Seasonal contracts, and whether you actually want one

Per-visit means you pay for each clearing. Seasonal means one number covers November 15 through April 15 no matter how often we come. It looks like a pricing question and it is really a risk question: who absorbs the cost of a bad winter, you or us.

The arithmetic, with the numbers visible

Southeast Michigan averages about 45 inches of snow a season (the National Weather Service's 1991–2020 normal at Detroit Metro Airport). Counting from NOAA's daily records for that station, a two-inch trigger works out to about 10 billable visits in a typical winter, with the middle half of the last 30 winters between 7 and 12 and the heaviest at 21. A seasonal price has to cover winters like the heaviest, so it costs more than an average winter of per-visit service. That premium is the price of a fixed number. The winter-by-winter counts are in how many plowable snows Macomb County gets.

Break-even lands near 14 to 16 visits. Below that, per-visit wins. Above it, seasonal wins. Neither of us knows in advance which kind of winter is coming.

What you are actually buying

A fixed cost. In a heavy winter you win. In a mild winter you lose and will have paid more than per-visit would have cost.

That is not a defect in the product, it is the product — the same trade as any insurance. Households on tight monthly budgets, rental properties, and anyone who genuinely cannot absorb a surprise February invoice are usually better served by seasonal even when the expected value slightly favors per-visit.

Read "unlimited" carefully — on anyone's contract

Most seasonal contracts in this market advertise unlimited visits. Before you sign anyone's, check three things:

• The trigger depth. Unlimited visits at a three-inch trigger is a far smaller promise than unlimited at two.
• Whether salt is included. Frequently it is not, and a heavy ice season produces an invoice the customer believed was covered.
• How a long storm is counted. A 14-hour event may reasonably need two passes. Some contracts count that as two billable events even under a seasonal agreement.

Those are the three places "unlimited" quietly stops being unlimited. We state all three on ours.

Our honest recommendation

Choose per-visit if you have a short driveway, a flexible morning, no mobility constraints, and you can comfortably handle a bigger bill in a heavy year. You will most likely pay less. In Roseville, Eastpointe, Center Line and the older Warren neighborhoods, this is usually the right answer and we will say so.

Choose seasonal if you cannot be snowed in — mobility issues, medical appointments, shift work with a fixed start — or if a predictable cost matters more than the lowest expected cost. Also choose it if you have a long or rural driveway in Ray, Armada or Richmond Township, where per-visit rates are higher and a heavy season adds up fast.

The mild-winter rebate question

Some companies advertise a credit if the season comes in light. Read what triggers it. The threshold is frequently set low enough that it almost never pays out, which makes it a marketing feature rather than a financial one. We would rather price the contract honestly up front than build in a rebate designed not to fire.