Subcontracting is the fastest way to put hours on a machine that is sitting. You skip the quoting, the chasing and the sales entirely, and you run work someone else already sold. The trade-off is a thinner margin. For a lot of contractors that is a good trade in January.
The problem is that subcontract work is genuinely hard to find. There is no equivalent of a job board for it in most of the country, and the good arrangements are usually filled by word of mouth before anyone advertises.
Who actually hires land clearing subs
Five groups, and they behave completely differently.
Larger land clearing outfits
They win jobs bigger than their fleet, or jobs outside their normal radius, and they need machines. This is the most common source and the hardest to break into cold, because they use people they know. Worth calling anyway, especially the ones two or three counties over who are not competing with you directly.
General contractors and site developers
They need clearing done before they can start, and they usually do not own a mulcher. They care about schedule reliability far more than price, because you holding them up costs them more than your invoice.
Utility, pipeline and solar
Right of way clearing, substations, solar sites. Steady, often multi-day, and usually the strictest on insurance and safety paperwork. If you have your certificate of insurance and your safety documentation in order, this is where the reliable machine hours live.
Marketing companies that sell the work
Some companies generate the customer, close the job and contract with the property owner, then hire a machine to run it. We do this, so treat the following as a description rather than a recommendation.
Municipalities and land management
County road departments, parks, conservation districts. Slow to get on the list, slow to pay, but the work repeats every year once you are in.
What to have ready before you call anyone
Every one of these will ask for the same things. Having them in a folder on your phone puts you ahead of most of the people calling.
- Certificate of insurance. General liability, current, with the limits visible. This is the single most common reason a sub gets passed over.
- Machine details. Brand, model, horsepower, mulching head brand, and whether you run knives or carbides. “A mulcher” is not an answer. If you are unsure which class yours falls into, see what size mulcher you need.
- Photos of your machine. Clean, recent, recognisable.
- Your day rate. Know it before you are asked. Include mobilization or travel in the number.
- Realistic availability. The fastest way to never get called again is to take a date you cannot hold.
How subcontract work is normally priced
Almost always by the machine day, not by the acre. The contractor hiring you has already priced the job with the customer; what they are buying from you is a machine and an operator for a known number of hours.
Roughly, skid steer mulching work runs $1,800 to $2,500 a day, a midsize machine $2,500 to $3,000, and a dedicated mulcher $3,000 and up. Those move with your market and with how far the machine has to travel. There is a fuller breakdown in how much to charge for land clearing.
A few things that come up constantly:
- Eight hour minimum. Standard on most arrangements. If the work finishes in five hours you are still paid for the day. Make sure it is agreed up front, because the ones that do not offer it are the ones that will call you for half days.
- Mobilization. Moving a dedicated mulcher on a lowboy is a real cost. Skid steer work usually absorbs it into the day rate. Larger machines usually charge it separately. Be explicit either way.
- Who supplies fuel. Sounds small, adds up over a multi day job.
- What happens if the ground is wet. Agree in advance who wears a weather day.
The questions that separate good arrangements from bad ones
Ask these before you commit a machine to anyone, including us.
- When do I get paid, and does it depend on the client paying you? This is the important one. Some outfits pay when they get paid, which means you carry their credit risk on a customer you never met. Others pay on completion regardless. That difference is worth more than a few hundred dollars on the day rate.
- Who talks to the property owner? Usually you coordinate arrival time directly and everything about money goes back through them. Know which is which so you are not negotiating scope on someone else’s job.
- What counts as finished? Photos, a walkthrough, a signature. Agree the proof before you start.
- What is the scope if the customer asks for more? The answer should always be that they call the contractor who hired you, not that you price it in the field.
- Am I signing anything ongoing? A per job agreement is normal. A blanket exclusivity agreement to run someone else’s work is not.
How to find it
In rough order of effort:
- Call the larger clearing outfits within a two hour drive. Not to ask for work, to introduce the machine and leave your details. Most subcontract relationships start this way.
- Get on the bidders list for utility and right of way contractors in your region.
- Join the regional contractor Facebook groups. Overflow work gets posted there constantly.
- Get on any board that posts actual jobs with actual details. Ours shows the county, acreage, machine hours, start date and the machine class each job calls for, and bidding costs nothing. Be on the others too.
The honest summary
Subcontracting will not build you a business. The customer is not yours, the relationship is not yours, and you cannot raise your rate the way you can on your own work.
What it does is keep a machine earning while you build the thing that is yours. Used that way it is one of the most useful tools in the trade, and most contractors underuse it because they never got past not knowing who to call.