How to Quote Lawn Mowing: 7 Steps for Estimating Profitable Jobs

1. Make a pricing chart

A lawn care pricing chart is a list of all your lawn care services and their prices. When you have a record of your lawn care prices, you don’t need to decide on pricing every time you make an estimate—it’s already in writing.

This pricing is just a reference point. It doesn’t have to be set in stone. You can always make adjustments based on your client’s property size, condition, and any additional materials.

2. Assess your client’s property size and conditions

Before you make a lawn care estimate, you need to know the square footage of your client’s lawn and assess its condition.

This is especially important for jobs that require new supplies. For example, to estimate a fertilization or weed control job, you need exact square footage to know how much fertilizer and other products to buy.

Here are a couple of ways to assess a client’s property:

• For most residential lawn mowing jobs, you can use Google Maps to measure the lawn size. Ask homeowners about their lawn’s conditions and exact requirements when you talk over the phone—or add a field in your online booking form to grab that information.
• For bigger and more complex jobs, do a walkthrough of the lawn to take measurements and assess conditions. You might find out that the property has an unusual grass type, or that it needs services like lawn aeration, leaf removal, yard cleanup, or removal of grass clippings or debris.

Use the square foot pricing on your pricing sheet as a starting point, then make adjustments based on the information you’ve gathered about the property.

3. Include additional services and materials

After you’ve estimated your lawn service pricing based on the client’s property size and conditions, add costs for any additional services and materials that fall outside your typical work.

For example, a client might ask you to use specific, eco-friendly materials that cost more. Or they could ask you to haul away leaves, dig or fill a hole, or clean up brush and debris.

If you discover add-on services or optional work that would enhance the job—like landscaping, preventive weed control, pest control, or even gutter cleaning—add those to your lawn estimate.

Including optional services is a great upselling technique that benefits both you and your customer.

READ MORE: 4 ways itemized quotes can help you grow your service business

Once you’ve identified the additional services and materials the job needs, you should:

• Estimate these costs the same way you’d figure out the cost of a job. Consider mowing time, how much labor you’ll need, and the cost of materials to buy.
• Include additional services and materials in your final quote. This is especially important if you’ll be providing frequent mowing service—any lost costs can really add up.
• If you do a walkthrough, take photos of the areas on your client’s property that need extra work, and include them in your quote. Images help you show your client why you’re including a certain product or add-on.

Pro Tip: Even if it’s not the right time to quote an additional service, you can still mention it to the client. This is a great option for seasonal services like snow removal.

4. Calculate labor costs

Find out your labor costs so you can cover worker wages and price jobs properly based on the time and effort they need. You can use this formula to calculate your total labor costs:

Labor costs = (Job hours x # of employees) x (Hourly wages x Employee overhead multiplier)

5. Add overhead costs

When you price lawn care jobs, factor in overhead costs that keep your business running. This includes vehicle and fuel costs, insurance, taxes, computers, office rent and utilities, and other ongoing costs.

Instead of adding overhead costs separately to your estimate, include them in your service pricing—your customers don’t need to know your overhead costs.

The average lawn care company adds 10–20% to their estimates to account for overhead costs. To get a more accurate measurement, you can calculate your overhead costs per hour using this formula:

Overhead costs = Total monthly overhead ÷ # of billable hours per month

Let’s say your monthly overhead costs are $3,600, and your team works 800 billable hours every month. Your overhead cost per hour would be $4.50.

To calculate your overhead costs for one specific job, multiply your hourly overhead rate by the number of hours your project will take. If you have a 3-hour lawn maintenance job, your overhead for the job will be $13.50.

6. Calculate your profit margins

Adding a profit margin to your cost estimate is how you earn money after you cover all your expenses. Your operating profit margin is how much you’d profit from one job.

Your profit margin can vary depending on the size of your business, your competitors’ pricing, and the region you work in. An operating profit margin of 15–20% is a great goal for a small lawn care business.

READ MORE: A complete guide to lawn care business profit margins

To make that profit, you need to add markup to the labor, material, and overhead costs you’ve added up. Markup is the additional amount of money you charge your customer on top of your total costs for the job.

7. Send the client a quote

Up until this point, you’ve been creating a lawn care estimate. This is a rough but educated guess at your lawn mowing cost. You can give your client a lawn estimate right after a walkthrough or phone call.

Once the client has approved the estimate, you’ll need to put together a quote. This tells the client exactly how much they’ll be paying for regular mowing, including taxes, fees, and any discounts.

Here’s what your quote should include:

• Your lawn care company name, logo, and contact details
• Your client’s name, address, phone number, and email
• A detailed list of the landscaping services and materials you’ll provide, with their associated costs
• Optional line items for added services or tasks that would enhance the work
• The total estimate for the job, including sales taxes and any special discounts, rates, or package deals
• Terms and conditions, including the deposit amount and invoice payment terms
• Space for the client’s signature so the quote can become a lawn care contract and you can start on the approved work

Our lawn care estimate template lets you show all the details of your work, add markup for profitable pricing, suggest optional add-ons, and provide a range of service levels.

Spend less time putting together custom quotes for your clients—while still impressing them with a professional-looking document they can approve online: