The way your Lawn Care Business Should Estimate Mowing Jobs

When you are beginning your lawn care business, how do you find how much you should charge to mow a lawn? This is a subject that was recently required to us on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Discussion board. Here are a few ideas.

First off, if have not done so, log onto the lawn care business forum and post your question along with your part. There is a good chance another lawn care business owner in the area can give you the going rate. You likewise want to ask yourself, do you have any friends in the online business? If so, ask them what they charge per lawn.

Another response that was posted was to speak to a few local yard works lawn care service care businesses in your area and get an estimate from them to service your lawn. If you don’t have a lawn then ask a friend to get yourself a few estimates to service their lawn. When to be able to three estimates, you will have a good idea just how much to charge. You knows the price, plus you can find the square footage measurements of your lawn and you can divide that out to figure how much to charge per square ft. This could give you a ballpark idea. Keep in mind, the expenses you have to run your lawn care business can drastically vary from another lawn care business owner’s expenses, so know your expenses.

The next question you most likely are wondering is should you charge by the square foot or man hour?

Kurt Chance said “The first thing you always want to do, when giving an estimate, is actually walk the property and be in a rush to get in and out. I did this once and when Received there I was set for a surprise. I did not know there were four ditches in the front lot that would need to be manually trimmed and gone around while mowing. Luckily for me it still took the estimated time that I figured and my price still puzzled out to what I wished.”

If you are a fresh lawn care business owner, you may want to charge based on man hour. Author Joel LaRusic of mowboy.com suggests “you want to quote quality, not time. In other words it’s better to say “I’ll perform these group of services, to your satisfaction, for $50” than the guy “I’ll spend an hour at your house for $50.” Of course, you can use your hourly rate to base your price on but you don’t need to pass those pricing particulars on to the customer. Discontent and the customer watching the clock and as you grasp your job and shave a few minutes from it, that should be to your advantage.”

Kurt explained further “What I do when estimating large properties is I figure out how long it’s going to take me. Break it into smaller sections if Prepared to. Then I figure my hourly rate or what I have to make from the property and put a price together from that. A lot of times commercial properties are huge broken up into a few lawn mowing areas, I get it easier to just uncover the time it may for each and then figure out the total time plus drive your time.”

Another more advanced approach is to charge per square foot based on formulas. Using formulas requires a much more experience, because it is vital your formulas are effective.