Ask ten lawn care guys what they charge and you will hear ten numbers between forty and ninety an hour. Ask them how they landed on it and almost all of them will tell you the same thing: it is what the guy before them charged.
That is not pricing. That is copying.
The honest answer
There is no correct hourly rate for lawn care. There is only a rate that covers your truck, your equipment, your taxes, your dead weeks, and the life you are trying to pay for. That number is different for a solo operator with a paid-off trailer than it is for a two-crew outfit with a truck note.
What is the same for everybody is the math. And the math has one trap in it that eats more lawn care businesses than any other single mistake.
The trap: billable hours are not working hours
You leave the house at seven. You get home at six. That is eleven hours.
Now count the ones a customer paid for. Drive time between yards is not billable. The trip to the shop for a belt is not billable. Quoting the new subdivision is not billable. Sitting in the truck waiting out a shower is not billable. Neither is invoicing on Sunday night.
For most solo operators the real number is somewhere between five and seven billable hours out of a long day. Which means if you priced yourself at sixty an hour thinking you work fifty hours a week, you did not build a sixty an hour business. You built one somewhere in the thirties and you have been covering the difference with your own time.
Run your numbers below and you will see your own version of that gap.
Work out your real hourly rate
Put your own numbers in. It takes about two minutes and it uses the hours you actually bill, not the hours you actually work, because those are two very different numbers in lawn care.
Start from your industry
Editable starting examples for your industry. They change the starting numbers, not the math, and they are not industry statistics.
Your numbers
Driving, quoting, invoicing and phone tag are not billable.
What that means
Every hour you bill at $75.00 is $25.00 short of what the business needs. Over a year that is $36,000.
This is your floor. Price above it for skill, speed, warranty and demand.
What this assumed
- Only billable hours earn. Admin, driving and quoting are treated as unpaid overhead.
- Tax is applied as a flat share of profit, which is a planning approximation, not a return.
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This is an estimate
This tool returns an estimate based on the numbers you entered. Your real result depends on your own costs, rates and conditions. Check it against your own records before you make a decision with it.
How to run it, step by step
- 1Start with what you need to take home. Not what you would like. What the household actually needs out of this business in a year, before tax. Be honest, because every number after this one is built on it.
- 2Add your real overhead. Mowers, trimmers, blowers, trailer, truck payment, fuel, blades, string, insurance, phone, software. Anything you pay for whether or not you cut a yard this week.
- 3Enter billable hours, not working hours. This is where most lawn care owners get it wrong. Drive time between yards, quoting, invoicing, equipment repair and the trip to the shop are all unpaid. If you work fifty hours and bill thirty, put thirty.
- 4Set the weeks you actually run. Take out the weeks rain shuts you down, the weeks you take off, and the dead stretch in winter if you do not have a leaf or holiday light season to fill it.
How to read what it gives you
- The number it gives you is a floor, not a price. It is what you have to average to break even on the life you said you wanted. Charging under it is paying for the privilege of working.
- If your floor comes out higher than what people around you charge, that is information, not a verdict. It usually means your billable hours are too low, not that your market is too cheap.
- Run it twice. Once with today's billable hours, once with what they would be if you tightened your route. The gap between those two numbers is what better scheduling is worth to you per year.
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What to do with the number
If your floor came out above what you are charging, you have three moves and only three.
Raise the price. The simplest and the scariest. Existing customers get thirty days notice in writing. New quotes go out at the new rate starting tomorrow. Not every customer stays. The ones who do are the ones who were never the problem.
Bill more of the hours you already work. Tighter routes so less of the day is spent driving. Same-day invoicing so Sunday night is yours again. Text-back on missed calls so quoting does not eat your evenings. This is usually where the fastest money is, because you are already working those hours for free.
Do more per hour. Better equipment, a second set of hands on the big properties, or dropping the yards that take twice as long for the same money. Every route has one or two of those and you already know which ones they are.
The one thing that is not on the list
Working more hours is not on the list. You already tried that. It is why you are reading a pricing article at nine at night.
Where this normally leads
Most lawn care owners who run this find the same thing. The price is roughly fine. The billable hours are the problem, and the biggest hole in the billable hours is the phone. Calls come in while you are on a mower with ear protection on, and by the time you call back at six the person has already booked somebody else.
If that sounds like your week, the missed call math is the next number worth knowing, and there is a free calculator for that one too.
Questions people actually ask
Should I charge by the hour or by the yard?
Quote by the yard, price by the hour. The customer wants one number for the job. You need to know what an hour has to earn so the number you quote is not a loss. Work out the hourly floor first, then build your per-yard prices on top of it.
How do I raise prices on customers I have had for years?
Give notice, give a reason, and give it in writing. Thirty days, one short message, the new price and the date it starts. Most people who have been happy with your work stay. The ones who leave over a fair increase were usually the ones costing you the most.
What counts as overhead if I run the business out of my truck?
Anything you pay whether or not you cut grass this week. Truck payment, insurance, phone, fuel, equipment replacement, licenses, software. If a rainy month would still cost you the money, it is overhead.
Does drive time count as billable?
Only if the customer pays for it, and they usually will not pay for it directly. That is exactly why it has to come out of your billable hours here. Windshield time is real work that earns nothing, which is why a tight route beats a big route.