How to price your lawn care services

Your price for a lawn is your hourly rate multiplied by the time the visit really takes, including the drive there and getting the mower off the trailer. Get the hourly rate right and every other price follows from it. Get it wrong and a full diary still leaves you short at the end of the year.

Know your costs first

There are two kinds. Costs tied to each job: your time or a worker's wages, fuel for the van and the machines, blades, line and servicing, and any fertiliser or seed you supply. And the costs of being in business at all: public liability and van insurance, the van itself, your phone, software, advertising and the accountant.

Work out your hourly rate

Start from what you want to earn, add your yearly costs, and divide by the hours you can actually bill. Billable hours are the catch. Lawn care is seasonal, it rains, and time spent quoting, invoicing and driving between gardens is not time on a lawn.

An example with round numbers: you want £30,000 a year before tax, your business costs are £6,000 a year, and you expect to bill 25 hours a week for 40 weeks, which is 1,000 hours. That makes (£30,000 + £6,000) ÷ 1,000 = £36 an hour as your minimum.

Try your own numbers here, or use the full hourly rate calculator.

That figure is what you need to stand still. Put a margin on top to pay for a new mower when the old one gives up, a bad summer, and growth.

Three ways to price

By the hour

Simple and fair for messy, unpredictable work such as garden clearances. The downside is that you earn less as you get faster, and customers cannot budget for it. Most regular mowing customers want a fixed price.

By area

Some businesses price lawns per square metre, which scales well for big and commercial grounds. For a domestic garden, the size of the lawn matters less than the access, the edges and the obstacles, so a per-m² price needs adjusting for most properties anyway.

A fixed price per visit

The usual way for domestic rounds. You estimate the time once, including travel and set-up, turn it into a price, and charge the same every visit. Here is how that might look by lawn size. Treat it as a starting point and check what others charge near you; lawn mowing prices across the UK has regional ranges.

Using the £36 rate above, a 100m² lawn that takes 30 minutes on site plus 10 minutes travel and set-up comes to £24. I would charge £25 at least, and more if it has a tight side gate.

Price a specific job

For one-off work, total the labour, materials and extras:

Check your margin

Your margin is what is left of each pound after the costs of doing the job. If it is thin, one broken strimmer wipes out a month's profit. Fill in a real job below and see what you keep.

Things that actually move the price

Access is the big one. A lawn you reach through a 70cm side gate with three steps takes longer than a bigger one you can drive a ride-on straight onto.

Frequency matters too. A weekly cut is quicker than a fortnightly one because there is less to take off, so you can charge a little less per visit and still earn more per hour. A monthly or one-off cut deserves a higher price.

The first visit to an overgrown lawn is a different job. Quote it separately, then set the regular price once it is back under control.

Bundling helps. One price for mowing, edging and clearing up is easier to sell than three small charges, and you rarely leave the garden without doing all three anyway.

Putting it into practice

Work out your rate with the calculator, then look up five or ten local competitors to see where you sit. Write a price sheet for your common jobs so you quote the same way every time. Quote your next ten enquiries on it, see how many you win, and adjust. Review your prices every year before the season starts; fuel and insurance will have gone up even if nothing else has.

Once the prices are set, keeping them consistent across a round is mostly admin. TradeSender keeps a price list you build quotes and invoices from, and on Pro (£19 a month, see pricing) it runs weekly and fortnightly rounds for you, putting every visit on the calendar; the scheduling features page shows how. There is more on how it suits gardeners too.