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Hello and welcome to the Green Industry Podcast, your go to guide for building a more profitable and thriving lawn care and landscaping business. Your host, Paul Jamison is the author of five best selling books including Cut that Grass and make that Cash and his latest, Level up youp Money, all available on Amazon and Audible. Now get ready for more expert insights and practical strategies to boost your business and level up your life. Here's Paul Jameson. Welcome back to the show. Today we're going to talk about pricing and what the legitimate companies out there are charging this day and age and why you're probably underquoting and how to get your prices up to where they should be. That's what we're gonna chat about on today's program. I'm Paul Jamison. I started my first lawn business in 2011. Back then I didn't know diddly squad about business, definitely not about the insider information in the lawn care business. Meaning what are people charging per yard of mulch installed? What are they charging per bale of pine straw installed? Were they charging per mo edge trim, blow and on specialty services like tree pruning and tree removal and flowers and fert and squirt. All of those things I did not understand in the early years of my business. And as mistakes were made and the numbers weren't working, meaning I had too much month left or yeah, too much month left at the end of the money. Meaning where's all the money and I still have all these bills. I quickly realized. Actually it wasn't so quickly. It took years. But I realized that my prices were too low because when you Run a lawn care business, really any business in home services. But I familiar with lawn care and landscaping. You have big costs, right? You have your labor cost, which is more than $30 per hour. Now when you calculate your employees wages, the taxes that you're paying on them, the insurance, the benefits, all of that stuff, if you add it all up per employee per hour, the average for the legitimate lawn care companies, landscaping companies, it's 30 to 4, probably 30 to $40 per hour. I mean some companies even probably $45 per hour when they really got premium guys. Then you got all your trucks, your mowers, your fuel, your equipment, your fur. You know, you have to actually buy the fertilizer, the mulch, the pine straw, the plants. All of this stuff costs money. And so if you're under quoting, it's, it's absolutely disastrous. So we're going to talk about today what I have collected from different markets of what folks are charging. I'm familiar with the Atlanta market and the Tampa market in a little bit of some of the other markets, but I have a lot of friends in this industry and I ask a lot of questions like, hey, what do you guys charge in per bale of pine straw installed? What are you guys charging per yard of mulch installed? What do you charge them per maintenance? And I feel like I have enough of a scope of what's going on out there in the different markets because folks in Mississippi and Arkansas, they charge a lot less than folks in, you know, places like New York City or metro New York City and, and, and, and metro Los Angeles. And there's just, there's different markets that have different pricing. So we're going to talk about it on today's program. Before you set your prices, I think it's important that you don't do any guessing, but that you do, you do math. So you know what your labor is. You know, obviously if you have employees, you know what they cost you per hour. You know what your yards of mulch are for you to purchase and have delivered. You know what the pine straw costs are for you for long needle pine straw in your neck of the woods. You, you know, obviously fuel fluctuates, but you know approximately how much it costs to fill up your trucks every week, every month. You know your overhead, you know your jobber subscription if you have a CRM, your CallRail subscription if you have CallRail, you, your bookkeeping if you're using the landscaping bookkeeper. All of these are monthly cost and there's, there's more overhead than that. If you have a storage unit, you have that every month. And the list goes on and on. So, you know, you know all of those numbers. And if you're tr. And then you're, you know, when I say labor, I'm talking about you too. You're paying yourself as a laborer in your business. And then on top of all of that, if you're trying to be 20% profitable, you need your prices to bring in enough money to pay everything I just mentioned, which I didn't even mention, everything that you could spend on your business, but your labor, your materials, your equipment, your fuel, your overhead, all. All of the things I, you know, mentioned, then you need profit on top of that. So when you come to your pricing, you need to know these numbers. And it's also good to actually know the market numbers. Like, what are the companies in your city that have been around for at least, you know, five to 10 years that, that are legitimate businesses? What are they charging? So you take that information along with knowing your numbers, and then every year you need to. An annual increase of your numbers, a cost adjustment for your business because inflation and everything else is going up. And so when you. You kind of calculate all of those numbers, then you can have more confidence to quote the correct pricing. So we're gonna go through weekly lawn maintenance, mulch, pine straw, flowers, landscape jobs, all. All of this. And I'm just gonna kind of share with you what I know, and I hope it helps you, but really dial in and know your numbers. Just this morning, I was looking at my numbers of my business expenses, of my expenditures, of what's been going out of my accounts, and my revenue of what's been coming in my accounts. And like, you want to know your numbers, so let's get started. I hope this will be helpful. What are folks out there charging for weekly lawn maintenance? Mowing, edging, blowing, you know, simple basic maintenance. And Jonathan Patosnik, a mentor of mine, a friend of mine who I've learned so much for or from, he has just a wealth of knowledge. He talks about how you're in the business of selling time. Because ultimately, if you have a small yard or a medium yard or a large yard, you got to calculate how much time is it going to take you to mo edge and blow that property. So I consider small yards anything, you know, under probably 5,000 square feet, those are small yards. And the average man hour rate, I think, and this is average. So don't. I mean, you can name me them if you want. I. The information is valuable to Me when you guys let me know your prices and your, your neck of the woods because it helps me to know, you know, what different markets are charging. But I would say on average it's $75 per man hour in 20, 26. So if a yard takes you 7, 1 hour, 60 minutes for one person, let's just say you're out there working by yourself, that would be a $75 yard. Or if it takes two people 30 minutes, that would be a $75 yard. Now it's very hard to get $75 for a small yard. I haven't seen that happen. I mean, maybe you have one person that would do it. But, but most small yards, like 5,000, 6,000 square foot yard, three, you know, three, 4,000, those little, small, little yards, probably the average is somewhere between 45 to $65. I don't think you should ever be under $45 for a yard. And this is 20, 26 pricing. But even if it's like the smallest one on your route, it's just a little 4,000 square foot a yard, it don't take you guys much at all to, you mow it real quick, you edge it, you blow it, you're out of there quick. You know, especially if you got two or three guys, I would still have a minimum on those smaller yards of 45 bucks. Now if it takes you a little bit longer than, you know, 55 bucks, 65 bucks, but that's, that's kind of the average for a small yard. Then you get to what most yards are, are medium sized yards. Those 6,000 to 12,000 square foot yards, 10,000 square foot yards. I mean those are bigger yards, bigger properties. That's where guys are charging $75, $85. Because it, it takes you, if you got two guys, even if you have a 60 inch mower, you know, if it's taking you guys a half hour with two guys, well, that's a $75 yard. That's an $85 yard. It might, might take you a little, you know, might take you 40 minutes. You know, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're looking at more. And then when you have larger yards are taking you even longer. I mean you're charging $150 per maintenance or more. So again, you're in the business of selling time. Just look at the yard. Know how long is it going to take you to do the yard? And if you calculate an average man hour of $75, that should be kind of a ballpark, but kind of a rule of thumb is I wouldn't ever do a yard for under $45. Like the small quick yards that are easy and then it just goes up from there. Medium yards, maybe you're charging $85 a pop. Larger yards, $150 plus a pop. So on average here in Tampa, I have a lot, you know, I might meet a lot of people and I ask them, hey, what do you, what do you pay your yard guy? And it's somewhere around, you know, $350 a month. You know, $300 a month. It's, it's essentially the Tampa market. I would say $60 to $95 per visit, somewhere in that ballpark. And Atlanta is probably a little bit more than that. Atlanta is a little bit different than Tampa. So average is probably like $65 per cut. But again, these are smaller to medium sized yards. So let's, let's go on the mulch. So your, your, your maintenance, okay, let's just say you're charging 75 on average. You're charging $75 per per maintenance for the mo edge blow. Well, from there, you want to upsell all your customers either mulch or pine straw in their garden beds. This looks good. It helps prevent weeds because it blocks the sunlight from hitting the soil in the garden beds and causing the weeds to grow. So the, you know, the more mulch or pine straw you have, the COVID They call it ground cover for a reason. It's covering the ground, it's blocking the sun from getting those weeds going. How much should you charge for that? Now, I have heard, I have seen, I have experienced the spectrum on this. I would say the average for a yard of mulch installed in 20, 26 is $100. Now, I know folks that charge $80 per yard installed. I was telling them, I was like, hey, I think you could probably get more. And they're like, there's no way. I think that's so much. And I was like, well, I mean, I honestly think you could get more. But they're, they're buying it at $35 a yard. And they're like, I'm more than doubling it, Paul. And I was like, I'm telling you, I know people that are charging, you know, $130 a yard and getting it, and they're probably buying it for $35 a yard as well. So with mulch, I would always include edging. So I would say, hey, when we're going to do your mulch, going to Come out. We're going to clear all the weeds out of the beds first. Like if you got any weeds in there. And be careful if you're spraying Roundup glyphosate, be careful you don't get any of that on the plants because your mulch job, if you, if you hurt their plants could, could cost you money because you'd have to replace those. So I know a lot of people make bank on their, their refresh mulch jobs because they're charging 100, 110, 120, $130 per yard install with a five, you know, five yards minimum. Like if someone's like, yeah, I just need a couple yards of mulch, I mean I would have a minimum. Hey, we, we only five yards minimum. And then so, so you're like, well, I only need three yards. Well, you still have to pay the price for five yards. You know, I'd be 500 bucks minimum if you're charging a hundred dollars a yard. So, so, but anyway, take a shovel and give. There's a good guy to follow on Instagram named Paul Kamara. He has the best lawn edges. He has this old school shovel and he's, he makes them real fresh. But you edge around the garden beds and then you put the mulch in there and you make it look really nice. That's a great upsell. So this is where we make money on the mulch, on the pine straw. The, the, the lawn mowing is just to get your foot in the door so that you can upsell the mulch and the pine straw. We're going to take a quick break and hear from today's show sponsors. And coming up, we'll talk about how to price pine straw per bale installed and other services like tree services, flowers and like bigger landscaping jobs where you're digging holes and planting bushes and trees and all that kind of stuff. We'll cover that. Coming right up. Did you know that 66% of home service businesses struggle to convert leads into book jobs throughout 2026? Responsiveness and customer experience will be more crucial than ever for your home services business. 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Are you tired of struggling to explain price increases to your clients? Look no further. The Green Industry podcast has got you covered with our price increase letter template. Simply download, customize and effectively communicate your price adjustments with ease. Visit greenindustrypodcast.com today and take control of your pricing strategy. Alrighty. So we've talked about weekly maintenances and it varies depending on the size of the yard because you're selling your time. So I would definitely not sell your time for anything less than $75 per man hour in 2026. And if you can get more, get more. Of course, I just have an audience from Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, you know, Alabama, and a lot of people listen in those areas. But there's other folks that listen in California and New York where just the cost of living and the, everything's more expensive in those markets. So anyway, I hope I'm being clear. Earn as much as you can. I'm just giving you the averages. And when you're quoting your weekly maintenance, if you, if you run the math, you want to make sure you're at least making $75 per man hour per maintenance. So if it's a short, little, small little yard, you're only charging, you know, $50. But you're only there for like a few minutes. I mean, you're there, you boom, you unload the trailer, you get the mower, you go real quick, you mow it, yeah, you blow it, you're out of there and you're still charging $50. That's good. But then you have a, you have a bigger yard, you're there a little longer, you're charging $100. So anyway, you can run the math to figure out if it's two man crew takes you guys 30 minutes, you take 30 minutes multiplied by the two crews, that equals one hour. One man hour, that should be a $75 yard. Now if it takes your crew two hours, so it's two guys and it takes them one hour, which would be equal a two hour man hours. Because two guys at one hour 60 minutes equals two man hours. What would you charge for two man hours? Or the industry average would be $150 for that maintenance. So if you guys get there at 10am, you clock in, you unload your trailer, one guy starts mowing, the other guy starts edging, and then so on and so forth. And you, whoever gets done first blows everything off, you load back up the trailer, you get back in your car, boom, it's 11:00am but you have two guys. So that's one hour multiplied by two guys equals two man hours. You should be making at least $150 on that property. Hope this is helping. Now that's just to get you a foot in the door so you can upsell and what do they call it, Mr. Producer, the fancy term for upselling. You don't know? I think there's a fancier word for saying upsell. It'll probably come to me. Anyway. Upsell will work. There you go. Up upsell. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't go to business school like in college. I just, I just learned all this stuff in real life. But I. My friend Rich and shout out to Rich if you're listening and listens to the podcast. He was explaining to me that he was working at the time for a company that was doing at the time $16 million. They're doing more now. He doesn't work for that company anymore. He's back to running his own business. But he's like, we would do multiple millions of dollars in lawn mowing at a razor thin profit margin, intentionally barely making money on the mowing. Like, if you really crunch all the numbers for how much they're paying all the labors and for the mowers and the repairs on the mowers and the new blades for the mowers and the fuel and all of that stuff. And then how much the mowing division is actually making. It's almost like breaking even. However, because they were there mowing, they were basically in, in the front of the line to have the best opportunity to sell that specific customer the mulch, the pine straw, the tree pruning, the flowers, and anything else landscaping related. They, they basically cover, you know, fertilizer, weed control. They did it all one stop shop. So the mowing wasn't the money maker. The mowing was to basically get the positioning because you're now, you know, the yard guy. And you just start marketing now to the company. Pardon me? You start marketing to the customer. Start marketing to that customer. Hey, miss. Mrs. Smith, I know we mow your yard, but we also would love to do your mulch. And, you know, I calculated you need 7 yards of mulch anyway. We charge. We charge $100 per yard of mulch. So it'd be $700. And with the delivery fee, some. Some companies always charge a delivery fee, and then other companies, they will do, if you like, for pine straw, we'll say if you're going to order more than 20 bales of pine straw, they'll waive the delivery fee. So if it's a small amount of pine straw or small amount of mulch, then you charge a delivery fee. $100 delivery fee. But if they're going to get a whole lot of mulch or a whole lot of pine straw, I know a lot of the bigger companies will waive the delivery fee just because they're making so much money anyway. And it kind of makes the customer feel like, oh, free delivery, you know? But if it's just a small little amount of mulch, I would charge a delivery fee for sure. Same with the pine straw. But threshold for pine straw is kind of like 20 bales. They're going to get more than that. You can just say, hey, well, we'll. We'll give you free delivery. Okay, let me get back to my notes here, because I have a very hard stop. And I have a whole bunch of information I think is valuable to someone out there who's like, man, I wish someone would have told me this sooner. All right, so the mulch we talked about, 100 yards per man per 100 yards per yard of mulch installed is kind of the average. If you can get 110, 120, and $130 like some of these guys say they get, go for it, baby. Why not try it? See what your customer says. Just telling you the averages. Yeah, the average is probably 90 to 100 pine straw. So this one's a little tricky because not every bale is the same like some bales are. They call it slash. It's just kind of like shorter bales of pine straw. And then they got other ones. It's called long needle. That's more longer and looks better. And so I like to find the. The bales of pine straw that look the best treat. Treat people the way you want to be treated. If it was your house and you were getting pine straw put in, why don't you want it to look nice, right? Look really fresh and good. So what folks charge per bale of pine straw in 2026. I would probably say on average it's probably in the ballpark of like $12 per bale installed. There's companies that charge $10 per bail. I honestly think you should probably charge more. If you can get more than 12, by all means go for it. But that's kind of the average in Atlanta market and elsewhere. And again, I know guys that charge $10 per bale of pine straw installed and, and seem happy, but you can get more, get more. And I literally know folks are getting $12 per bail installed and customers are paying it. So why not? If these bigger companies are successfully doing that, why not you other services? So rule of thumb, and I actually did learn this in business, so pardon me, I didn't go to business school at like when I went to college, but I took classes that the, the University of Georgia put on and I met a lot of really successful people there that worked. They were employees, they weren't business owners. I did meet other business owners there for sure, but a lot of, a lot of these bigger companies would send their top tier employees to these classes. And so I would be sitting there and talking to folks who worked for the biggest companies and we'd be chatting. And the rule of thumb that many of them used on, on landscaping installs, planting flowers, stuff like that is they would literally know at the nursery how much it cost. So if a customer says we want, we want, you know, five plants and these flats of flowers and this, this tree they, they'd know at the nursery, okay, well I can buy those plants for this amount, that tree for this amount and these flowers, this amount per flat. Like they'll though they'd know exactly. Okay, our material cost would be this. And then all they would do is they would multiply that by three. So if they're, if they're, material cost is $1,000, they would literally just multiply it by three and then they charge a customer $3,000. And then that and, and that's like how they ran their math. I'm talking, these are big companies, Big, big companies. And that's all, that's all it was. Now they would charge a design fee like, like, say like $200 just for them to go out and, and give you the quote. And that's non refundable. So if you're like, hey, we're not gonna, we're not gonna go with you to do the landscape install. You'd still get your 200 bucks for your time to go out there. And some people charge A lot more than that. But, but anyway, that was what they told me, and it kind of made sense. And it works. You multiply however much your material cost on landscaping jobs, on flower jobs, by three. So that's, that's one way to do it. And then I know other companies that they're like, well, we always, you know, well, anyway, I don't, I don't want to confuse you. I think that's. If you're just starting out in the industry, you go down to your nursery, you know, your customer wants some lower pendulums or, or they want a specific tree. They want, they want five of these arborvitae trees or whatever. You just go down to the nursery, find out what size gallon would fit dimensionally in the customer's yard. Keep in mind, this stuff grows, right? It's gonna grow most of the stuff. Find out how big it's gonna grow, make sure everything's spaced out correctly, and then just multiply it by three. That's a, That's a, That's a good place to get started. And again, this is all for entertainment and educational purposes only. When it comes to pricing, this is so, so severely important that you get this right. So do as much research as you can on your market. What the companies that are successful in your market, what they're charging for these services. Where you get into big money is the tree pruning and the tree services. Now, you need certain insurances and experience to get into that. But I have a friend, he chops down trees all day long and charges 600 bucks to, you know, thousand bucks, 1500 bucks. If it's a real big tree all day long, it makes absolute bank, absolute bank. You know, come, come cut down a tree. Okay, I'll be 650 bucks. And they go out and they chop, you know, cut the tree down and get rid of it. You know, get. Roll it off, and then they'll do multiples of those a day. And I mean, those small little trees are charging like 400 bucks. You know, medium trees, you know, 650, 700 bucks. And then big trees, literally thousand dollars, 1500 dollars. And that stuff adds up fast. Now, again, you need certain insurances and experience, for sure. You've probably seen videos online where people chop a tree down and it lands on someone's house. And you could destroy your financial life by, by, by messing with trees without experience and without proper insurances. So if you're going to get into tree work, tree services, make sure that you have all the understanding of power, you know, how to work around power lines and tight access to areas and, and, and, and, and have all your I's dotted and t's crossed with the proper insurances that you need for trees and all of that stuff. And, and the guys that I know that work in trees, like, they'll have all that stuff printed out and, and give it to the customer, hey, here's my insurance, here's my credit. Like, all of that stuff, it's, it's, it's a very dangerous thing to get involved with, but it's big money. What else is big money is fertilization and weed control. I have a friend, Jason Creel, if you guys need any help with your fertilization and weed control knowledge, follow Jason Creole. He, he, he can teach you on how to, how to do all of that. And Kevin Salters is another guy, but from what I see in Atlanta and, and now in Florida, I mean, per application, you know, it's like 90 bucks, 100 bucks, 110 bucks, 120 bucks per application. And, and the companies do that, you know, six, seven, eight times a year. And again, I, I, I could have Jason or Kevin on the show to talk about applications and what you do. Round one, round two, round three, round four, round five, round six, round seven, and in some cases, round eight in other cases. And what you charge per, you know, thousand square foot and all of that stuff is really math. But just from talking to my friends that have Burton squirt companies come into their house, oh, yes, you know, it's 95 bucks a pop, like, and I just pay for the year and they give me a discount, and it's like, no big deal. But if you're the one running that fertilizer weed control company, it is a big deal. You're making a lot of money if you know what you're doing. And then you can sell that business for real big money one day. So I'll defer to Jason Krill and Kevin Salters on the fertilizer and weed control services, but it's a big market. Just think about if you're charging $95 per application, it's good money, or, or more $120 if it's a bigger property. And again, it's all based on square foot, so you just kind of have to know how many square feet your customer has, what you're applying. And, and you, you, you run the, you run the math on all of that. But I hope this has been helpful. Weekly lawn maintenance. Make sure you're not earning anything less than 75 per man hour. And if you can get more, go get more baby mulch. I would probably say, you know, $100 per yard of mulch installed in 2026 is the going rate. If you can get more, go get more pine straw. Probably $12 per man hour. And that's pretty, pretty good. You can get more, get more tree pruning, tree services. Get licensed, get insured, get, get experience. Get all of that under your belt. But man, my friends that do that make absolute big money landscape installs. Figure out your material cost and multiply that by three. And last but not least, raise your prices this year. Whatever you're charging your customers, just let them know, hey, our fuel costs are rising, our labor cost is exploding. It costs more this year to find good employees, and we have to adjust our rates this year by 8%. That's like the industry average. If you can wanna raise it by more, raise it by more. But just let them know, hey, effective, whatever date, we're, we're raising our prices. And I, I have a price increase letter template that is a plug and play template that you can use to let your customers know that you're raising the prices. You literally. Um, the website will be in Today's show notes depauljamison.com. you download the template there, you email it to your customer. You just let them know, hey, your price is raising 8% this year. I know last year we were charging you this, but this year we're charging you that. Let me run some math. And 8% is just the industry average. If you want to raise your prices by more, by all means. So by all means do it. So if you're charging $70 last year per maintenance, you raise it by 8%. That's $5 and 60 cents. So that would be that, right? Yeah, so that would be this year, your rate, $75 and 60 cents per maintenance. So, and I like, I, I like irregular numbers. I, I don't like when people charge 45, 55, 65, 75, 85, 95 per maintenance. I like when it's like $76 per maintenance. Or if you want to round up 75.6, I would just round it up to $76. Because now the customer is like, oh, $76 for maintenance. Like, this guy Russ really knows math. Like, there must be a lot of rhyme or reason behind his numbers. And so that's one other tip I learned from my mentor back in the day. He, you know, he was like $81 per maintenance or, you know, $92 for maintenance. He'd always have his numbers. Really strange to. To psych. I mean, he did know his numbers, but psychologically it made the customer think, oh, well, you know, they, they. They obviously know what they're doing over there because it's not like a round number or a number that ends in five, like what, what most folks do. So that's just a little tip. And as always, know your numbers, know what you're paying for your labor, know what you're paying for, all of your overhead, because it adds up. Jobber is a wonderful CRM, but it adds up. The landscaping bookkeeper is a wonderful service that does my bookkeeping, but I gotta pay them every month. And yes, I pay them every month. I promote them on the podcast, but that's separate from me actually being a customer. I have to pay every single month. This stuff adds up. Your storage unit. If you have a storage unit where you keep all your equipment, that adds up. Your fuel that you put in your truck, that adds up. The string you get for your string trimmer, that adds up. The new blades you get for your lawnmower, that adds up. Oh, yeah, your lawnmower, that adds up. The repairs on your lawnmower, that adds up. You want me to keep going? Your black. Your backpack blower, that adds up, right? Your air filter, your. Your fuel filter, the. The oil filter, the. All the little things that keep these things running, that adds up. The string trimmer, the hedge trimmer, the chainsaw, all that adds up. The, the 50 to 1 mix oil for. For all your power equipment, that stuff adds up. If you're in the battery game, shout outs to Crest Commercial, they're who we recommend, right? The batteries, the equipment, that stuff adds up. So you have to really know your numbers. How much is your labor? Labors? How much is all your fuel, your equipment, how much are you paying for your fertilizer, your mulch, your pine straw, your plants? All these numbers are what we should really be paying attention to and making sure that we're profitable after we pay everything to run our business and we pay ourselves a fair wage as the owner, that after all of that said and done, we have profit. We're in the black. We're profitable, baby. So I hope this has helped. I know a lot of people are all quiet and secretive about their pricing. And what I shared with you today is just the information that I collected. If you can earn more than the average is being an above average person, go get it, baby. I'm just sharing with you what I kind of hear when I ask people, you know, at equip, I'm like, hey, I'm just curious. In your neck of the woods, what are you guys getting per bale of pine straw? What are you guys getting per yard of mulch? You. You know, other people might talk about other things, but I'm. I'm curious. What are you. What are y' all charging out there? And I just, I've collected a lot of information over the years, and I'm happy to share it with you if it helps you. And I'm also very, very happy to see our price increase letter. How much money that's made you guys, it's just. It's just mind blowing to me. We've had hundreds of people send out the price increase letter to hundreds of customers and successfully raised their prices. And it's just, if there is, like, a mathematical way we could calculate how many millions of dollars that price increase letter has helped or, you know, put. Put money back into people's pockets, it's. It's fantastic. So I say all of that to say, raise your prices this year. If you charge last year, whatever your price was for, for weekly maintenance, at least raise it by 8% this year. And get in the habit of doing that every single year because it trains. Hey, Tony's gonna be raising our prices again, probably 8% like he does every year. And then, yeah, you email them the price increase letter and you just let them know, yep, we're adjusting our rates by 8% again this year. Starting fill in the date. This is gonna be our new price. And again, our price increase letter template explains all of that in concise, straightforward detail. So I hope this has helped, been helpful to you. Stop guessing. Press price for profit this year and get after it. So, aky the sun shines again. This was all for entertainment and educational purposes only. I. I'm hesitant sometimes to share numbers, but I'm just sharing with you the information of the industry averages so you can take that information and do with it what you think works best for your business. And I know if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably not average. You're probably above average. So don't be afraid to charge above average pricing. If you feel like you can serve your customer at the highest level, then you can probably even charge more than the average guy just, just throwing that out there. But at the end of the day, let's get out there and serve our customers with excellence and make as much money as we can. Thanks for listening. Hope to catch you on the next episode. PE. Hey, it's Marty, producer of the Green Industry Podcast. This episode is over, but check the episode notes for links to products and services that you heard about during the episode. And thanks for listening. I'm Kiana and I leveled up my business with Shopify. Once I figured out that Shopify was a thing, I never turned back. I can create a site with my eyes closed. Shopify thinks ahead of us, you know, and it thinks about the customer more than anything. Every day I'm thinking about some other new business, but Shopify is doing it to me because it's so easy to use. It's like I can't stop. I'm addicted to Start your free trial@shopify.com at VRBO, we understand that even the best of plans sometimes need a little support. So we plan for the plot twists. Every booking is automatically backed by our VRBO Care Guarantee, giving you confidence from the very start. Whenever you need help, it's ready before your stay, through the moments in between, and after your trip. Because a great trip starts with peace of mind and maybe a good playlist. 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Episode: How to Price Your Lawn Care Services Profitably in 2026 (Avoid the Underpricing Trap)
Host: Paul Jamison
Date: March 18, 2026
In this episode, Paul Jamison dives deep into the essential topic of pricing lawn care and landscaping services profitably for 2026. He stresses the dangers of underpricing and offers up-to-date average rates, practical strategies, and actionable examples for correctly quoting routine maintenance, mulch, pine straw, landscape installations, and specialty services. Drawing from his own industry experience and insights from top industry peers across various markets, Paul equips listeners to confidently set prices that cover costs and earn a healthy profit—even encouraging annual price increases.
Paul underscores that successful, profitable pricing starts with meticulous understanding of your costs, market research, and an unapologetic commitment to profit. He encourages lawn care professionals to benchmark against industry averages, implement annual price increases, and treat every customer relationship as an opportunity for high-margin upsells. Don’t undercharge—“if you’re above average, charge above average.”
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“Press price for profit this year—and get after it, so long as the sun shines again!” – Paul Jamison