Livery price advice

[JBM]

I recently posted photos of my stable plans and was just wondering opinions on what people would pay.
I will be the only stables in an hour of me to do winter turnout due to the all weather paddocks and I’m the only person in over 2 hours to provide 24/7 turnout all year round (when the stables are built ?)
I was considering charging 45 for diy and 50 for diy but I will feed morning and evening.

Both include haylage.

 

[AmyMay]

Whatever you charge, don’t include haylage or bedding.

 

[ihatework]

Well I love the American barn with attached all weather turnout.
Unless you are in a deprived area in the back of beyond you are thinking too cheap.
Min £50/week excluding hay/bedding
Min £10/week for feed service

I’d pay that and more in a heartbeat

 

[Goldenstar]

Sit down work out how much haylege a horse eats in a day from that work out how much that’s going to cost a week .
The same for bedding .
The same for grass management and the management of all weather surfaces .
Work how many hours a day it’s going to take you to what is needed and then how much you are going cost your Labour then work out what that costs .
Then work a cost for maintenance for each horse you will have on the yard that’s wear and tear to the infrastructure .
Work out the cost of the water and divide by the number of horses .
Work out what electricity will cost divide by the number of horses .
Then divide the rent and or the cost of any borrowing into the number of horses .
Then consider what return you could reasonably get on any capital you have invested if you where making it work for you and add that in .
Then work out what return you except for your investment and risk .
There are going to be other things so think hard then add it up and divide by the number of horses .
That’s what you need to charge .

 

[JBM]

In pounds too ? I dunno our livery a bit cheaper up around me. One is €60 a week for full livery but it’s a riding school so arena only free certain times and limited summer turnout.
€30 for diy unlimited summer turnout
And one place does €50 diy with haylage and summer turnout

I’m lucky as we make our own haylage have our own land (around 10 acres just for the horses in summer and can have more if needed)
And I own the land so no rent
Water is free here and family run so free labour ? just favours

 

[JBM]

It might be too cheap but then worried about being a lot more expensive than the stables around me?

 

[AmyMay]

It might be too cheap but then worried about being a lot more expensive than the stables around me?

What are they charging?

 

[JBM]

What are they charging?

One is €60 a week for full livery but it’s a riding school so arena only free certain times and limited summer turnout.
€30 for diy unlimited summer turnout
And one place does €50 diy with haylage and summer turnout + an indoor arena ?

 

[ihatework]

It might be too cheap but then worried about being a lot more expensive than the stables around me?

And this is the age old problem we are facing with livery. Depressed prices meaning people are unable to appropriately price facilities and services, get disillusioned by essentially working themselves into the ground for nothing.

You need a business plan!

 

[JBM]

Thank you for all the advice! My mum works a lot with money so she said she would help me out with the business plan over summer so hopefully I can get everything priced appropriately

 

[Goldenstar]

You do need a business plan .
You easily end up subsidising other people’s hobby .

 

[JBM]

Also does including feed mean I am just feeding them or does it also include buying their hard feed. I know places that do both

 

[IrishMilo]

It's difficult not including hay in price because then you need to know exactly how much people are using in order to charge, or have people bringing in their own. I've never been on a yard that produces their own hay but charges by the use.

I would calculate the cost to you, and just mark up slightly. Same if you buy in shavings.

 

[AmyMay]

Also does including feed mean I am just feeding them or does it also include buying their hard feed. I know places that do both

Don’t include feed either.

 

[AmyMay]

It's difficult not including hay in price because then you need to know exactly how much people are using in order to charge, or have people bringing in their own. I've never been on a yard that produces their own hay but charges by the use.

I would calculate the cost to you, and just mark up slightly. Same if you buy in shavings.

My last yard charged a blanket cost for everyone. (About £9 a week if I remember rightly).

 

[Wishfilly]

Also does including feed mean I am just feeding them or does it also include buying their hard feed. I know places that do both

Assuming you can provide storage, I'd avoid hard feed, as most people will want to provide their own. Not being able to chose on hard feed will be a dealbreaker for clients.

In case it's useful to you, I'm on a livery yard that sells hay/straw to clients and also bags of bedding. The bills work in the following way:

Flat fee for stable/turnout- those on box rest or who don't have a stable get a reduced fee.
Fee for hay- this goes up when hay prices increase. Some people do buy in their own hay and get a reduction on this.
Fee for straw- obviously only charged if you use straw!
If you buy the begging in bags/bales then each bag is numbered, you write down the number you're using in the book, and you get charged for the amount you use.

I know it's tricky, because people's hay usage varies a lot, but if you're selling hay from large bales to customers to use adlib, then I think you have to charge a flat fee for it, because I can't see another way of it working. If you charge people a flat weekly/monthly fee, then you can include in that a % increase based on convenience for them.

FWIW, I do think you have to be conscious of what yards around you are charging- my livery is dirt cheap compared to what people pay in SE England, for example, but if the YO charged the sort of prices people pay in the SE, I do think his yard would be empty! But equally if you have better facilities, you can definitely charge a premium for that!

 

[JBM]

Assuming you can provide storage, I'd avoid hard feed, as most people will want to provide their own. Not being able to chose on hard feed will be a dealbreaker for clients.

In case it's useful to you, I'm on a livery yard that sells hay/straw to clients and also bags of bedding. The bills work in the following way:

Flat fee for stable/turnout- those on box rest or who don't have a stable get a reduced fee.
Fee for hay- this goes up when hay prices increase. Some people do buy in their own hay and get a reduction on this.
Fee for straw- obviously only charged if you use straw!
If you buy the begging in bags/bales then each bag is numbered, you write down the number you're using in the book, and you get charged for the amount you use.

I know it's tricky, because people's hay usage varies a lot, but if you're selling hay from large bales to customers to use adlib, then I think you have to charge a flat fee for it, because I can't see another way of it working. If you charge people a flat weekly/monthly fee, then you can include in that a % increase based on convenience for them.

FWIW, I do think you have to be conscious of what yards around you are charging- my livery is dirt cheap compared to what people pay in SE England, for example, but if the YO charged the sort of prices people pay in the SE, I do think his yard would be empty! But equally if you have better facilities, you can definitely charge a premium for that!

That’s very helpful thank you
Maybe charging for haylage separately would be the way to go and I’ll leave the feed alone

 

[mariew]

Definitely don't include hay but you then have to think about how much and where liveries store their hay. Getting a plan in place is good and if you have nice facilities then do charge accordingly so you don't start resenting the work. I have seen more than one new yard starting off ok then starting to skimp on hay and straw, water etc because they haven't properly understood how much their costs would be v income. If offering to include feeding make sure that it's clear what is included - i.e. put a feedbowl over the door that has been left prepared by livery. Avoid being responsible for having to stuff and fetch haynets. Set clear ground rules straight off so people know what they can expect.

I paid 180/month on a nice yard for stable and field and free use of school with no extras 10 years ago.

I reckon if you provide good, consistent service, it's a nice atmosphere and have decent facilities then people will pay. You don't want the ones who can just about scrape the livery together as where I was they were the first to do a moonlight flit or get behind with rent.

 

[Glitterandrainbows]

Once a week we write down how much haylage and beddiet straw or shavings we need in a book in the office and it’s delivered out side our stable at the end of the month whatever we have used we pay for x

 

[Otherwise]

I wouldn't include hay, people can be so wasteful if it's free. The yard makes round bales, we used to buy a whole one each but that requires a lot of space if each livery has their own, now we fill haynets and pay by weight. We send a text with how big the haynet is which gets added to the extras bill at the end of the month.

 

[GrumpyHero]

I wouldn't include hay/haylage either. My YO charges by the lb for hay. Currently 15p per lb which I think helps keep wastage down. We have sheets and we write down how much we've used each day, I find it works well. But we're a nice yard and no one takes the mick putting down less than they've taken.

My old yard was a blanket cost per week (one price for over 14.2, less for under 14.2) but it always caused arguments between people who fed less/more as they deemed it unfair. There was always loads wasted that ended up uneaten on the muck heap.

 

[IrishMilo]

I wouldn't include hay/haylage either. My YO charges by the lb for hay. Currently 15p per lb which I think helps keep wastage down.

How does this system work? Do you all have to weigh your hay?

 

[PinkvSantaboots]

A yard I worked on had communal hay and haylage you just helped yourself and weighed it and wrote it in the book then you were charged each week for what you used.

Obviously there is a degree of trust needed as you rely on liveries being truthful with what they have taken.

 

[Sossigpoker]

I'd only include a set amount of hay or bedding and make it known how much.
Like 1 bale of shavings per week. As a livery I've been stung when I was told that shavings were included but no quantity stated and then my horse just mostly stood in shit.
My current livery includes a bale of shavings per week and hay is unlimited but as there's plenty of turnout and it's all part and full livery, the YO has control over what's used.

 

[GrumpyHero]

How does this system work? Do you all have to weigh your hay?

Yeah there is a weigh hook next to the big bales of hay so we just fill the net, weigh and write down on our livery sheet each day what we’ve taken.

There is a lot of trust involved and YO never spot checks. But then we are an honest bunch.
I know this system wouldn’t work at a lot of places or the YO would need to do spot checks to make sure people were being honest.

 

[Mrs B]

I'm on DIY (all year turnout, lovely floodlit arena, show jumps, good stables, fab hacking from the door). Livery price is £25/week and £15/week for as much haylage as you want.

 

[little_critter]

Also does including feed mean I am just feeding them or does it also include buying their hard feed. I know places that do both

Whichever you do, be clear about what your price includes / doesn’t include. The last full livery yard I was on said everything was included. I even asked what they fed and liked the answer. When I arrived it turned out hard feed isn’t included (bit of a misunderstanding on both our parts) so I had to dash and buy some feed and my budgeting was instantly up the creek.
As someone else has said, if you have somewhere to store it, it’s probably best to tell liveries to buy their own feed. There is such a choice now that you’ll struggle to find a feed that suits all liveries.
Ref hay, do you have enough storage to sell hay to your liveries by the big bale?
So when a livery needs hay, you bring one round for them, bill them for it and it’s their hay until they need another bale. This would mean you need to have somewhere you can line up x number of open big bales (depending on how many liveries you have)

 

[nagsrule]

I recently posted photos of my stable plans and was just wondering opinions on what people would pay.
I will be the only stables in an hour of me to do winter turnout due to the all weather paddocks and I’m the only person in over 2 hours to provide 24/7 turnout all year round (when the stables are built ?)
I was considering charging 45 for diy and 50 for diy but I will feed morning and evening.

Both include haylage.

I Don't know where your yard is, but I used to pay 90 per month including use of school and excellent grazing, fed am and or pm at no charge. haylage was available at extra cost. I know things are getting expensive but 50 a week is a lot.

 

[JBM]

90 a month?? That’s insane that wouldn’t even cover the loan repayments for building this place

 

[SO1]

See what others locally charge and add an extra £5 a week as you will be able to offer all year round turnout and if they can go out in the winter and you have grass they need less hay and bedding than the local yards that don't have winter turnout so that will save people money.