Price lawn mowing from your crew's cost per minute, not per acre alone. Time each property, include the drive to it, multiply by what your crew costs per minute plus your profit, and set a minimum charge. Then make your routes dense, because in lawn care the minutes between stops decide whether a route makes money.
The rest of this guide shows how to do that with real numbers from your own business, and how to choose between per-cut and monthly billing.
Why is lawn care pricing really about time?
Customers think about lawn size. Your costs are driven by time: how long the crew is on the property and how long it takes to get there. Two lawns of the same size can take very different amounts of time:
- One is flat and open. The other has a slope, a fence line, a playset and six flower beds to trim around.
- One has a gate wide enough for a 60-inch mower. The other only fits a 21-inch push mower.
- One is three minutes from your last stop. The other is 20 minutes out of the way.
So the question to answer is not "what does a quarter-acre cost?" It's "what does this stop cost me, start to finish?"
How do you calculate your crew's cost per minute?
Work it out once a season. You need:
- Crew labor cost per hour, including payroll taxes and workers' comp, for everyone on the truck
- Equipment cost per hour: mowers, trimmers, blowers, trailer, plus maintenance and replacement, spread over the hours you run them
- Truck cost per hour: payment or depreciation, insurance, fuel and repairs
- Overhead per crew hour: your office, phone, software, advertising, insurance, owner salary, divided across all the crew hours you run in a season
Worked example (made-up numbers for illustration):
- Two-person crew, labor cost with taxes and comp: $48 an hour combined
- Equipment and truck: $22 an hour
- Overhead share: $20 an hour
- Total: $90 per crew hour, or $1.50 per crew minute
Want a 20 percent profit on that? Divide by 0.8. Your target is $112.50 per crew hour, or about $1.88 per crew minute.
Notice that the crew is paid for drive time too. That is why route density matters so much, and why the price for each stop should include a share of drive time.
How do you price an individual mowing stop?
For each property, estimate:
- Time on site for mowing, trimming, edging and blowing, for the whole crew
- Average drive time to reach it within your route
Then:
Price per cut = (minutes on site + drive minutes) × your target rate per minute
Example: a stop that takes the two-person crew 18 minutes, with about 7 minutes of driving to reach it:
- 25 minutes × $1.88 = $47 per cut
Round to a price you're comfortable presenting. If you'd normally quote that lawn at $40, you now know you'd be working for less than your target.
How to estimate time on site before you've mowed it:
- Measure the turf area using satellite maps, then use your own historical minutes per thousand square feet for similar lawns
- Add time for obstacles, beds, slopes, gates and trim-heavy areas
- After the first two or three cuts, compare actual time against the estimate and adjust the price before the season gets going
What minimum charge should a lawn care business set?
Every stop has fixed costs: unloading, loading, the drive, the invoice. A tiny lawn still costs you most of that. A minimum charge per visit makes sure small properties carry their share.
To set one, take your shortest realistic stop, say 10 minutes on site plus 7 minutes of driving, and price it with your per-minute rate. That's your floor. Lawns that fall below it pay the minimum.
Should you charge per cut or a flat monthly price?
Both are common. Here's how they compare.
Per cut
You bill for each visit actually performed.
- Easy to understand and fair when weather cancels a visit
- Revenue swings with the weather and the season
- Customers may ask to skip visits when money is tight or the grass is slow
Flat monthly or seasonal
You estimate the number of cuts in the season, multiply by the per-cut price, and divide by the number of months you bill.
Example: 30 cuts a season at $47 = $1,410, billed over 8 months = about $176 a month.
- Steady income, and easier planning
- Customers pay the same in a slow August as a fast May
- Billing can run on autopay
- You need clear terms about what happens in a drought, if the season runs short, or if a customer cancels mid-season
Many owners use monthly billing for regular weekly accounts and per-cut pricing for occasional or biweekly customers. Whichever you choose, write the terms down.
How do you build mowing routes that make money?
Price alone won't fix a spread-out route. A few habits make a big difference:
- Group customers by day and area. Assign each neighborhood a day of the week and keep it.
- Price outliers higher, or say no. A customer 25 minutes from your nearest stop should pay for that drive, or be referred to someone closer.
- Sell the neighbors. When you sign a new customer, leave door hangers on the surrounding houses. One more stop on the same street costs you almost no drive time.
- Watch your drive-to-work ratio. Track how much of each crew day is spent driving versus working. If it creeps up, your routes need tightening.
- Re-order stops when the route changes. When a customer leaves or a new one joins, rework the day's order instead of just adding the stop at the end.
How should you price add-on services?
Mowing is often the entry point. Add-ons can be more profitable per hour because the crew is already there:
- Bed maintenance and weeding: usually priced by time
- Fertilization and weed control: priced by turf area, product cost and application time. Many states require a license to apply pesticides or some fertilizers commercially, so check your state's rules before offering them.
- Aeration and overseeding: often priced by turf area, with a minimum
- Leaf cleanup: often priced by time and volume, plus disposal costs
- Seasonal cleanups: priced by crew time, often quoted after a site visit
Use the same per-minute rate as the base, then adjust for equipment and materials.
When should you raise lawn care prices?
Before the season, not in the middle. Review costs over the winter: wages, fuel, equipment and insurance. If your per-minute cost went up, your prices need to as well. Our guide on how to raise your prices without losing customers covers how to tell customers.
FAQ
How do I price a lawn I haven't seen? Use satellite maps to measure the turf and look for obstacles, then give a price that's subject to confirmation after the first visit. Tell the customer you'll confirm or adjust after the first cut.
Should biweekly customers pay more per cut? Often, yes. Grass is longer after two weeks, which takes more time, and biweekly stops make routes less dense. Many companies charge biweekly lawns a higher per-cut price than weekly ones for exactly those reasons.
What about sales tax on lawn care? Whether lawn care services are taxable depends on your state. Ask your accountant.
Can I charge extra for overgrown lawns? Yes, and you should say so up front. A first cut on an overgrown lawn can take much longer than a regular one, so price it separately.
How ServFlo helps
ServFlo is built for route-based work like lawn care. Recurring jobs book the next visit when this one is done, and the dispatch board shows every crew's stops on a map, where you can put a day's stops in a shorter order and see the distance before and after. Price your services in a pricebook, invoice a batch of finished visits at once, and let customers pay by card or bank. See how ServFlo works for lawn care companies, scheduling and dispatch, and pricing.
Photo by Michael Smith on Unsplash.