Philadelphia airport with 3.2 a year, a season price is built on a small number that a couple of extra storms can swing a long way, and per push or per event is easier to price honestly. Where they are many, as in Buffalo with 14.7, the count is large and steady enough that a capped season smooths the budget for both of you. You can also offer both and let the homeowner choose. The monthly payments of a season contract also spread winter income across the months, which helps with the slow stretch that seasonal cash flow plans for.

Quote the season in September

Everything that sets a season price can be answered before the first flake: the driveway’s length and width, its surface, the trigger depth, the walks and the salt. If you want that season price on your own website, NapkinPrice™ shows the homeowner a range built from those answers and your own rates, and takes a per-storm request as a lead without guessing a price for snow that is already falling. The snow removal page shows how it is set up.