Too many landscapers price by the yard and hope for the best. This calculator uses your real costs to find your real price.
Enter your numbers. Get your minimum price.
Landscaping jobs stack up fast in season. Jobber handles scheduling, quoting, and follow-ups so nothing falls through the cracks when you are running five crews.
FreshBooks makes invoicing painless, and QuickBooks Self-Employed is worth a look if your accounting setup is currently "a shoebox."
Landscaping has a pricing problem. The barrier to entry is low (truck, mower, trailer), which means every spring brings a wave of new competitors charging $25 to mow a yard. Most of them are gone by August because they didn't account for equipment maintenance, fuel, insurance, or the slow winter months. Don't price like someone who's about to go out of business.
Lawn care crews typically bill between $45 and $85/hour per worker, depending on the market and service type. Mow-and-go operations sit at the lower end. Landscape design, hardscaping, and irrigation work commands $65-125/hour or more. The per-visit price for a standard residential mow averages $35-80, but again, that number only works if your costs fit inside it.
Costs that a lot of landscapers forget to include:
For recurring maintenance (mowing, edging, blowing), per-property pricing is standard. Measure the lot, estimate your time, and set a flat rate. For project work (mulch installs, plantings, cleanups), pricing by the job based on estimated hours and materials works better.
The key is knowing your hourly breakeven number. If your crew costs $110/hour fully loaded (labor, fuel, equipment, overhead) and you're charging $85 for a yard that takes 1.5 hours, you're losing $80 every time you show up. That math catches up fast.
Smart landscaping companies spread annual revenue across 12 months using maintenance contracts. A customer pays the same amount monthly whether it's July (mowing weekly) or January (no service). This smooths your cash flow and keeps customers from shopping around each spring.
The free ProTradeOps starter kit includes a seasonal pricing template and route optimization worksheet that can help you tighten up your schedule and pricing.
What I've picked up from landscapers who figured out the business side.
A $50 yard that's 2 minutes from your last stop is more profitable than a $75 yard that's 20 minutes away. Price accordingly, or offer discounts for customers in dense areas.
Selling a $200 mulch job to an existing mowing customer costs you nothing in marketing. Selling a new $50/week mowing account might cost $75-150 in ads. Build upsell pricing into your service menu.
A commercial mower costs roughly $3-5/hour in depreciation and maintenance. If you're running 3 machines on a crew, that's $9-15/hour you need to capture in your pricing. Most landscapers don't track this.
Set a minimum (e.g., $45 per visit) regardless of yard size. Even a tiny yard takes drive time, unloading, and cleanup. Below your minimum, you're losing money on every stop.
Route sheets, seasonal pricing templates, crew scheduling tools, and expense trackers. Built for landscaping businesses.
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