Last updated October 31, 2026

How much to charge for landscaping work in 2026

The hourly rate a one-truck landscaper needs to charge, built from what landscapers actually earn, a price list for 13 common jobs with the arithmetic shown, what moves the number, and the mistakes that cost the most.

Short answer: a one-truck landscaping business that pays its owner what the median landscaping worker earns, carries normal overhead, and keeps a 20 percent margin needs about $65 an hour. To pay yourself like the top quarter of landscapers, charge about $70. Top ten percent, $75. Below $60 you are subsidizing the customer with your own wages. Every number on this page is built from published wage data and a model you can see, and the price list further down uses the $70 rate.

Landscaping has the lowest wage on this site and some of the most expensive equipment, which is the whole pricing problem in one sentence. A mower, a trailer, a truck that can pull it, a blower, a trimmer and the insurance to run them cost the same whether the person behind them earns $19 an hour or $27. The one-truck landscaper who prices labor at the wage is paying for the equipment out of their own pocket, which is why so many are busy and broke.

The trade splits cleanly into maintenance and projects. Maintenance, mowing and beds on a schedule, is priced per visit and sold as a season, and it is a route-density business: five lawns on one street are worth more than five lawns across town. Projects, sod, beds, drainage, retaining walls, patios, are priced like construction, by the unit and the hour, with materials delivered and a deposit up front. Keep the two on separate price sheets.

What landscapers earn, and what that means for your rate

The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 952,640 people working as landscaping and groundskeeping workers in its May 2025 survey and published what they are paid. That is the wage an employer pays an employee, which is the floor for what an owner-operator should pay themselves. A rate is built on top of it: the hidden cost of an hour of labor, the overhead of running a truck, the hours you cannot bill, and a margin. The model here uses a 22% labor load for payroll taxes, workers comp and the liability share, $30,000 a year of overhead for the truck, insurance, phone, software, tools and licenses, 1,100 billable hours a year, and a 20% margin. Change any input and the rate moves; the hourly rate calculator runs it with your numbers.

If you pay yourself like the	BLS wage	Loaded	Overhead per hour	Rate to charge
Bottom quarter	$17	$21	$27	$60
Median	$19	$23	$27	$65
Top quarter	$23	$27	$27	$70
Top ten percent	$27	$33	$27	$75

Rate = (wage × 1.22 + $30,000 ÷ 1,100) ÷ (1 − 0.2), rounded to $5. Wages: BLS OEWS May 2025, landscaping and groundskeeping workers, national.

The $30,000 overhead is a truck, trailer, a commercial mower and handhelds, fuel, insurance and dump fees. A crew of two or three multiplies the labor line, and the model rate is per person. Tree work is its own occupation with a higher wage and much higher insurance; the tree-service guide covers it separately, and the second BLS row above is there so the difference is visible.

A landscaping price list, with the math

Flat prices for the jobs landscapers quote most, built the same way every time: hours at the $70 rate, plus materials at cost with a 30 percent markup, rounded to $5. The hours and material costs are example inputs for a typical job in a typical market, stated so you can swap in your own. A job with a crew of two doubles the labor line. Maintenance prices are per visit for a typical suburban lot of about a quarter acre. Project prices are per unit with materials delivered within normal range. Crew labor is shown as total person-hours.

Job	Labor	Materials at cost	Price	What it assumes
Mow, trim and blow, quarter-acre lot, per visit	0.75 h	$3	$55	Weekly or biweekly route; one person
Mow, trim and blow, half-acre lot, per visit	1.25 h	$5	$95	Route pricing
Spring or fall cleanup, quarter-acre	5 h	$40	$400	Leaves, beds cut back, haul-away
Mulch, per cubic yard installed	1 h	$42	$125	Bed edged, mulch delivered, spread 3 in.
Shrub trimming, per hour	1 h	none	$70	Hand and power trimming, cleanup
Sod installation, per 100 sq ft	1.25 h	$55	$160	Old turf removed, graded, sod laid and rolled
Plant a 5-gallon shrub, each	0.5 h	$35	$80	Plant supplied, hole, amend, mulch
Plant a 15-gallon tree, each	1.5 h	$140	$285	Staked and mulched
Install a 4-inch French drain, per linear foot	0.35 h	$7	$35	Trench, fabric, gravel, perforated pipe, backfill
Install landscape edging, per linear foot	0.08 h	$3	$10	Steel or heavy plastic
Drip irrigation for beds, per 100 linear feet	2.5 h	$95	$300	Tubing, emitters, tie to existing valve
Gravel path, per 100 sq ft	3 h	$110	$355	Excavate 4 in., fabric, base and gravel
Retaining wall, block, per square face foot	0.4 h	$14	$45	Up to 3 ft, gravel base, drainage; engineered walls extra

Price = hours × $70 + materials × 1.3. Trip or diagnostic fees, permits and disposal are extra lines.

This is a sample. The free price book builder prices the full landscaping book, 45 jobs, with your own wage, overhead and margin, and gives you the PDF for the truck and the spreadsheet that keeps the formulas.

What moves the price

Route density. A lawn ten minutes from the last one costs ten minutes of a crew and a truck. Price far-away lawns higher or do not take them.
Haul-away. Dump fees are real and rising. Every cleanup, trim and tear-out bid carries a haul line or you are paying the landfill yourself.
Access. A backyard with a 36-inch gate means a walk-behind mower and wheelbarrows instead of the stander and the skid steer. Walk the property before quoting a project.
Materials delivered. Mulch, sod, stone and plants are priced delivered, with the delivery fee on the bid, and the deposit covers them.
Season and weather. A rainy spring takes a fifth of your billable days. The rate has to carry them; the model's 1,100 hours is optimistic for a northern landscaper.

Hourly, flat rate, or by the unit

Per visit for maintenance, sold as a season with a set number of visits, billed monthly. The per-visit price is built from the minutes on site at your crew rate, plus the drive, plus fuel and dump. Every lawn on the route has a number and a customer who knows it.

By the unit for projects: per yard of mulch, per hundred square feet of sod, per foot of drain or edging, per face foot of wall. Build each unit price from hours and materials, then write the job as scope lines with quantities. Hourly only for pruning and cleanups where the amount of work is unknowable until you are standing in it, with a day rate for a crew.

A worked landscaping bid

A front-yard refresh: edge and mulch 600 square feet of beds, plant eight 5-gallon shrubs and two 15-gallon trees, replace 400 square feet of dead turf with sod. Mulch: about 6 yards at one hour and $42 each. Shrubs: 8 at a half hour and $35. Trees: 2 at 1.5 hours and $140. Sod: 4 units of 100 square feet at 1.25 hours and $55. Labor total about 20 person-hours at the top-quarter rate from the table, a crew of two for a day and a bit. Materials at cost, marked up 30 percent, delivery fee as a line. Haul-away of the old turf as a line. Half down for the plants and sod, balance on completion.

Most markets see $3,000 to $4,500 for this job, and the bid with quantities on every line wins it against the one that says "landscaping, $3,200." The sample sod installation estimate and the mulch and soil calculator cover the pieces.

The pricing mistakes that cost the most

Pricing lawns from what the neighbor pays instead of from the minutes on site times your crew rate plus the drive.
No haul line, so the dump fee comes out of your wages on every cleanup.
Quoting a project before seeing the gate width and the slope.
A season sold at last year's price with fuel and dump fees up. Reprice every spring, and tell customers in February.

Writing the price into a bid that gets signed

The number is half the job. The other half is a bid the customer can say yes to from their phone: the scope in lines, one price, the deposit and payment terms, the warranty, a date it expires, and a signature. The free landscaping estimate template is laid out that way in PDF, Word and Excel, and How to bid landscaping jobs covers the scope lines that keep you out of arguments. If you want the typing done for you, BidWriter Pro turns your notes into a clean bid your customer signs on their phone, with the deposit paid by card. $29 a month, 30 days free.

Sources and method

Wages: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, Landscaping and groundskeeping workers, national percentile hourly wages and employment.
Also: Tree trimmers and pruners, median $25 an hour, 55,160 employed.
Rate model: labor load 1.22, overhead $30,000 a year, 1,100 billable hours, 20% margin. Hours and material costs in the price list are example inputs, not survey data. Prices are examples, not advice for your market.

Questions contractors ask

How much do landscapers charge per hour in 2026?

Built from BLS wages, a one-truck landscaper paying themselves the median wage needs about $65 an hour per person and $70 to earn like the top quarter of the trade, with the equipment carried in overhead. Most landscapers quote per visit or per unit rather than by the hour.

How much should I charge to mow a lawn?

Build it from minutes on site at your crew rate plus the drive, fuel and a margin. A quarter-acre lot on a weekly route commonly lands $45 to $75 per visit; half-acre $70 to $110.

How much should I charge for mulch installed?

Per cubic yard, delivered and spread, about an hour of labor plus the mulch at cost with markup: $90 to $140 a yard installed is common, with bed edging as its own line.

Should I charge a fuel surcharge?

Build fuel into the per-visit price instead and reprice each season. A surcharge line annoys customers; a price that already carries it does not.

How do I price a landscaping project versus maintenance?

Maintenance per visit, sold as a season. Projects by the unit with quantities on each scope line, materials delivered, a deposit that covers plants and materials, balance on completion.

Write a landscaping bid from your notes

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