Lawn care price calculator
What to charge for one garden, and how many jobs and regular customers it takes to earn what you want. Start from the example numbers, then put in your own.
Price for one garden
£28
- Your time £25
- Materials £3
Minutes spent doing one job
Getting there, parking, loading up
What an hour of your time must earn
For one job: products, resin, a share of fuel
To take home £2,000 a month
- Jobs a month
- 85
- 19.6 a week
- Paid hours
- 71
- 16.4 a week
- Customers
- 40
- on the round
£2,000 to take home + £365 running costs = £2,365 of takings a month.
About 16.4 hours a week of paid work, which leaves room for admin and for growing the round.
Each month, before tax
Per month: insurance, van, kit, phone
From one regular customer
The starting numbers are an example to show the method, not a market price. Time a few real jobs, work out what an hour of your time has to earn (the pricing guide shows how) and check the result against what customers near you will pay.
How the price is worked out
Your time at your hourly rate, plus what the job costs you, rounded up to a whole pound. Nothing is added for luck.
The lawn care year
Busiest in spring to early autumn, the whole growing season. Quietest in late autumn through winter. Price for the whole year, not the best month, and check that the quiet months still cover your running costs.
What moves the price in lawn care
- Lawn size and how much of the garden is awkward: slopes, beds and obstacles
- How often: weekly visits are cheaper per cut than a one-off overgrown clear
- Edging, hedges, strimming and weeding on top of the cut
- Whether you take the clippings and green waste away
- How overgrown it is at the start
Then set a minimum visit price, because getting the mower out for a tiny lawn still takes the same set-up.
Questions people ask
- How much should a gardener charge per garden?
- There's no single right figure. It depends on what an hour of your time has to earn, how long a job takes you and what it costs to do. In lawn care, the things that move the price most are: lawn size and how much of the garden is awkward: slopes, beds and obstacles; how often: weekly visits are cheaper per cut than a one-off overgrown clear; edging, hedges, strimming and weeding on top of the cut. Put your own numbers in the calculator, then check the result against what customers near you will pay.
- How long does one garden take?
- The calculator starts from 40 minutes on site plus 10 minutes getting there and setting up, 50 in all. That's an example to show the method. Time a few real jobs, including the driving, and use your own average.
- Should a gardener set a minimum charge?
- Yes. Set a minimum visit price, because getting the mower out for a tiny lawn still takes the same set-up. If a customer won't pay it, they cost you more in time than they pay you, and the round is better without them.
- How many regular customers does a gardener need?
- Customers come back every week or fortnight from spring to autumn, and monthly or paused in winter, about 26 visits a year, so each regular customer is worth that many jobs. The calculator turns the income you want into jobs a month and then into the number of customers it takes. Change the visits a year to match how often yours really come back.
- Do lawn care prices change through the year?
- The work is busiest in spring to early autumn, the whole growing season and quietest in late autumn through winter. Grass stops growing and customers pause the service, so income can drop sharply for several months. Many traders keep the price steady and smooth the income instead, for example by agreeing a fixed monthly amount with regular customers.
WorkWise Rounds
Keep each customer's price on their card
In Rounds every customer has their own services, their own price and how often you go, and the round plans itself around them.
No contract. Cancel any time.