Charge for sidewalk snow removal per visit, built from your crew’s time: the walk’s length in hundreds of feet times your minutes per 100 feet, plus each visit’s fixed minutes, at your crew cost per hour, plus margin, and never under your minimum. De-icing the walks is a separate application with its own price. In the worked example below, 800 feet of walk comes to $75.60 a visit, and de-icing the same walks is $50.00 an application.
The published ranges are wide: the two cost guides we read on November 6, 2026 put sidewalk clearing at $30 to $100 a visit between them (one for the US, one naming no country), with no walk length or crew time behind them.
Quick answer
- Price each visit from time: length ÷ 100 × minutes per 100 feet, plus the fixed minutes, at your crew cost per hour.
- Add your margin, and never go under your per-visit minimum.
- Per foot or per hour: the same numbers give a per-visit charge plus a rate per 100 feet, or an hourly rate.
- De-icing is its own application, priced on its own, with the ice melt included in the price or listed separately.
Should you quote sidewalks per visit, per foot or per hour?
Quote per visit for walks you clear all winter, per foot when one buyer has long frontages or many similar properties, and per hour for drifts and one-off cleanups.
| Per visit | Per linear foot | Per hour | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The client sees | One price each time | A rate times the length, plus a per-visit charge | Your hours at a rate |
| When a visit runs long, who pays | You, until you reprice | You, until you reprice | The client |
| You need | Minutes per 100 feet and a minimum | Each property’s measured length | Start and finish times |
How do you build the price of one visit?
- Measure the walks. Linear feet of each walk the contract names, and the width you clear. From an area, divide by the width: 4,000 sq ft ÷ 5 ft is 800 feet. Time stairs, ramps and entrances each: they take minutes apiece, not minutes per 100 feet, so add them to the site’s fixed minutes or price them each.
- Time your crew. Minutes per 100 feet with their tool (shovel, walk-behind blower or small machine) at your trigger depth: that is the figure you price from. If a heavy storm’s deep pass takes far longer, clear more often, with each clearing billed as a visit.
- Add the fixed minutes. Unloading, loading and your share of the drive take as long on a short walk as on a long one.
- Cost the time. Total minutes ÷ 60 × your hourly cost for one worker and their equipment (plow truck cost per hour shows the build-up).
- Add your margin. Price = cost ÷ (1 − margin). A 25% margin means dividing by 0.75.
- Apply your minimum. If the result is under it, charge the minimum.
What does one visit come to? A worked example
This is arithmetic, not a market rate: the inputs are made up, so use your own. 800 feet of walks, 5 feet wide, cleared by one worker with a walk-behind blower at 6 minutes per 100 feet; 15 fixed minutes a visit; a crew cost of $54.00 an hour; a 25% margin; and a $45.00 minimum per visit. The arithmetic is the same in Canadian or US dollars.
| Step | Arithmetic | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Walk time | 800 ÷ 100 × 6 minutes | 48 minutes |
| Time per visit | 48 + 15 fixed minutes | 63 minutes |
| Cost of the visit | 63 ÷ 60 × $54.00 | $56.70 |
| Price at a 25% margin | $56.70 ÷ 0.75 | $75.60 |
| Minimum check | $75.60 is above $45.00 | $75.60 |
The same arithmetic for a 150-foot storefront walk comes to $28.80, under the $45.00 minimum, so that visit is billed at $45.00.
How do you turn it into a per-foot or hourly price?
For a per-foot price, split the visit in two. The fixed minutes become a per-visit charge: 15 ÷ 60 × $54.00 ÷ 0.75 = $18.00. The walk time becomes a rate per 100 feet: 6 ÷ 60 × $54.00 ÷ 0.75 = $7.20, or $0.072 (7.2 cents) a foot. For the 800-foot example, $18.00 + 8 × $7.20 = $75.60, the same price as before.
For an hourly price, divide the crew cost by what the margin keeps: $54.00 ÷ 0.75 = $72.00 an hour. The 63-minute visit at that rate is the same $75.60 only if the hours you bill include the fixed minutes, so bill the unloading, loading and drive, or keep a per-visit minimum. As of November 2026, $72.00 is inside Taskrabbit’s US range of $25 to $100 an hour and Housecall Pro’s $25 to $75 for shovelling or blowing.
What do published sidewalk snow removal prices say?
As of November 2026, Taskrabbit’s US cost guide lists sidewalk clearing at $30 to $100 per visit. Housecall Pro’s price guide lists walkway or sidewalk clearing at $40 to $80 per visit and salting or de-icing at $20 to $40, and calls its figures “national benchmarks, not recommended rates”; it doesn’t name a country. Neither gives a price per linear foot of walk.
Rochester, Minnesota (US) makes property owners clear public sidewalks within 24 hours after a snowfall, and hires contractors for the ones still covered after a complaint and an inspection. Its request for proposal priced that work in four parts, in US dollars:
| Task | Unit | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | 2022-23 | 2023-24 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mobilization | Per parcel | $56 | $58 | $60 | $62 |
| Remove snow and ice from sidewalk | Per linear foot | $0.60 | $0.65 | $0.70 | $0.75 |
| Remove snow and ice from a pedestrian ramp | Each | $42 | $46 | $50 | $54 |
| Sand sidewalk or ramp | Per linear foot | $0.45 | $0.50 | $0.55 | $0.60 |
Read it for its shape, not its prices: a per-visit charge, a per-foot rate, ramps priced each and treatment on its own. They price one-off trips to one parcel, for snow the owner left past the deadline, with the trip billed as mobilization; the worked example is a route visit at the trigger depth. So the example’s 7.2 cents a foot and Rochester’s 60 to 75 cents are for different work: don’t price one from the other. A 2021 Worcester, Massachusetts (US) grounds-maintenance bid, run by the city for the Worcester Redevelopment Authority’s Union Station grounds and Polar Park sidewalks, prices ice-only treatment per lineal foot “for labor and product”, so the material is inside that price.
How do you price de-icing the walks?
Price each de-icing application on its own, the same way: salt, spreading time and fixed minutes, then margin and minimum. A night with only ice still needs the trip. The salt calculator does the pounds, and the salt application rates cheat sheet covers rates by pavement temperature.
In the example, the walks are 4,000 sq ft, salted with bagged rock salt at 8 lb per 1,000 sq ft (the salt calculator’s default rate for straight rock salt) at $15.00 for a 50 lb bag ($0.30 a pound): 32 lb, $9.60 of salt. Spreading at 2 minutes per 100 feet takes 16 minutes, plus 15 fixed: 31 minutes, $27.90. The cost is $37.50, and at a 25% margin the application is $50.00, above the minimum.
| Ice melt inside the application price | Ice melt listed separately | |
|---|---|---|
| The client sees | One price: $50.00 | A $37.20 application fee, plus 32 lb at $0.40 a pound, $12.80 |
| When ice takes more product | You carry it, until you reprice | The client pays for what went down |
Either way, a per-visit ice melt price includes the material unless your quote lists it separately, so say which. Clearing and de-icing are separate visits on your rate card: a storm that needs both is billed for both. The lot salting guide does the same for a lot.
What should a sidewalk snow removal quote say?
- Which walks: the public sidewalk, the walks to each door, ramps and stairs, named or marked on a site map.
- The width: full width, or a path of a stated width.
- When you come: your trigger depth, and that each clearing in a long storm is a visit.
- De-icing: when it is applied, its price per application, and whether the ice melt is in it or listed separately.
- Who is responsible: Calgary, Alberta (Canada) and Rochester, Minnesota (US) give owners 24 hours after a snowfall to clear the public sidewalk. Say that you clear it for the owner, and how soon after the snow stops you arrive.
Sidewalks carry the most slip-and-fall risk per square foot on a site (commercial bidding guide), so keep a record of every visit (slip-and-fall documentation) and list the walks line by line in your estimate. This is general information, not legal or insurance advice. A local lawyer should review the final wording.
How do you price walks in Icey Software?
We make Icey Software. On each site’s service map you trace the areas on satellite imagery and mark each one Driveway, Parking, Walkway or Sidewalk, and the map shows the measured area in square feet. Icey’s per-event rate cards price snow clearing and de-icing as separate visits, with the salt included in the price or listed separately, and the client reviews and signs on their phone from the email.
In Field Mode the crew taps Start and Complete at each site and logs the product and amount of any ice melt, so every visit records when it started and finished, and after a few storms you have the real minutes a visit to each site takes. Every completed visit also makes a site report with the time it was completed and the photos. Free forever up to 10 sites and 5 crew. Every feature.
Sources
- City of Rochester, Minnesota: request for proposal, Table 1 Unit Prices, checked November 6, 2026 in the copy archived on March 16, 2026, because the city’s own link returned “not found” that day: mobilization per parcel, sidewalk removal and sanding per linear foot, and ramps each, for 2020-21 to 2023-24, in US dollars.
- City of Rochester, Minnesota: sidewalk snow removal, checked November 6, 2026: owners clear public sidewalks within 24 hours after a snowfall; the city hires contractors after a staff inspection; their bill is a mobilization charge ($60 for the 2022-2023 season) plus removal based on the linear footage and any pedestrian ramps.
- City of Worcester, Massachusetts: bid CR-7723-W2, addendum 5, dated December 13, 2021, checked November 6, 2026: issued by the city’s Purchasing Division for “Grounds Maintenance Services, Union Station / WRA” (the Worcester Redevelopment Authority), with the Polar Park sidewalks in its scope; ice-only treatment priced at the unit price per lineal foot for labor and product.
- City of Calgary: clearing sidewalks and shoveling snow, checked November 6, 2026: property owners clear sidewalks within 24 hours after a snowfall, under section 67 of the Street Bylaw.
- Taskrabbit: how much does snow removal cost?, updated November 1, 2026, checked November 6, 2026: US prices; sidewalk clearing $30 to $100 per visit; $25 to $100 an hour when snow removal is priced by the hour; no price per foot.
- Housecall Pro: snow removal prices, updated October 27, 2026, checked November 6, 2026: walkway or sidewalk clearing $40 to $80 per visit, shovelling or blowing $25 to $75 an hour, salting or de-icing $20 to $40 per visit; “national benchmarks, not recommended rates”; no country named and no price per foot.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much should I charge to shovel a sidewalk?
Build it from your crew’s time: the walk’s length in hundreds of feet times your minutes per 100 feet, plus each visit’s fixed minutes, at your crew cost per hour, plus your margin, and at least your per-visit minimum. In the worked example, 800 feet of walk comes to $75.60 a visit. As of November 2026, cost guides put sidewalk clearing at $30 to $100 a visit (Taskrabbit, US) or $40 to $80 (Housecall Pro, no country named), without the length or crew time behind them.
How much should I charge per linear foot for sidewalk snow removal?
Your cost of clearing 100 feet, divided by 100, plus your margin, with a per-visit charge for the fixed minutes. In the worked example that is $7.20 per 100 feet (7.2 cents a foot) plus $18.00 a visit. Rochester, Minnesota priced its on-call sidewalk work at 60 to 75 cents a linear foot plus a mobilization charge per parcel for 2020-21 to 2023-24, in US dollars, for one-off clearings of snow the owner left past the 24-hour deadline, so it is not a route price.
Should I charge separately for salting sidewalks?
Yes. De-icing the walks is its own application with its own price, separate from clearing them, and a storm that needs both is billed for both. The ice melt can be included in the application price or listed separately; say which in the quote.
What do I charge when it snows all day?
Each clearing is a visit. A long storm can need the walks cleared more than once, and each pass is billed at the visit price, as your contract says. Write that down before the first storm.
Should I price sidewalk snow removal per hour?
Per hour suits work you can’t measure ahead, such as drifts or a one-off cleanup. For walks you clear all winter, a per-visit or per-foot price is easier for a client to accept, and you still build it from hours. In the worked example, a crew cost of $54.00 an hour at a 25% margin is $72.00 an hour. If you bill by the hour, keep start and finish times for every visit, and bill the unloading, loading and drive or keep a per-visit minimum.
How do I price sidewalks in metres?
Use the same method in metres. 100 feet is 30.48 metres, so your minutes per 100 feet are about your minutes per 30 metres, and a price per foot times 3.2808 is the price per metre: in the example, $0.072 a foot is about $0.236 a metre.
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