This is the question we field more than any other in September, and it gets asked as if there is one right answer. There is not. There is a right answer for your property and your morning, and they are different answers for different households on the same street in Maple Grove.
Here is how the two options actually differ, and how to tell which one you are.
Per push, in plain terms
You pay per visit. It snows enough to trigger service, we clear the driveway, and that event gets billed. A quiet winter costs you very little. A heavy one costs more.
Nothing is committed up front, which is the appeal. The tradeoff is that per push customers are served after contract customers, because the route is built around the people who signed for the season. On a normal four inch event that gap might be an hour or two. On the storm that shuts down the west metro, it is longer.
Seasonal, in plain terms
You pay a set amount for the winter and we clear the driveway every time the trigger is met, however many times that turns out to be. Service starts at two inches of new accumulation in a single snowfall event, which is the same trigger either way.
Two things come with it. Your cost is fixed in October regardless of what February does, and you have a place on the route before the season starts. We build routes in the fall, monitor conditions around the clock, and dispatch before sunrise once properties hit the trigger. Seasonal customers are the route. Everyone else fits around it.
Our post on what a seasonal contract actually guarantees walks through the commitments line by line if you want the detail.
The part people get wrong
Almost everyone runs the same mental math: how much snow do we usually get, times the per push price, versus the seasonal number.
Total snowfall is the wrong variable. What you are billed for on a per push plan is the number of separate events that cross two inches, and that number does not track total inches the way people expect. A winter that drops fifty inches in six big storms is a cheap per push winter. A winter that drops thirty five inches across fourteen nuisance events is an expensive one, even though far less snow fell.
The long term Twin Cities average sits somewhere near fifty inches a season, but the spread between a light winter and a heavy one out here is enormous, and the event count swings just as hard. Nobody knows in October which kind of winter is coming. That is the whole thing you are deciding: who carries that risk, you or us.
Which one fits you
Per push tends to make sense if you can absorb a delay. If you work from home, have a short flat driveway, own a decent blower for the small stuff, or genuinely do not care whether the driveway is open at 6am, per push is a reasonable bet and in a quiet year you will come out ahead.
Seasonal tends to make sense when being stuck is not an option. That covers most commuters leaving Corcoran, Dayton or Rogers before six, anyone with a medical appointment schedule they cannot move, anyone managing a rental or a second property from a distance, and anyone with a long, steep or shaded driveway where a two inch event is a real job rather than ten minutes with a shovel.
Households that had one bad morning last winter almost always switch to seasonal, and they usually say the same thing, which is that the fixed cost was never really the point.
What you get either way
Both plans clear the driveway with the same equipment and the same standard. We run tractors with blowers rather than plow trucks on residential drives, which matters more than it sounds like it should. A blower throws snow clear instead of piling it, so you do not end up with banks squeezing the driveway narrower every storm, and there is far less chance of clipped edging, sod or asphalt.
Walkways, front steps and ice melt are handled as part of the service package rather than being assumed. Decide up front whether you want them, because a cleared driveway and an untouched front step is not much of a win at seven in the morning.
Whichever you pick, the property still has to be ready. Markers in before the ground freezes, cars parked to one side, overhanging branches cleared. Our driveway prep guide covers what we ask for.
Lock it in before the routes close
Routes are built in the fall and they fill. The crews running snow are the same people finishing fall cleanups, and once the first plowable storm lands the calendar stops being flexible.
September and October are when this decision is cheap to make. November is when it becomes a phone call to a company that is already out running a full route.
You can see coverage and how we scope residential work on our Maple Grove snow removal page, or start from the main snow and ice page if you are in one of the other towns we serve.
Frequently asked questions
Is per push or seasonal cheaper for snow removal in Maple Grove?
It depends entirely on the winter, which is the point. Per push is cheaper in a light season with few separate storms. Seasonal is cheaper in a heavy season, and it is the same price either way, so it removes the guesswork. The variable that decides it is not total snowfall but the number of separate events that cross the two inch trigger, and that number swings widely from winter to winter in the west metro.
What does the two inch trigger mean?
Service starts when a single snowfall event drops two inches of new accumulation. It is two inches from that storm, not two inches of whatever happens to be sitting on the driveway from last week. We monitor conditions around the clock and dispatch before sunrise once properties reach the trigger.
Do seasonal customers get served before per push customers?
Yes. Routes are built in the fall around seasonal contracts, and per push work is fit in around them. In a normal storm the difference is modest. In a large one it is the main thing you are paying for.
Which towns do you plow?
Maple Grove, Plymouth, Corcoran, Dayton, Rogers, Champlin, Medina, Hamel, Loretto, Greenfield, Maple Plain, Long Lake, Orono, Wayzata, Hanover, Rockford, St. Michael, Albertville and Otsego. We are based in Maple Grove, so the northwest metro is our home territory.
Why use tractors with blowers instead of plow trucks?
A blower throws snow clear of the driveway rather than pushing it into piles along the edges. That keeps the usable width of the driveway from shrinking as the season goes on, keeps sight lines open at the street, and dramatically reduces the risk of damage to edging, sod and asphalt that comes with a steel blade.
When should I sign for the winter?
September or October. Routes are built before the season and they fill in order, so signing early is how you get a place on one. Once the first plowable snow falls, crews are running a route that was set weeks earlier.