Set your baseline
Before seasonal pricing or renewals, review a few representative jobs in each major service. Use actual travel, work time and costs to set practical quoting rules.
Need help with the inputs? Read the cost guide → · When should you compare jobs?
FREE RESOURCE • LAWN CARE & LANDSCAPING
What does this job
really leave you?
Check the whole cost of the work. Compare alternatives when they compete for the same crew or equipment.
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CAN THIS SERVICE SUPPORT THE BUSINESS?
Start with the full cost.
Fictional example loaded — replace the assumptions with your own records. Blank means unknown; enter 0 only when a cost truly does not apply.
Shared overhead: the costs left to recover
Include office administration, bookkeeping, software, phones, yard rent and general business insurance. Exclude everything already counted against jobs. Include owner field/admin pay once in the appropriate place; profit comes after paying for the work.
Use realistic productive worker-hours, including job travel if it is in job hours below. Two people working two hours = four worker-hours. Do not divide by all paid hours if weather, training or gaps make some hours unavailable for paying work. This is one allocation method; equipment-heavy services may need a different driver.
Help me calculate overhead and annual work hours
Use your bookkeeping totals or a realistic budget. Leave out costs already included in job wages, equipment, truck costs or other direct costs. Owner work and paid non-job time need recovering once too.
How much time will actually go to jobs?
Include allocated travel and setup consistently. Use realistic averages after weather, holidays, training and schedule gaps. For different seasonal crews, calculate their hours separately and enter the combined total above.
Modeled operating result, not audited net profit or cash flow. Revenue should exclude sales tax collected for remittance. All cost categories must be counted once. Equipment ownership can include an allowance for depreciation/replacement and insurance; do not also put the same cost in overhead.
What do you need to check?
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A SEPARATE, SHORT-TERM DECISION
What would this job displace?
Use this when deciding how to use a specific available slot. Enter only costs that actually change if you accept each job: extra wages and employer costs, materials, fuel, rentals, overtime, extra travel or other added commitments. Salaried labor and owned equipment may be unchanged in the short term. Check the facts; do not automatically copy the full-cost total above.
Crew-hours are clock hours for the same crew size and skill mix, including travel/setup; equipment-hours must refer to the same constrained machine. Use the same unit for both jobs. If durations differ, compare whole feasible schedules, not just the hourly ranking.
Why a filler job can help even below its allocated overhead
Suppose a job brings in $200 and adds $160 of cost. It contributes $40. If you also allocate $60 of existing overhead, the full-cost result is −$20. But if that $60 would be paid anyway and there is no displaced work, taking the job improves the short-term result by $40 compared with leaving the slot idle. That does not make it a sustainable price for a recurring service. The business still needs enough total contribution to cover overhead, fair owner pay and profit.
BUILD RULES YOU CAN USE QUICKLY
You do not need this for every quote.
Recheck what changed
Review after wage, fuel or equipment changes; repeated overruns; or a new service. Spot-check estimates against actual results during the season.
Compare real tradeoffs
Run a deeper comparison before large or recurring commitments and when the same crew, equipment or route slot has competing uses.
For routine work that fits your checked assumptions, use your price guide and job-specific scope check. Revisit exceptions. A particular route or machine can have competing uses even when other parts of the business have spare time.
Before changing prices: verify missing time and costs, group nearby work, prevent return trips for missing tools, account for access or heavy growth, and compare similar local services. Keep quality and customer commitments intact.
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