Lawn mowing price calculator

How to price lawn mowing

Most lawn care businesses charge a flat price per visit, then sell the season on top: cleanups in spring and fall, aeration, overseeding, fertilizer and hedges. The easy mistake is pricing every lawn the same, or by "about what the last guy charged". Lawns differ in size, edges, slopes and obstacles, and your mower's speed changes everything. This calculator builds the price from the minutes the lawn really takes.

The formula

Mowing time depends on the mower. The defaults are 3.5 person-minutes per 1,000 sq ft for a 21-inch push mower, 1.6 for a 36–48 inch walk-behind, 1.0 for a stand-on and 0.9 for a zero-turn. Every visit also includes string trimming (1.2 min per 1,000 sq ft), blowing hard surfaces clean (0.6), edging (3.5 min per 100 linear ft) and 6 minutes of setup. Complexity multiplies it all: open and flat 0.85×, average 1.0×, complex or hilly 1.3×.

Worked example

The defaults above are the sample lawn from our Lawn Care kit: a 14,500 sq ft lot with a 2,200 sq ft house, 1,100 sq ft of hardscape and 900 sq ft of beds, leaving 10,300 sq ft of lawn and 180 feet of edging, cut weekly with a walk-behind. That's 47.3 person-minutes per visit. Labor at $28 an hour (the $25 wage plus 12% burden) is $22.08; the mower, handheld equipment, a 5-mile trip and overhead bring it to $35.14. At a 30% margin that's $50.20, rounded up to $55 a visit. Over a 30-week season with spring and fall cleanups, aeration and two hedge trims, the season comes to $2,220: $277.50 a month over 8 payments, or $2,109 prepaid. The calculator reproduces the kit's numbers exactly.

Frequency, bagging and the minimum visit

Longer grass is slower to cut and leaves more clippings, so the mowing minutes go up by 10% every 10 days, 25% biweekly and 40% for a one-time or on-call cut. Bagging adds 40% to mowing time plus a $3 disposal cost. Small lawns still cost a stop, so a minimum price per visit ($45 by default) keeps them worthwhile. If a lot of your small lawns land on the minimum, that's working as intended.

Seasons and monthly plans

Visits per season are the season length in weeks × 7 ÷ days between visits: 30 weeks of weekly mowing is 30 visits. Seasonal services are each priced as their own trip, with their own setup, travel and overhead, from minutes and materials per 1,000 sq ft of lawn (or per linear foot of hedge, cubic yard of mulch or hour of weeding), and never below the service's minimum. The season total split into equal monthly payments smooths your cash flow over the slow months, and a small prepay discount brings money in up front.

Fertilizer and weed control

Most states and provinces require an applicator license to apply weed control or other pesticides for hire, and some also license fertilizer application. Some provinces (for example Ontario and Quebec) also restrict cosmetic pesticide use on lawns. This calculator prices an application from your own minutes and materials only; it gives no product rates. Check your local applicator licensing before you offer these services, and follow the product label.

Make the numbers yours

• Time a few lawns. Divide mowing minutes by the lawn's thousands of square feet to get your own speed for each mower.
• Measure from above. Lot size is on most county property records, and free satellite measuring tools work well for the house, driveway and beds.
• Price the stop, not the lawn. On a route, use the extra miles a stop adds, not the trip from home.
• Count the drive. The vehicle cost per mile defaults to the IRS 2026 business standard mileage rate (76¢ a mile from July 1, 2026; irs.gov). A truck and trailer can cost more.

This calculator is a pricing aid, not financial, legal or tax advice. The defaults aren't market research for your area, so check local rates and your own costs before you quote.