How Much to Charge For Lawn Mowing: Pricing Charts and Formula

How much to charge for mowing lawns

You can charge between $30 and $65 per hour for a lawn mowing job, or $50 to $250 per service. If you’re pricing by lawn size, your average lawn mowing cost can be anywhere from $0.01 to $0.06 per square foot.

If you’re mowing large lawns, your rates can be between $150 to $200 per acre. However, that per-acre rate will decrease with larger jobs, especially if you can save time by using a riding lawn mower.

Use this chart to estimate your mowing pricing by lawn size:

To set your pricing, find out how much competitors in your area are charging. If you offer the same services as another lawn care business, don’t charge more than 15% above their price. 

That’s usually the tipping point for potential customers to choose the cheaper option.

You shouldn’t be the cheapest mowing service provider in your area, either. Instead, aim to offer the highest quality of service—especially if you’re trying to get commercial lawn care contracts.

That will set your reputation as a reliable business and help you attract the clients you want, even if your competitors offer lower pricing.

Before setting your lawn care service pricing, make sure you know how to estimate your lawn care services to stay profitable.

How much to charge for other lawn care services

Here are the average prices for common lawn care services you may offer:

Remember, your pricing should take into account your costs (labor, materials, and overhead) and how much other lawn care businesses are charging in your area.

How much to charge for yard cleanup

You can charge customers anywhere between $200 and $600 for yard cleanup service, $40–$80 per hour, or $0.02–$0.10 per square foot. Pricing will vary depending on the yard size, amount of work, and customer’s location.

We recommend you charge hourly and on a case-by-case basis. After all, a small yard may need more labor than a large lot if it’s an overgrown lawn, or if there’s a lot of debris to remove.

If there’s no additional work required, here’s how much you should charge for a lawn care spring cleanup based on the yard size:

Here’s how much you should charge for individual spring cleanup services, including removal of debris like leaves and grass clippings:

How much to charge for lawn aeration

The average cost of lawn aeration service is roughly $75–$205 for a 10,000-square-foot yard, or $0.03–$0.05 per square foot. For smaller yards, you can charge $0.10–$0.35 per square foot.

Pro Tip: Some lawn care companies charge different prices per increment. For example, they might charge $0.30 per square foot for the first 1,000 square feet, then drop the price to $0.05 per square foot for every additional thousand.

Aeration costs can depend on many factors, including:

• Lawn size
• Grass conditions
• Climate and location
• Aeration type (core vs. liquid aeration)
• Full lawn maintenance cost, if aeration is included in your service package

You should charge differently for your aeration service if you’re using core aeration versus liquid aeration. Here are typical costs for different types of aeration and why they vary:

• Core aeration: $75–$250 per 10,000 square feet. You can charge less for your service if you own an aerator machine, which costs $200–$300 (or $80–$120 a day to rent). These machines have cylindrical prongs that pull pieces of grass, thatch, and soil from the ground.
• Spike aeration: $40–$250 per 10,000 square feet. Best for smaller lawns that you can easily walk across, a lawn aerator isn’t as effective as core aeration but works well for overseeding and fertilizing.
• Liquid aeration: $80–$150 per 10,000 square feet. You can charge less for this service because you’ll only need a bottle of liquid solution to aerate soil, instead of a machine. Liquid soil loosener costs $25–$60.

How much to charge for seeding

On average, you can charge $1,082 to seed or reseed a customer’s lawn, or between $0.10 to $0.20 per square foot to seed or reseed a customer’s lawn. Use this pricing chart as a guide:

Along with your location, lawn size, and labor, there are two main factors that impact how to price your seeding services: type of grass seed and seeding method.

Different types of grass seeds come with varying price tags, depending on their growing conditions and maintenance requirements. For example:

• Fescue grass seed is good for shady spaces and typically costs $3 per pound. Expect to pay $30 to seed a new 1,000-square-foot yard, or $15 to reseed the same yard.
• Bahia grass seed grows best in hot climates and can withstand drier conditions. It costs $10 per pound, so you’ll pay $100 for seeding or $50 for reseeding.

The seeding method you use can also affect overall service pricing because of the equipment or labor involved. Here’s how to price each different type of seeding method, depending on the lawn size:

• Pricing for aeration and overseeding can range from $0.10 to $0.35 per sq.ft.
• Pricing for hydroseeding typically ranges from $0.08 to $0.20 per sq.ft. 
• Pricing for power or slice seeding can range from $0.09 to $0.18 per square foot.

How much to charge for lawn fertilization

On average, you can charge $224 for lawn fertilization service. The cost for lawn fertilization is between $72 and $377, depending on the size of the lawn and the fertilizer you use.

Here’s what you can be charging to help your clients maintain a green, healthy lawn:

To choose how much you should charge for a fertilizer application, calculate the cost of the lawn fertilizer you’ll use for the job based on the square footage of the lawn.

A 50-pound bag of lawn fertilizer costs $110–$350+, depending on the type of fertilizer, what it’s made of, and what benefits it provides. This should cover up to 15,000 square feet of grass.

For the average 10,000-square-foot lawn, your fertilizer costs could be $72–$231. Make sure to include the cost of your fertilizer in your estimate.

How to price lawn care services using a formula

If you’d prefer to price out your own services, here’s the lawn mowing pricing formula you should use:

Lawn mowing price = Labor costs + Material costs + (overhead + equipment costs) + profit margin

Cost of labor

Your labor costs include your employees’ hourly wages, taxes, workers compensation, and any other employee-related expenses.

To calculate your labor costs, multiply the total labor hours you’ll need (for each lawn care professional on the job) by your hourly labor cost (all those employee’s hourly wages plus labor expenses).

Let’s say your client has a half-acre yard, which should take one employee three hours to mow and fertilize. Adding up the employee’s $16/hour wages, taxes, and other expenses, your total cost of labor is around $22/hour—$66 in total.

READ MORE: Types of grants for starting a lawn care business

Material costs

For services that require materials, like fertilizer, grass seed, or mulch, you’ll want to incorporate these costs into your lawn care prices.

Here’s how you can accurately estimate material costs:

• Measure the client’s lawn so you know the exact square footage
• Calculate how much lawn treatment product you’ll need to purchase (e.g., fertilizer, weed killer, mulch, liquid aerator)
• Document your expenses when you buy new products using expense tracking software so you can price future jobs faster (and file your taxes more accurately)

Continuing our example above, say your client’s lawn needs to be fertilized, too. You’ll need to add $300 for fertilizer. Combined with your labor costs, that brings your subtotal to $366.

Overhead and equipment maintenance

Overhead costs are everything that keeps your lawn care company operating. That includes office space, computers and tablets, small business insurance, fuel costs, and advertising costs.

You should also budget for equipment and maintenance in your overall lawn service cost estimate. Even after you’ve paid off your lawn mower, for example, it might still need engine repairs, spark plug replacements, or oil changes.

After adding up all of your overhead costs for the month, divide that amount by the number of working hours each month to get your hourly overhead cost. Then multiply that by the number of hours a job will take to complete.

Take our lawn care and fertilization example. If your hourly overhead is $45 and the job requires three hours of labor, your overhead cost for this client’s lawn care will be $135. Your subtotal is now $501.

Profit margins

Your lawn care profit margin is the amount you take home after you’ve covered your labor, materials, and overhead costs. The higher your percentage, the more profitable your lawn care business will be.

Your costs for a half-acre mowing and fertilization job are $501. If you want a profit margin of 20%, you’ll need to charge a $125 markup (25% of your costs) to meet that margin. 

That will give you an overall cost (including profit) of $626 for the job.

When to adjust your lawn care service pricing

Your hourly rate and service rates may change over time, depending on your service area and business needs.

For example, you might need to adjust pricing if:

• A particular job is out of your normal scope and requires more work than your initial terms of service stated
• The job site is farther away so your gas mileage is higher than usual
• The cost of labor is less than the supplies for a particular job like fertilization or weed control application
• You want to target specific neighborhoods by offering a group rate
• The job or client has specific needs outside of your usual scope (e.g., the yard is in rough shape or the client needs a job done with short notice)
• You want to offer discounts or special rates for marketing promotions

READ MORE: How to write a price increase letter for customers [free template]

How to make a lawn care pricing sheet

A lawn care pricing sheet lists the costs of all your services. It helps you keep your pricing consistent across all jobs. When you’re estimating a job, you can look at this sheet and get a base estimate to build on.

Create a lawn care price sheet once you know how much you want to charge for each service. This should include your most common services and yard sizes so you have consistent pricing to refer to when selling your lawn services and making lawn care estimates.

Here’s an example of a basic lawn care pricing chart:

Here’s an example of a basic lawn care package, priced by square footage, that includes regular mowing, aeration, and fertilization:

A lawn care pricing chart can also help you respond to clients looking for discounts or negotiated rates. You’ll be able to see how much wiggle room you have, if any, before changing your rates too drastically.

Pro Tip: Keep a digital version of your pricing sheet to speed up quoting and invoicing. When you use Jobber as your lawn care business software, you can add a products and services list and quickly add them as line items on your quotes.