[johnny5dime]

hello everyone im from south dakota and me and my buddy started a law mowing company last year and made pretty good money so we thought we would start it back up earlier this year...(right now).


i was just wondering if theres pretty good money in lawn mowing if u get a good number of good paying people?

whats a good price for a acre?

should we add fertilizer to it for an extra price and how much extra?

should we add wead wacking for free?

[Stonehenge]

Is this a summertime gig for you and your buddy?

The question you ask are really ones you'll ultimately best answer yourselves. Is there good money in it? Some do well, but I've known several full service companies that have sold off their lawn maintenance because it was too much hassle for the money involved. The barrier to entry are too low - anyone with a lawn mower is your competition.

As for your pricing - you should have a handle on your own costs and know what you expect to make from the business, and those will be your guides to pricing. You'd know nothing about the business models of anyone else providing pricing info, so the prices they charge may be meaningless to your operation.

Re: fert - add the services you can legally add and charge for them.

And don't add anything for free, if you don't have to.

[AZTLANLC]

We decided long time ago that if we want to continue providing and making money offering lawn maintenance (that's how we call it mowing, trimming and blowing) we had to switch all our customers to a seasonal contract a set fee for the season, after doing so we lost many customers but those were the type that were making me loose money to begin with.
Now those every other week, my mower broke mow it today before 4pm, don't trim just mow it, don't even call us anymore and the ones we still have renew their contract every year at a pretty good rate, this season we lost 3 customers out of 80 one because they sold the house, one because he's going to a retirement home and the third the neighbor is going to do it for them (which I have a good feeling we'll get back in a couple of weeks).

If you keep with your venture please raise the bar for our industry not just mow the lawn and call yourself a lawn mowing company.
Learn your field and specially if you're thinking adding fertilizer become licensed.
Usually when someone calls and asks for prices over the phone goes like this.
Hi my name is Mr. smith
I have an acre lot how much would you charge to mow it.
My office staff: we would have to see your property in order to gve you a price for it due to the high cost of fuel we charge $20.00 for the quote but if we get the job we'll deduct it from your first bill, would you like to set up a time for us to stop by?
Can you just tell me about how much you think is going to cost.
Well mr. smith just to make sure we don't under price it would be $500.00 each time.
Some people get a little upset about this but honestly don't care and that would be my answer about how much to charge per acre.

[johnny5dime]

we charged about 20-60 dollars per yard depending on the thickness and the size of the yard last lear and got pretty good replies.

like a half hour to hour job we charged 30 bucks or so

2 hour job we charged 60 dollars... is this a pretty good rate for not fert just mowing and trimming?
we use a 200 dollar self pushed lawn mower with bag and a used bagged lawnmower

and btw were not even sure we do a really good job... we cut all the grass and the lines of the mowers wheels are pretty close to another... but how do you do a really good job?