App gives Western New Yorkers new option to clear driveways

He called a bunch of landscaping and snowplow companies to see if someone could come clear his mom’s driveway, but no one picked up the phone.

“While I’m at her house shoveling out the driveway, I see plow trucks driving by and I’m like, ‘Man, I would gladly pay 50 bucks to have my mom’s driveway cleared out,’” Mahoney recalled.

That was Mahoney’s light bulb moment.

Ten years later, his idea is now dubbed “Uber for snow removal” and is giving customers a more flexible option when it comes to hiring help to dig their driveways out of feet of lake-effect snow – just like the back-to-back lake-effect storms that hit Western New York earlier this month.

The Syracuse-based Plowz & Mowz app allows people with a smartphone to get a professional plow driver to come on demand to clear their driveways.

Through the Plowz & Mowz mobile app or website, customers enter their address, driveway size, the amount of snow and when they need it cleared and receive an automatic price quote.

Plowz & Mowz works only with local, professional snowplowing and landscaping companies, whose employees have the app on their phones and select which jobs they want to do. When a job that meets their criteria pops up, they are alerted and have the choice to accept or not.

“A lot of times these guys will have gaps where they have open time,” Mahoney said. “We’re filling out that time. There’s some landscapers that will dedicate trucks just to plow the most because it’s such a lucrative venture for them on the snowplowing side of things. There’s other guys that might finish their book of business at 7:30 in the morning and then check into the Plowz & Mowz app and work for another four hours and make thousands of dollars in the process.”

Over the past 10 years, Plowz & Mowz has expanded to 65 markets across the country, with Buffalo being one of the top, Mahoney said. Between 150 and 200 landscaping and plow companies within a 30-mile radius of Buffalo are signed up on the Plowz & Mowz app, Mahoney said.

With Plowz & Mowz, customers pay only when a service has been provided. They don’t have to sign a residential snow removal contract, which typically involves people paying a set amount of money up front regardless of whether the plow comes twice or 10 times that winter.

“For people who don’t need to shell out hundreds and hundreds of dollars before the snowplow season, we’re a reliable solution,” Mahoney said.

Matthew Balls, owner of Matty’s Landscape and Snow Removal in Tonawanda, has been using the Plowz & Mowz app since September when he started his business.

“It works out pretty good for us because we’re a new company so we don’t have that repeat business, that constant flow of business coming in,” he said.

Balls said the platform has been an easy way for his business to earn extra money. He uses the app when he has free time in his schedule and estimates he’s made around $10,000 from jobs through Plowz & Mowz since September.

During this month’s back-to-back lake-effect storms, Balls said he was very busy with the 26 contracted customers his company has. But he still found time to take jobs through the app, most of which paid around $100 for 15 to 20 minutes of work, he said.

“It added up quick,” Balls said.

About a year after launching, Plowz & Mowz expanded to include lawn care services, Mahoney said. The company now offers 12 different outdoor home services, from snow removal and lawn mowing to delivering mulch and firewood.

Plowz & Mowz sets the price for services, not the plow companies. For example, clearing a two-car driveway with up to a foot of snow will cost between $78 and $90, according to the app.

Plowz & Mowz takes “a small percentage” of every job completed through the platform, Mahoney said.

The platform is always looking to sign on new landscape and snowplow professionals, Mahoney said. They can sign up on the Plowz & Mowz website under the “Work With Us” tab.