Lawn care start up.

John, we are primarily commercial contractors with a few high end domestic clients. This same scenario we had to face around 3 years ago with several clients.

You will never match or beat the nationals on price - we had a domestic customer paying £30 per quarter including VAT to a national for 4 treatments per year, the area would be about 300 sq mts. The quality of work was truly dreadful with the customer never having the same guy twice,you are in a strong position if you are maintaining these gardens weekly or fortnightly to monitor lawn condition and advise and treat accordingly rather than the one size fits all from the nationals.

Remember it's only worth doing if you are going to make a decent profit, you say your customers are unhappy you are in a strong position, explain that if they want a better service the cost is going to be more because you will use better quality products applied more carefully etc.

Our customer mentioned above is paying us £35 per month plus VAT every month and is very happy to do so, remember the price is soon forgotten but they look at the lawn eveyday! Price the cost of the materials and your time and charge accordingly. Hope this helps.

The growth of independent lawn care businesses in recent years continues to excel.

GreenThumb have a lawn calculator tool on their website where it is quite simple to obtain their pricing. The vast majority, if not all of our members will charge above, or well above this for many reasons - but it's a handy place to look.

Professional lawn care is a volume business. It's tough to achieve this volume quickly, so it's important to charge well and upsell mechanical work.

We had our biggest and most successful annual conference just last week but also have a minimum of three one day events across the country - the next being a machinery based practical day on Wednesday 11th March in Hitchin. Our members above all else love the networking benefits that the UKLCA brings. Many are very happy to share pricing information in person, all the most so when serving different areas. There is a fair bit to consider.

Use our lawn size calculator to find out your lawn area and perimeter length. Our calculator will even recommend the appropriate Ambrogio models for…

Replies

Dan Frazer Gardening February 6, 2020 at 3:44pm

There are no set rates. Work out your cost for products per 100m2, for example, then factor in your time, profit and equipment costs etc. Just set your own prices rather than trying to follow those of others. ,
- john newton > Dan Frazer Gardening February 8, 2020 at 9:01pm
  
  Thanks Dan
Peter sellers February 6, 2020 at 4:12pm

John, we are primarily commercial contractors with a few high end domestic clients. This same scenario we had to face around 3 years ago with several clients.

You will never match or beat the nationals on price - we had a domestic customer paying £30 per quarter including VAT to a national for 4 treatments per year, the area would be about 300 sq mts. The quality of work was truly dreadful with the customer never having the same guy twice,you are in a strong position if you are maintaining these gardens weekly or fortnightly to monitor lawn condition and advise and treat accordingly rather than the one size fits all from the nationals.

Remember it's only worth doing if you are going to make a decent profit, you say your customers are unhappy you are in a strong position, explain that if they want a better service the cost is going to be more because you will use better quality products applied more carefully etc.

Our customer mentioned above is paying us £35 per month plus VAT every month and is very happy to do so, remember the price is soon forgotten but they look at the lawn eveyday! Price the cost of the materials and your time and charge accordingly. Hope this helps.
- john newton > Peter sellers February 8, 2020 at 9:02pm
  
  Thanks Peter big help
UK Lawn Care Association February 6, 2020 at 4:21pm

The growth of independent lawn care businesses in recent years continues to excel.

GreenThumb have a lawn calculator tool on their website where it is quite simple to obtain their pricing. The vast majority, if not all of our members will charge above, or well above this for many reasons - but it's a handy place to look.

Professional lawn care is a volume business. It's tough to achieve this volume quickly, so it's important to charge well and upsell mechanical work.

We had our biggest and most successful annual conference just last week but also have a minimum of three one day events across the country - the next being a machinery based practical day on Wednesday 11th March in Hitchin. Our members above all else love the networking benefits that the UKLCA brings. Many are very happy to share pricing information in person, all the most so when serving different areas. There is a fair bit to consider.
Frêshare (Gardening) February 8, 2020 at 8:55pm

I use this tool to measure areas for quotes etc.

Similiar to the one Green Thumb use without the quotes.

Gives perimeter size in linear metres too which is handy for hedge cutting type quotes.

https://www.ambrogio.co.uk/measure-lawn/

Measure My Lawn

Use our lawn size calculator to find out your lawn area and perimeter length. Our calculator will even recommend the appropriate Ambrogio models for…
- john newton > Frêshare (Gardening) February 8, 2020 at 9:04pm
  
  Thanks a lot I will have a look at this.
  - Frêshare (Gardening) > john newton February 8, 2020 at 11:57pm
    
    No problem.