Website for groundworks that prices the ground, not the phone call
Nobody digs a drive off a phone call. Somebody has to stand on it, look at the fall, work out how they are getting a machine down the side of the house and find out what the last lot buried under there, and only after that does a number mean anything.
The site runs on your own domain, with SSL, hosting and nightly backups in every plan. From €49 to €199 a month, excluding VAT.
How the week really goes
None of this is about working badly. It is about a trade where the estimate lives on site, and where the plant costs money standing still just as fast as it earns money moving.
How much for a drive, then
It is the fourth call this morning asking the same thing, and the honest answer is that you have no idea yet. You do not know the depth, you do not know whether there is a soakaway to build in, you do not know if the gate is wide enough for the three tonne or whether it all comes out by barrow.
So you say you will come and look, and half of them do not want to wait that long for a number.
Monday, and the eight tonne is still on the trailer
Friday's job pushed because the concrete did not come. The one that should have started today is a family who have gone quiet since Thursday and are not answering. There is a drainage job you could pull forward, but nobody has confirmed the access and you are not turning up with a machine to find a locked gate.
A machine on a trailer in your yard on a Monday is the most expensive thing you own.
The conversation about the hours
The invoice goes out and the phone goes straight after it. Why is it three days when you said two, what is the grab lorry line, what does sub-base mean and why is there so much of it.
None of it is unreasonable. It is just the first time anybody has written down what was actually going to happen, and by then you are arguing about it rather than agreeing it in advance.
Three things that carry a groundworks business
There is more in the system, but for a firm that lives on site visits and machine time these are the ones that do the work.
The site visit is what the page asks for
Instead of a contact form that invites people to ask how much for a drive, the enquiry form asks the things that decide whether you can even do it: the postcode, the width of the access, what is on the ground now, whether it falls towards the house, and photographs.
Half the visits you would have wasted a morning on get sorted before you drive anywhere, and the ones worth going to arrive already half surveyed.
Machine hours as a line, not an argument
The quote is written in cost lines, so the dig, the muck away, the stone, the labour and the plant each sit on their own row with the days against them. The customer approves it on its own page and that approval is dated, which is the whole answer to a conversation about the hours four weeks later.
If you take a deposit before the machine leaves the yard, it goes through your own Stripe account.
A list that is honest about what depends on the dig
Every job you do has a pricing type that suits it. A driveway can be priced per square metre once the depth is known, a digger and driver is an hourly rate or a day rate, footings are quoted, and muck away is a from-price because nobody knows what is coming out until it is out.
That mixture is more convincing than one rate card, because it is what the caller already suspects is true.
A groundworks service list, roughly
Your names, your numbers. The shape is what matters: each job carries the pricing type that is actually honest for it.
Put them into categories that match how people search: drives, drainage, and groundworks for builders and extensions.
Questions groundworkers ask first
Better, as long as the pricing type is honest. A per square metre figure with the dig depth named as the variable stops the guessing without tying you to a number for ground you have not opened up.
Yes. The enquiry form collects the postcode, the access and the photographs, and you turn it into a visit knowing whether the machine fits down the side. Most of the wasted mornings disappear at that point.
Every line is its own row with its own quantity, so plant, driver, stone, muck away and labour all appear separately. The customer approves the whole thing on a page with a date on it rather than replying yes to an email.
Give each one its own page and its own form. Somebody with a wet garden and somebody who wants block paving are looking for different words, and separating them also means you find out which of the two is actually bringing in work.
From €49 to €199 a month plus VAT. Site on your own domain, SSL, hosting, nightly backups and support are in every plan; the quoting module comes in from €149.
It gets imported, so whatever is worth keeping comes across rather than being retyped. The builder fills the gaps from a description of the firm, and after that you edit the words directly on the page.
More trades
- LocksmithsCallout price and hours at the top.
- Solar installersThe roof survey as the first bookable step.
- Heat pump installersHome visit, quote and service plan in one place.
- BuildersQuotes with cost lines, approved online.
- PlumbersThe emergency line, unburdened by prices and an FAQ.
- ElectriciansFixed prices for small jobs, quotes for the rest.
- All trades
Get the groundworks side of it sorted
Tell it what you dig and where you work, or hand it the address of your current page, and you will have a first version with a site visit form, a service list and a quote template built from cost lines. Change any of it by clicking a pencil.
The site runs on your own domain, with SSL, hosting and nightly backups in every plan. From €49 to €199 a month, excluding VAT.