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How to price holiday light installation
Holiday lighting isn't one job but three: installation in the fall, takedown in January, and supplying (and often storing) the lights. Price them separately in your head, then show customers one clear per-foot number. And because the season is short, your calendar is the scarcest thing you sell.
The four cost buckets
- Install labor: measuring, clipping and plugging in, plus testing and fixing dead sections.
- Takedown labor: removing, labeling by home and packing. Time it separately. It's usually faster than installing, but not free.
- The lights themselves: depends on who owns them (see below).
- Storage and handling: shelf space, bins, labeling and replacing failed bulbs before next season.
Decide who owns the lights
This choice changes your price more than labor does, so make it explicit in the calculator rather than burying it in fine print.
| Model | How you price the lights | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Lease (you own and store them) | Light cost spread over the seasons you expect them to last, plus a replacement allowance, plus storage. | Repeat customers year after year, but you carry inventory and storage. |
| Sell (customer keeps them) | Light cost plus your markup, charged in year one. | Higher first-year ticket. The customer may DIY next year. |
| Customer-owned | Labor only. Consider a testing fee, since their lights often fail. | Lowest ticket, the most troubleshooting and no control over quality. |
Build the per-foot number
Time a few installs on rooflines you can measure. Divide your crew's hourly target by the feet per hour you install, then do the same for takedown.
Crew hourly target $110. Install pace 60 ft/h → $1.83/ft. Takedown pace 100 ft/h → $1.10/ft.
Lights cost $1.20/ft. Expected life 3 seasons, plus a 20% replacement allowance: $1.20 × 1.2 ÷ 3 = $0.48/ft per season.
Storage and handling: $0.25/ft.
Total: 1.83 + 1.10 + 0.48 + 0.25 = $3.66/ft at your typical pace. Slower jobs (complex rooflines, lots of corners) might run $4.40/ft, so a $3.70–$4.40/ft range for single-story rooflines.
Then add the multipliers your own timed jobs justify: two-story or steep rooflines, and ownership (in the template, "purchased" multiplies the lease price and "customer-owned" reduces it).
Trees, shrubs and ground stakes
Trees don't fit a per-foot price. Price per tree with a height tier, or per hour for large wraps. Ground-stake pathway lights work well per stake. Offer these as separate lines so customers can pick only what they want. In PriceRange Kit, a template in multi-select mode does exactly that.
Pricing for a short season
- Minimum ticket. A crew, a ladder truck and a lift for 40 feet of lights costs nearly as much as for 120. Set the minimum from the shortest realistic visit, as in the general method, and include takedown.
- Price your calendar. Early-season install slots are easiest to fill and late-November slots are the most wanted. An early-booking discount, or a premium for the last two weeks, spreads demand without lowering your overall rate.
- Deposit at booking. A deposit holds the slot and covers lights you buy for that home. Collect it through your normal invoicing.
- Takedown window. State when takedown happens (for example, "first two weeks of January") so customers don't expect it on January 1.
- Timers and smart plugs make a good flat add-on and cut "the lights aren't on" service calls.
Show customers one clear price
Customers want one number that covers "put them up, take them down". Show install and takedown combined per foot, with the light option as a clear choice. Here's the holiday-lighting template with sample numbers (not the ones above):
Customize it in the builder · template page · general pricing method.