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Is a Lawn Care Business Profitable?

Published on May 20, 2024

If you're thinking about getting into the industry, you’ve probably asked yourself “is a lawn care business profitable?”

Answer: YES. TONS OF MONEY.

… IF you do it right.

Growing a successful, million-dollar lawn care business can be challenging, but if you follow the right steps, you can potentially make MILLIONS in your lawn care business.

Use the knowledge and tools in this article to build a multi-million dollar lawn care business with WILD growth.

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Should You Start a Lawn Care Business?

There’s not a certain “type” of person who should start a lawn care business.

This industry is right for ANYONE who wants to start a lawn business, has the passion to grow it, and wants to make money.

Plus, if there are sub-par lawn companies in your area, you’ll have a better understanding of the question, “Is a lawn care business profitable?”

How to Make Money: Is a Lawn Care Business Profitable?

1. Start With Your BEST Services

A lot of times, businesses try to do too many things at once, ranging from offering services they aren’t trained to provide to massive discounts that bleed profits dry.

While the goal is to win new clients, these methods aren’t sustainable, and it's better to wait for the right clients to come along.

Ideally, you want to begin with 1-3 services, AND THEN expand. 

As simple as this might sound, many business owners are more desperate to find any clients than they are to find the right clients.

At the end of the day, your goal is to solve the question: is a lawn care business profitable?

Which means, specializing in profitable services you know—not being a jack-of-all-trades.

Pro Tip: How to Make New Clients LOVE You

When you’re first starting, THIS is a prime time to get referrals

So give it 110% on your first 4 visits to a new property. After that, you can dial it back to your usual 100%.

Remember, happy clients are more willing to refer you especially if you have a strong referral offer.

For instance, you might try a $15 discount on their next mow, or a free add-on, for each successful referral. 

Plus, offering free add-ons is a great way to indirectly upsell.

2. Nail Down Your Prices

If you want to build a successful lawn care business, you’ve got to properly price your services.

Here are a few of the many overhead costs to consider when you’re pricing services:

Notice how business growth is a pricing consideration?

Once you’ve combined your expenses and desired profits, make sure these numbers match up with your goals for the year.

Plus, you can use software to make this really easy and perfect 100% of the time. Which brings us to our next point… 

3. Use Software to Become Truly Efficient

Software is the ultimate answer to the golden question: Is a lawn care business profitable?

No matter where you’re at in your business, it’s never too early (or late!) to start using the #1 lawn care software in your business.

The right software for your business will:

Service Autopilot does ALL of this and so much more! Plus, it’s specifically designed with the lawn care industry in mind.

Grow Your Lawn Care Business... Faster 
(and with Less Stress)​

Instant invoicing

Better scheduling

Manage your clients and employees all in one system

Start Software Tour

4. Target Your Ideal Client

Want more of your favorite clients? Fill out a client persona template.

As you fill out this template, think about one favorite client to make this process as easy and accurate as possible.

Additionally, consider filling out 2-3 of these templates to get a better understanding of your entire target market segment.

5. Easily Become a Marketing Pro

If you want to make money and grow a successful lawn care business, you’ll have to become obsessed with marketing.

Just like scaling with services, you can do marketing yourself right now and hire a professional or freelancer in the future.

Here are a few ways you can begin marketing:

Bottom line: It doesn’t matter where you start marketing, so long as you start marketing.

Take your Lawn Care business 
to the next level!

Download Your FREE  Templates Now!

6. Focus on What Makes You Different

These are a few examples of ways to help your lawn care business stand out:

  • Create a professional website
  • Have your team wear recognizable uniforms
  • Choose a unique name for your lawn care business
  • Place Facebook Ads for the local areas you’re trying to target
  • Place Google Ads based on your local keywords and your top competitors’ names
  • Make your trucks BOLD with color (most businesses prefer truck wraps)
  • Create a unique selling proposition (e.g. Why should they hire YOU? What makes YOUR services WORTH the price?)

There are a MILLION ways for you to make your lawn business stand out against your competitors—just find somewhere to start!

7. Start Hiring the Right People (and Firing the Wrong Ones)

Hiring is one of the biggest obstacles that’ll prevent you from growing a million-dollar lawn business.

It’s not easy to find people who want to work an intense, outdoor manual labor job. 

How to Hire Your Best Employees… Starting Right Now

Get Your FREE Hiring Ad Templates

8. FIRE Your Worst Clients

In order to answer the question, “Is a lawn care business profitable?” you have to know when to fire clients.

There are a few reasons firing your worst customers will actually MAKE you money:

  • You’re losing money on the job
  • Crews are exhausted and overworked
  • The client takes too much time away from other clients

When you realize it might be time to fire a client, you can do one of two things:

  1. Fire the client
  2. Raise their price

If you feel your relationship with the customer is irreconcilable, consider firing them. 

However, if your only issue is based on profit, try raising their price.

By raising prices on your least profitable clients, you’re keeping the ones that are making you MONEY. 

Plus, you’re saving yourself from overworking on jobs that aren’t worth your time.

Answer: Is a Lawn Care Business Profitable?

Question: Is a lawn care business profitable?

Answer: YES… IF you take advantage of the top expert strategies and tools presented in this article.

When you first started dreaming of your lawn care business, you had the ultimate goal in mind… 

  • To create a profitable business you could be proud of.

Now, you know how to make money in lawn care and maximize profits in your business today!


Related: Lawn Care Business Advice: The 13 Secrets to Long-Term Success



Originally published March 10, 2020 7:00 AM. Updated on May 20, 2024 at 2:15 PM

Alyssa Sanders

Alyssa is the Team Lead of Creative Marketing at Xplor Field Services. Alyssa is an expert in field service industry trends, roadblocks, and solutions. When she’s not writing or creating engaging content, you can find her watching a new sci-fi series or shoving her nose into a good book.
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