How to Calculate a Lawn Care Estimate (with Lawn Care Price Charts) 

Pricing lawn care services can be challenging for professionals in the field. That’s true whether you’re a startup or an established small business.

There are many factors that go into pricing models. In this article, you’ll learn how to estimate lawn care pricing using different strategies. We’ll look at creating a lawn care estimate by yard size as well as by the hour and other methods.

You can use our lawn care price chart as a guide in setting your own fees. Plus, we’ve included a list of average prices for related services for lawn health and landscaping.

Get pricing right and it’s a win-win. Your clients will be happy, and your lawn care company will thrive.

Understanding Lawn Care Estimate Basics

Are you just launching your lawn care business? It’s important to know that lawn care costs vary based on what services your clients need.

First, there’s the size and complexity of the lawn in question. That affects the equipment you need and the amount of labor involved.

But there are also related services you can provide. These will boost your revenue, and they’re efficient because you’re already at the property cutting the grass. We dive more into that topic in a section below, with a price chart to help you set your own fees.

So, what factors influence the estimates you will give your clients?

• Your location nationally: The cost of services is higher in some parts of the country and lower in others.
• The neighborhood: Typically, lawn services cost more in more affluent areas, like gated or exclusive communities.
• Additional services: You might charge less for lawn cutting if the client is purchasing other work at the same time.
• Access and layout: A yard with a narrow gate and lots of hardscaping may limit you to a smaller mower with lots of edging work.
• The pricing model you use: We discuss this in its own section below, so you can choose the best one for you.
• Residential vs. commercial clients: Lawn businesses typically charge more for commercial clients. That’s because they can absorb the expense.
• Seasonal changes: If you work in a cold climate, you might switch from grass cutting to leaf removal in fall, for example.
• Discounts: You might offer a drop in price once, say, the yard exceeds an acre or if the client pays for a year up front.
• Special needs: Clients with higher, fast-growing grass or who want manual clean up (no leaf blower noise) might be charged more.

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Average Price for Lawn Care Services

As you’ll learn when you read more about it below, pricing lawn care services by yard size is a common business model. The average cost homeowners pay for mowing is $49-147. That’s across lots of all sizes.

Below is a lawn care price chart with the average price for lawn service in 2025 using the yard size method.

These figures and the ones in the chart for additional services are drawn from a variety of sources. As you can see, there’s a lot of play in there once you get above the smallest lots. So, you have to use the factors discussed in this article to decide where in the range your services should fit.

This is what customers can expect to pay. That means it includes expenses and profits for the service provider. Keep reading to learn how to calculate this figure so you cover your costs and still turn a profit.

Lawn Care Price Chart for Other Lawn Care Services

As mentioned above, you can boost your revenue by adding services related to grass cutting. Your clients will appreciate you providing full service so they don’t have to look elsewhere for help.

Adding these services is especially important in climates where grass doesn’t grow all year long. You can protect your income stream by offering other tasks that keep customers’ yards tidy, even when the snow flies.

As with the lawn care price chart above, this chart offers a range of average prices. Use yard size, local economics, and similar factors to determine what you charge for these services. Unless indicated, the average price is per visit.

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Lawn Treatment Pricing Models

Pricing by yard size is common, especially for basic lawn care. But there are other lawn treatment pricing models that might suit you better. Let’s look at a few alternatives.

Pricing by Frequency of Service

This pricing model is a subcategory of pricing by yard size. It bases your price on how often you perform lawn care. The idea is that more frequent servicing keeps the lawn shorter and neater, so it requires less time on your part. And it gives the customer a little discount for higher volume.

So, say you charge $50 to cut grass on a ¼-acre lot once per week. The same yard served every two weeks might be $70. Mowing only once per month would cost the homeowner $90.

This pricing model might appeal to customers who have slower-growing grass. It’s also great to use during times of economic downturn. Someone might not feel they can afford weekly lawn care. But they can spring for biweekly or monthly trims.

Pricing by the Square Foot or Acre

This method is somewhat similar to pricing by yard size. But it’s more precise at the upper and lower ends of property size.

For instance, a homeowner with a tiny patch of grass in the front won’t want to pay for even a 1/8-acre job—typically the smallest yard size quoted. But you don’t want to lose their business because they also want to purchase edging, weeding, and hedge trimming. Quoting lawn treatment by square footage makes better sense here.

On the other side of the spectrum, a very large lawn might be better priced by the acre. This includes country estates, farms, and commercial or athletic properties. Pricing by the acre is both more efficient and accurate.

Pricing by the Hour

If you’ve been in business for even a few weeks, you know there are some clients whose yards take longer to care for. Maybe they have a swimming pool, and you have to be cautious that you don’t get grass trimmings or leaves in the water. That requires more passes with the mower or using bags instead of mulching, which takes longer.

Perhaps you have a customer who forgets to pick up after their dog. Your team has to do cleanup patrol before even starting on grass cutting. You want to get paid for that extra work.

For these clients, pricing by the hour is preferable. We talk more about how to make sure you’re covering labor and other expenses below.

Flat-Fee Pricing by Service

For small businesses, flat-fee pricing can be quick and easy. You don’t have to spend time figuring square footage or hours worked. You want to spend your time doing billable work, not punching buttons on a calculator.

Plus, flat-fee pricing is easy for clients too; it’s like paying for a vehicle oil change. It’s easy to cross-sell basic landscaping services with this model. The client wants mulching and watering? That’s like adding new wiper blades and coolant with the basic oil change.

Who is flat-fee pricing best for? It’s ideal if you have a lot of clients with yards that are about the same size or require similar amounts of time and labor.

You can always use flat-fee pricing for the bulk of your clients but other models for a few outliers. For example, all yards in a gated community get flat-fee estimates. The three clients with special requests or golf course-sized yards receive custom bids.

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How to Estimate Lawn Care Pricing

No matter what pricing model you choose, you need to make a profit. That means your fee has to cover all the expenses of running your business. Then you add a profit margin on top of that.

The typical formula lawn care companies use is:

Price = Labor costs + Material costs + Overhead costs + Equipment costs + Profit margin

Let’s look at each part of that equation in a little more detail.

First, there are labor costs. That’s what you pay your staff or yourself to do the work. Don’t forget to include all of these items in your labor calculations:

• Hourly rate paid to the worker
• Additional benefits paid (PTO, taxes, insurance, etc.)
• Overtime paid or other expenses

Material costs are items you pay for that go into your customers’ yards. Examples are:

• Sod or grass seed
• Mulch
• Fertilizer
• Irrigation parts

You can average material costs across all your customers when you set your fees. Or you can break them down by the job if you have customers who require expensive items.

Remember that material costs can roller-coaster with the general economy. Therefore, you need a strategy for dealing with this issue.

Your overhead costs are expenses besides field labor that keep your business running. They include:

• Insurance and bonds
• Licensing or permits
• Office mortgage or rent
• Office staff or outsourced help
• Utilities for your office
• Vehicles and registration
• Marketing and advertising
• Business taxes
• Computers and software

Don’t forget to factor equipment costs into your fee structure. For a lawn care business, that includes the purchase of mowers and tools. It also includes maintenance and fuel.

For certain jobs, you might have to rent equipment or use a trailer, which can also be tallied here. Do you do snow removal in winter, which helps many northern lawn care businesses stay afloat? Remember to add your plows and other gear too.

Finally, there’s your profit margin. Without that, you’d only break even on jobs. For business stability and eventual growth, you need to be turning a profit at the end of every day.

Theoretically, you can make your profit margin as tight or as large as you like. Some new businesses try to be competitive by keeping it to around 10%. More established companies may add as much as 50% to their base expenses.

Keep in mind that lawn care and landscaping is growing as an industry. There was an increase of over 5% in landscaping companies between 2021 and 2022. Other companies will be vying with you for opportunities for growth.

Factors that influence your profit margin include:

• How long you’ve been in business
• The market for lawn care in your area
• New competitors vying for clients
• The current economic climate
• Your goals for long-term growth

Successful lawn care companies today use contractor software like Joist to calculate accurate assessments. These programs provide a checklist for preparing estimates, so you don’t forget anything critical. You plug in the numbers, and the platform does the rest. If you want to change an element, the software recalculates everything for you.

5 Pro Tips for Competitive Lawn Care Pricing

Ready to move ahead with pricing your lawn care services to be competitive and profitable? Follow these five expert tips when preparing your estimates:

• Before quoting prices, do some market research. What are your competitors charging? What’s the going rate in your area? What could you offer to justify charging more?
• If you’re not sure what additional lawn care services your customers need, survey them. You don’t necessarily have to offer everything, just those services that are most in demand.
• Remember, the lower your prices, the more work you have to do to stay profitable. To justify asking for higher rates, be sure to ask customers to give you online reviews. And have a website where you can post some of the best comments as testimonials.
• You can increase your profit margin without increasing the price to customers. How? Keep your expenses, like overhead, as low as possible. What could you reduce or eliminate to turn a greater profit?
• The contractor software suggested above isn’t just great for preparing estimates. You can use it to track expenses to reduce overhead and run more efficiently. Plus, you can integrate it with other functions. That includes accounting marketing and invoicing, for a full-service professional operation.

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Make Collecting Payments Easy

We’ve made it incredibly simple to accept credit card payments and other online payment options from your clients. Simply issue your invoice, switch on Payments, and get paid! You’ll cut cash flow delays, spend less time tracking down payments, and be able to collect down payments on-site.