Landscaping Pricing Calculator
Price landscaping jobs from your real crew costs — labor, trucks & equipment, materials, and disposal — with your profit margin built in, not left to chance. Every price comes with a full breakdown so you can see exactly where it comes from.
Your Company Setup
Set these once — they reflect your business, not the job.
Price a Job
Enter the job — the price updates as you type.
Instant Rate Card — Common Landscaping Jobs
Twelve common residential jobs priced with your company settings above. Change your crew rate or margin and the whole menu reprices instantly. Hours and material costs are typical starting points — adjust them to your yard sizes, your region, and your crews.
| Job | Typical hours | Typical materials | Your flat rate |
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We really appreciate feedback from working pros like yourself to get these numbers accurate — to help our fellow trades and businesses succeed, now and for the next generations to come.
Worked Examples: Three Real Landscaping Jobs
Using the default company settings above ($25/hr loaded crew-lead rate, $22/hr overhead, 50% materials markup, 20% target margin, 3% card fee, 2% redo reserve):
1. Weekly mowing visit, average yard — half an hour, solo
Labor $12.50 + overhead $11 + a few dollars of trimmer line and fuel mix = about $28 in cost, dividing out to a flat rate of $39 per visit at a healthy margin. If that number looks high next to the $25 guy in your neighborhood, understand: he isn't charging less because he's efficient — he's charging less because he hasn't counted his mower replacement, insurance, or drive time. Route density is your real lever here: three houses on one street beats three houses across town, because windshield time is unbillable.
2. Mulch install, 5 cubic yards — 3 crew-lead hours plus 3 crew-member hours
Labor $135 + overhead $132 + mulch charged at $262 (your $175 cost with markup) = $529 base → flat rate $709, netting about $232 at a 33% true margin. That's roughly $142 per installed yard — squarely in the credible range, and now you know exactly why it's the price instead of hoping it is.
3. Sod installation, 1,000 square feet — full-day, two-person job
Labor $225 + overhead $220 + sod charged at $675 = $1,120 base → flat rate $1,499, netting about $529 at a 35% margin. Install work carries a higher margin than maintenance — that's normal and correct: it's skilled, it's warrantied, and it doesn't repeat weekly.
What Does Landscaping Overhead Actually Cost?
Overhead is every cost of being in business that isn't a specific job: truck and trailer payments, fuel, mower and equipment replacement (commercial mowers are consumables on a 3–5 year clock, and trimmers faster than that), general liability insurance, workers' comp — which runs high in landscaping — dump fees you don't pass through, storage or shop space, phone, software, and marketing. For a small one-crew operation, a typical year lands in the range of $30,000–$45,000 before anyone earns a wage.
The landscaping trap is seasonality. Overhead runs twelve months; in most of the country, mowing revenue runs eight or nine. Divide annual overhead by your seasonal billable crew-hours — not by the hours you wish you worked. Example: $36,000 a year ÷ roughly 1,600 billable crew-hours across the season ≈ $22 per billable hour — exactly the default this calculator starts with. Shops that skip this math price March through October like the truck is free in January.
Common Landscaping Pricing Mistakes
Recommended Profit Margins for Landscaping
These are working benchmarks, not laws. Maintenance routes run thinner margins but compound weekly all season; install and enhancement work carries more margin because it's skilled and warrantied — nurseries themselves expect installed plants to be marked up 50–100%, partly to fund the replacement guarantee most companies offer. What matters is that the margin is a decision you made, visible in your price — not whatever survived the season.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much should I charge to mow a lawn?
Build it from your numbers, not the neighborhood's: loaded labor for the minutes on site, plus overhead per billable hour (mower replacement, fuel, insurance, drive time), divided by one minus your target margin. For most legitimate operations that lands well above hobby-mower prices — and route density is the biggest lever for bringing cost per visit down honestly.
What profit margin should a landscaping company target?
Common working targets: 10–20% true net margin on maintenance routes, and 20–35% on installs and enhancements, after all costs, card fees, and a redo reserve. Materials and plants are typically marked up 50–100% over cost on top of that.
Should I price per visit or sell seasonal contracts?
Contracts smooth your cash flow and lock in route density, so many companies discount them slightly versus per-visit pricing — but the discount must be a decision, not a hope. Price the season from total visits at your engineered rate, then decide consciously what a guaranteed route is worth to you.
What's the difference between markup and margin?
Markup is added on top of cost; margin is the share of the final price that's profit. A 20% markup on $100 gives $120 — but only a 16.7% margin. To earn a true 20% margin you divide by 0.80, giving $125. Confusing the two is the most common reason landscapers underprice.
Should I charge for estimates?
For maintenance quotes, most companies eat the cost — but that time must then live inside your overhead-per-billable-hour number. For design or large install estimates, charging a fee (often credited if the job proceeds) is normal and filters serious buyers.
Is this calculator really free?
Yes. No account, no email, no ads. The calculator runs in your browser and the numbers you enter are never sent to us. We use basic traffic analytics, described in our privacy policy.