How Much to Charge for Lawn Mowing: Rates and Costs

Three ways to price a mowing job

This guide is information for people starting to mow lawns, or pricing a first few customers. It is not an offer of work, and it does not replace advice from an accountant, insurer or the state and county offices named below. The published pricing advice we opened describes a few methods. Housecall Pro lists a flat rate as the best fit for most recurring residential mowing, hourly pricing for overgrown lawns, cleanups and jobs that are hard to estimate, per-acre pricing for large multi-acre, HOA and commercial properties, and a hybrid of a base rate plus add-on line items such as overgrowth, bagging or travel.

A flat price per lot is easy for a customer to understand and rewards working quickly, but only if the estimate of the time was right. Pricing by size (per square foot, per eighth or quarter acre) scales with the property but ignores slopes, gates and obstacles. Pricing by the hour protects against surprises and is harder to sell on a lawn that is simple to cut. Many people use time to build the price and then quote a flat number.

Published per-lawn and hourly rates

These are third-party figures for what customers pay, not Florida or Polk County surveys. For weekly recurring mowing, Housecall Pro lists $30 to $40 a visit for an eighth of an acre, $45 to $85 for a quarter acre, $50 to $100 for a half acre and $60 to $150 for an acre. Mammotion lists $30 to $40 for a yard under an eighth of an acre, $45 to $65 for a quarter acre, $50 to $80 for a half acre and $80 to $150 or more for an acre. For Florida, Lawn by Season lists $45 to $70 a visit statewide and $45 to $65 in Orlando and Tampa.

Mammotion sells robotic mowers, so its numbers may not be neutral. A search summary also reported a HomeAdvisor national average of about $123 a visit. We could not open that page and have not verified the figure, and it is well above every opened source, so do not price from it. Our companion guide How Much Does Lawn Service Cost in Polk County? shows the spread of customer-side prices in more detail.

Hourly rates and checking a flat price against time

Housecall Pro lists hourly rates of $32 to $68, and Mammotion lists $30 to $60 an hour for basic mowing and $60 to $100 for larger or more complex properties. The two basic ranges overlap at $32 to $60 an hour. Housecall Pro also lists $50 to $200 per acre per visit as a general per-acre range.

To check a flat price, time a few real jobs from the moment you unload to the moment the truck is loaded, including walking, trimming, edging, blowing and cleanup. Divide the price by the hours. If that figure lands below the hourly rates above, or below what you need once costs are paid, the price is too low. Include time spent driving between lawns, since a crew that drives 15 minutes between two small lots is not working at the headline rate for that time.

Costs a mowing price has to cover

Housecall Pro's pricing formula is labor time multiplied by an hourly rate, plus overhead, equipment cost and profit. In its one-acre example it counts $7 of fuel, belt wear and blade wear for a single visit, and the example totals $98.75. It lists equipment storage, vehicle expenses and equipment wear as overhead.

At a general level the costs to plan for are the mower or mowers, a trimmer, edger and blower, a trailer or truck, fuel, blades and repairs, and replacement when equipment wears out. Florida's Department of Revenue says a lawn care business should pay sales tax on what it buys to provide its services, including lawn mowers, blowers, weed-eater string, edging blades and other consumables. Add time for scheduling, invoicing and driving. Those are not billable hours but they are real work.

Close-up of a string trimmer edging St. Augustine grass along a concrete sidewalk, trim work that adds time to a mowing job — Trimming and edging add time that a mowing price should cover.

Insurance and labor costs

Housecall Pro gives rough annual insurance figures for a business with one to three employees: about $1,000 for general liability, $2,350 for commercial auto and $3,400 for workers' compensation. Those add up to $6,750 a year, which matches its full-coverage range of $6,750 to $8,000 or more. A general liability policy at $1,000 a year works out to about $19 per week of the year before any other cost. A solo operator with no employees may pay less, and we could not confirm solo figures, so ask an insurance agent.

If you hire help, payroll taxes and benefits add to the hourly wage. Housecall Pro cites federal labor statistics that put legally required benefits at about 7 percent of employer compensation costs and paid leave at about 7.5 percent. The article gives no income or self-employment tax rate, so ask a tax professional how your own taxes work, and set money aside for them rather than treating every payment as profit.

Florida business basics to look into

This is not legal advice, and the offices below are the place to confirm what applies to you. The Florida Department of Revenue says mowing, blowing, weed eating, edging and related services by a lawn care business are not subject to sales tax, and that planting trees, bushes and flowers is treated as a real property contract. Check with the department about how that applies to your work.

The Polk County Tax Collector says all individuals or firms doing business in Polk County need a county local business tax receipt, with renewals due by September 30 each year, and that proof of a state license may be requested where the state requires one. A business inside a city may have to ask the city about its own receipt. The state agriculture department says anyone applying pesticides, including weed-and-feed products, needs state certification, and its limited landscape maintenance certificate does not cover lawns or turfgrass. Mowing alone is a different matter from treatments, but ask these offices directly about licensing before you start.

Common pricing mistakes

Housecall Pro lists these mistakes: underestimating labor time, including trimming, travel between sections and cleanup; ignoring equipment wear; not charging for overgrowth or first cuts; skipping travel fees; applying a fixed increase for less frequent visits instead of charging for the extra time; underinsuring the business; and not raising prices every year.

A few follow from that list. Matching the lowest price in the neighborhood without knowing your own costs is a way to work hard for nothing. Quoting by looking at a satellite image misses fences, slopes and soft ground. A customer who wants a lower price should usually get a smaller scope, such as every other week, not the same job for less. Long grass takes longer, so a different price for the first cut is normal, as is a written note of what a visit does and does not cover.

A rough reading of the published figures

Our rough reading of the published figures, not a quote and not a Polk County price survey: for a quarter-acre lot on weekly service, the Housecall Pro ($45 to $85), Mammotion ($45 to $65) and Lawn by Season ($45 to $72 for a standard lot in its lot-size table, a little wider than its $45 to $70 statewide range) ranges all start at $45, and the narrowest top is $65. So customers in published sources pay about $45 to $65 a visit, and the hourly rates overlap at $32 to $60 an hour.

Those figures say what customers are quoted, not what you need. Use them as a check, then work out your own hourly cost from equipment, fuel, insurance and your time. Our related guide How Much Does Lawn Service Cost in Polk County? explains what customers are comparing when they collect quotes.

Sources

Written by the Polk County Landscaping editorial team. Rules and prices change, so check the linked agency before you act. Spotted a mistake? Send a correction.