Lawn Mowing Price Calculator

Pricing a lawn by guesswork usually means undercharging for the tricky ones. This calculator estimates how long a lawn will actually take — from its area, your mower’s cutting width and speed, and how many obstacles there are — then adds trimming, edging, clean-up and travel to give a price per visit at your own hourly rate, plus a per-square-foot rate and monthly and seasonal totals you can quote with confidence.

How the calculator works

Mowing time comes from how much ground your mower covers. A mower cutting 21 inches (1.75 feet) wide at 3 miles per hour covers 1.75 × 3 × 5,280 = 27,720 square feet an hour in theory. Real mowing is slower because of overlapping passes, turns and obstacles, so the calculator applies an efficiency factor: 80% for open lawns, 65% for typical gardens with trees and beds, and 50% for complicated or sloping ones. Trimming, edging, blowing and travel are added as separate minutes, and the total time is priced at your hourly rate plus direct costs.

Worked example

Weekly service over a 7-month season at 4.33 visits a month would come to about $195 a month and about $1,364 for the season. Change any input to match your own equipment and market.

Pricing methods compared

Costs to include

• Fuel or battery charging and equipment wear.
• Blades, oil, trimmer line and servicing.
• Green-waste disposal if you collect clippings.
• Vehicle costs and time driving between jobs.
• Insurance, licences and business registration where required.
• Taxes and time spent on quoting, invoicing and admin.

Measuring a lawn

1. Break the lawn into rectangles, triangles and circles.
2. Measure each with a tape or measuring wheel, or use an online satellite map to trace the area.
3. Rectangle = length × width; triangle = ½ × base × height; circle = 3.14 × radius².
4. Subtract beds, patios and buildings.
5. Add the pieces together and note the total on the customer’s file.

Extras and add-on services

• Edging along paths and driveways.
• Bagging and removing clippings.
• Leaf clean-up in autumn (often priced separately by the hour).
• Hedge trimming and weeding.
• Fertilising and aeration — check whether you need a licence to apply products in your area.

Adjusting for grass growth and season

Grass grows fastest in late spring and early summer and after rain, so weekly mowing then takes longer than the same lawn in late summer. Many businesses keep the same price all season and let fast and slow weeks balance out, while others add a surcharge when a lawn is skipped or has grown much longer than usual. Fortnightly customers often need more time per visit, so their per-visit price is usually higher than a weekly customer’s.

Commercial and larger properties

For large or commercial sites, time each area separately — open turf, slopes, verges and tight spaces around signs and fences — and use a zero-turn or wider mower setting for the open areas. Written contracts should state the frequency, what counts as a visit, and how weather cancellations are handled.

Checking your real hourly rate

The job log in the pack divides the price of each visit, minus costs, by the total time including travel. Reviewing it monthly quickly shows which customers are profitable and which are not — often the small lawns far from your other jobs. Raising the minimum charge or adjusting routes usually fixes the problem.

Quoting tips

• Visit the property before quoting a regular price.
• Put the price, frequency and what’s included in writing.
• Charge a first-cut fee for overgrown lawns.
• Review prices every season as fuel and costs change.
• Group customers by area to cut travel time.

Lawn care business templates

The optional pack includes a lawn service price sheet, a quote/estimate template, a customer schedule and route planner, an invoice template and an Excel job log that tracks time and revenue per customer so you can see which lawns are really profitable.

AI-assisted content

This calculator and guide were drafted with AI assistance and reviewed by Kedop. Figures are planning estimates, not market price data; set prices for your own area and costs.