Where does the margin go?
Hypothetical, to show the shape: a council scope lists forty reserves, fortnightly cuts, twelve months. The average month prices neatly. Then October arrives with growth at triple the average, three sites waterlogged, and two crews on leave. The contract pays the average. The work arrives as the peak.
Travel is the second leak. Scattered sites mean windscreen hours between paid cuts: fuel, wages, and plant wear with no line item. A compact round and a sprawling round at the same schedule price are different contracts. Read the site list as a route, not a count.
What does the schedule actually promise?
Frequency, standard, and rectification. Fortnightly means fortnightly in October too; the schedule does not discount for weather unless it says so. Presentation standards decide whether a missed cut is a credit, a rectification visit at your cost, or a termination event. Service credits compound the way KPIs and abatement describes; link the maths there, do not redo it here.
Volume risk hides in the pricing structure the same way it hides anywhere: lump sums against variable growth, unit rates against unstated quantities. Read the schedule the way pricing schedules teaches (quantities, assumptions, omissions) before the margin model opens.
What does the gate look like?
Sites routed with travel times. Peak-month resourcing against the schedule’s frequency promise. Weather contingency priced, not hoped. Plant and crew named for October, not for June. If the peak month needs people you do not have in a town you are not in, the call is no, made before the price, not discovered in spring.