How To Price Landscaping Jobs

Whether you’re just starting a new landscaping company or you’ve been in the lawn care industry for years, bidding on new clients can be difficult if you don’t have a lawn service pricing formula already. Many businesses and homeowners want to enhance the appearance of their property with landscaping. For most major landscaping projects, most owners rely on professional landscaping companies. One essential aspect of running a landscaping business is learning to price landscaping jobs effectively and accurately so the customer is happy and you’re happy. Many landscaping companies either do not acquire the job due to overbidding or lose money because they’ve under-bid a job. It is possible to price landscaping jobs for customers and still earn money affordably.

You need to make money, and the client needs to know they’re getting a fair price for landscaping services. Don’t sell yourself short. Quoting a lawn care job might not be as difficult as you think of a few basic things we mention below.

1. Know your Time & your Business

If you’re a one-person landscaping operation, it’s simple, how much do you need to make per hour on average to put food on the table and keep your business running?

Once you have a few employees or subcontractors, it gets a bit trickier to estimate cost. Now you have other mouths, benefits, and most likely a few federal or state-mandated costs associated with having employees. You likely now have more equipment and those additional costs as well.

Despite the number of mower-operators multiplying the hourly cost, you also need to remember travel time is important. You can’t just pay your people for that time, so your hourly on-the-job cost should reflect that or have an out-of-service-area trip charge by distance.

2. Start with the Size & Preferences of the Landscaping Job

Landscaping first requires some significant information about what the customer wants, pictures, going to see the property, and any other relevant aspects of the required service. As long as the information is accurate, such as knowing what plants and resources are needed for the job, and timely on both ends, a quote and effective pricing should be much easier to achieve. The landscaping company receives an initial estimate after that.

If a property has too many obstacles, it will affect your time and efforts. Some obstacles can also increase your risk of damaging the homeowners’ property, resulting in costs to you for damages. It’s best to price it out to ensure you have enough time to be cautious of these obstacles and replace them if something were to happen.

3. Pricing by Service

If you’re cutting grass with a mower, the time and costs are pretty static. However, if the service required is more intricate, it requires certain plants, planting methods, mulch types that vary, or if there are more difficult areas on the property to work with, this all needs to be accounted for.

Once you’ve got your foot in the door, you may start offering additional lawn & yard services to your clientele. Your service price should reflect the landscaping tools you use.

4. Be Competitively Priced

Know the average price in your area

Know your market and what similar landscaping services charge for the same thing you do. If you have something extra to offer, you can sell a higher sticker price. If you want to get more jobs quicker, undercut your market’s average cost to look more appealing.

Planned routes reduce your costs

Save money and hours each week by getting many homeowners in the same area to sign up for you to cut their grass. You can reduce travel time and gas expenses, which can be allocated to referral discounts and large-order pricing to attract more of these types of jobs.

Discount recurring jobs

Your quotes for a one-time service should always be higher than that of a recurring service. Your goal is to retain and incentivize long term clients. It is almost always cheaper to retain landscaping jobs week to week than to continually search for new clients. You can better phrase this by offering a discounted price on long-term service contracts from the start. The same idea goes for your add-on services. Potential clients love to see they save money from their valued loyalty to your business.