I'd agree that pricing will be somewhat dependent on conditions and distance traveled. And if you are a nursery owner, which I believe you are, you need to be cognizant of the fact that you are losing the services of an employee/sales person during the period of time they are offsite, as well as the fact that you are paying their wages during this period. Of course, this may already have been considered if you have a dedicated delivery/planting person.

With both the nurseries that I have been associated with, planting was not a service we offered and even deliveries had a fee associated with them, pro-rated as to distance away from the nursery. We simply could not afford to have a staff member away from the nursery for the amount of time involved in planting assorted delivered trees and shrubs. Only you can determine the proper economics of your specific situation, but there is a cost involved to you for offering both these services in terms of lost manhours away from the nursery as well as transportation costs and with the cost of fuel these days, that could be significant. You could make it up by raising the cost of your plants or by charging a fee for such services but you will need to account for it financially in some manner.

We offer a referral list of known and experienced landscape contractors who can do the planting for customers. In the Puget Sound area, where I believe you are located, landscape labor (which would cover planting) is generally billed at a minimum of $35 per hour. You could certainly use this a guideline for your rates, factoring in other issues like travel time and transportation costs. Obviously, digging a planting hole and planting a larger tree or shrub will involve more effort and time than a smaller plant. Other issues to consider are any gurantees you might offer on the plant and evaluation of the skill and experience of the person involved doing the planting and how likely you would have to act on the guarantee should the planting not take.

Sorry, but it is not a very cut and dried issue :-)

In my neck of the woods, contractors routinely charge 3 times the wholesale cost to install. (tree, shrub or perennial) This includes a 1 yr guarantee. So a $100 wholesale tree costs the homeowner $300 delivered and installed.

There is a notion known as the 'economy of scale' which means that planting one lone tree is more expensive than planting several. If you have to plant only one you start from the other end, that is you work out the time it would take and add the price of the tree and your mark up. While you are there planting another twelve would not mean that you multiply the first price by twelve. A contract to plant one tree with a wholesale value of $35 would not be a viable business proposition. Using lnscpr's formula the overall cost to the client would be $105.00 and remember that you have also offered a guarantee.
So, if you are trying to work out a formula so that when someone calls you can give a price off the top forget it, ask anyone who has carried a $1000 tree through a basement or removed a 30 year old maple over the roof.

I charge 55% of the retail cost of the tree. Granted I rarely install jobs smaller than $3000. So if I do plant a single tree I add Clean-up, Watering & Delivery charges to cover the cost of a three-man crew & 2-ton truck.

I charge an average of $1.00 per gallon for plants or trees. Trees over 35 gallon usually takes 2 people so you have to charge more, I usually double the cost if over 35. I don't like anything over 35 but If the client wants BIG, then I will talk them into the biggest sizes one can buy. There's alot of people here where I live that, money is no object. Of course always plant more than one tree, but if other work was done and one spot requires a tree then go for it.

I charge by the hour. Installation is purely labor; the price of the tree plays no part, and delivery is a separate fee that is based on mileage, not weight. My invoices are itemized in this way so my customers know exactly what they are paying for.

A nursery that I used to work for charge two thirds the cost of the tree for planting.