Starting a lawn care business can be exciting yet daunting at the same time. From registering your new business to acquiring a lawn care business license, finding customers, and managing finances, there are many things involved.

However, you’ll be glad to know that starting a lawn care business is a lucrative business idea. The United States landscaping industry size is estimated to be $115.6 billion in 2022 and it has grown at a CAGR of 4.2% during 2017-2022.

Millennial consumers are becoming more health-conscious and are more inclined towards gardening, landscaping, and lawn care activities. This has led to an increase in demand for lawn mowing and lawn care service providers.

You must, however, understand the pros and cons of starting a lawn care business before your start one.

The Pros and Cons of Starting a Lawn Care Business

When starting a lawn care business, you need to know about market demand and competition. You should also find out the benefits you’ll get and the challenges you may face as a lawn care business owner.

Pros of Starting a Lawn Care Business

Lawn care services are in demand in the United States and this demand will continue to grow according to the report mentioned above.

If you start a lawn care business, you will be able to enjoy a number of benefits, which include:

• Consistent work: Many people emphasize the importance of green spaces for healthy living and are inclined towards gardening and landscaping. You can easily turn these people into your customers by pitching your lawn care services and providing a good experience. Your potential customers may need your lawn mowing services 2-4 times a month, depending on the size and type of their lawn.

• Upselling and cross-selling opportunities: You can start by offering one service such as mowing and then upsell other relevant lawn care services. You can ask your existing customers if they would also like to have you do gardening, bug and weed treatment, and trim trees.
• Scalable business: If you provide a good experience and customer service to your existing clients, you can grow your lawn care company significantly.

Clearly, starting a lawn care business is not only a viable option but also a lucrative one. You should, however, remember that there are also some downsides to starting a lawn care business.

Cons of Starting a Lawn Care Business

Every business idea comes with its own set of challenges and the landscaping industry is no different.

When starting a lawn care business, be prepared to face the challenges mentioned below.

• Seasonal dip in demand: The demand for lawn care services sees a dip during the winter season. You may not receive new business inquiries during this period. However, you can focus on generating consistent revenue by mowing lawns for your existing customers.

• Increased competition: Starting new lawn care companies doesn’t require any major investment, except for the cost of necessary equipment. Although the demand for lawn care services is increasing with a rise in the health consciousness of people, you may have to experience and fight high competition.

• Training needs: If you want to start a lawn care business, you will need to train with someone competent to acquire basic knowledge about lawn care. It may take up to three weeks for you to learn about lawn mowing, equipment maintenance and operation, pricing work, and maintaining quality standards.

As such, starting a lawn care business has its own set of pros and cons, but the benefits are enough to outweigh the cons.

With that cleared, let’s understand how to go about starting a lawn care business.

The Step-by-Step Guide to Starting a Lawn Care Business

Starting a lawn care business is not really difficult if you know exactly how to do it. That’s why we’ve created this guide to starting a lawn care business to help you out.

We have listed the step-by-step process that you can follow for starting your own lawn care business.

Without further ado, let us tell you what you need to do to start a lawn care business. Here are the steps you need to follow:

Step #1: Choose Your Business Location

Location is quite important when starting a lawn care business as you need enough clients in an area for your business to be profitable.

As such, a lawn care business is a local business, at least until you build a strong brand and expand to multiple locations.

So, it’s important to choose a location where most homes tend to have gardens that need tending all year round. This, obviously, rules out crowded metropolitan areas with skyscrapers and apartment complexes instead of row houses with gardens.

If you already live in such an area, then that’s the best as you won’t have to work too hard to promote your lawn care business. Moreover, you can practically run the business out of your house.

Step #2: Conduct Market Research

This is an essential step for starting a lawn care business or any other business as you need to understand the market and its key players.

Get on the ground and collect information about how many houses in your preferred location have a garden and how they take care of them.

Are there any big lawn care companies that are serving that location? If yes, then how can you compete with them?

Do people just hire local service providers or their neighborhood kids to give them a chance to earn some pocket money in exchange for their services? In that case, they may not really be interested in hiring lawn care professionals.

Assess the market need and size, and then try to estimate how much of that market you can realistically capture. If the idea seems feasible, move to the next step in this guide to starting a lawn care business.

Step #3: Find the Current Prices for Lawn Care Services

When conducting your market research for starting a lawn care business you should also survey the market to find the prices for different types of lawn care services.

This will help you set your prices right and stay competitive.

It’s especially important to survey the prices if there are other businesses serving the location and you have to compete with them. You can, of course, choose to compete by offering a better service, but you still need to set competitive prices as well.

So, get a rough estimate of how much you can charge for each service, even if you don’t decide exactly which services you want to offer at this stage.

Step #4: Create a Business Plan for Your Lawn Care Business

Starting a lawn care business is not expensive and requires little initial investment, but such businesses do face high competition. If you want to build a successful lawn care business, you should start with a solid business plan in place.

• Set clear goals about what you want to achieve, by when, and how.
• Identify your target market and location.
• Understand the needs of your potential customers.
• Keep a check on your competitors.
• Create a marketing plan to get customers and long-term work opportunities.
• Buy business insurance to protect your business from financial losses due to property damage or injuries.
• Set standards to provide high-quality services and good customer experiences.
• Streamline customer service operations to satisfy and retain your clients.

A business plan is a must for starting a lawn care business as it gives you a sense of direction and sets out a way forward.

Step #5: Name Your Lawn Care Business

A good business name is short, crisp, and unique. It should give people a clear idea about the services you provide and help you stand out from your competitors. Many lawn care businesses include the term, “lawn care,” in their business name to help customers find them.

When naming your lawn care business, you should also make sure that the name is available as a domain and has not been trademarked by someone else.

You also have the option to change your name later by filing a doing business as (DBA). Still, be careful with picking your business name and do it right the first time.

Step #6: Register Your Lawn Care Business

One of the most important steps for starting a lawn care business legally is to register your business with the federal and state governments.

To get started, you should choose a business structure that meets the ownership, taxation, and operational needs of your lawn care business.

If you’re starting as a solopreneur, you can choose to form a Sole Proprietorship or a Single-Member LLC (Limited Liability Company). If you want to start a lawn care business in partnership with someone else, you can form a Partnership or a Multi-Member LLC.

Here’s a quick guide to choosing the right business entity:

• Start a Sole Proprietorship if you want complete control over your business and are willing to risk your personal assets if the business fails.
• Create a Partnership firm if you want to share the burden of managing the business and are willing to split profits with a few partners.
• Form an LLC to mitigate personal liability and choose how you want your business to be taxed. It is also easier to scale your business with an LLC.
• There’s no need to form a Corporation for starting a lawn care business and it’s not recommended.

Starting a lawn care business requires that you complete state filings, acquire an EIN/Tax ID, and submit necessary documents. Doing it all by yourself may be challenging but we have made it easier with our unique business formation packages. With these packages, we will register your lawn care business for you.

Step #7: Acquire Lawn Care Business Licenses and Permits

Lawn care licensing requirements vary from state to state. They also depend on the type of lawn care services that you want to offer.

You should check with the state to see if you will need a business license to operate your lawn care business. If needed, you should submit the required documents and acquire a license.

When starting a lawn care business, you would need to use herbicides and pesticides, for which you’d need approvals from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Step #8: Decide on the Types of Services You Want to Offer

Lawn care businesses offer many services. You should decide on the types of services you want to provide to your customers when starting a lawn care business.

Some of the services you can choose include:

• Lawn mowing
• Edging
• Trimming
• Fertilization
• Irrigation
• Weed treatment
• Bugs treatment
• Planting
• Landscaping
• Cleaning

Regardless of the services you choose, you should make sure that you know how to do them the right way. Or, you can hire employees who are experts in a particular service area.

Once you’ve decided the types of services you want to offer, set the right prices based on the research you conducted at the start of this process for starting a lawn care business. Make sure that your prices are competitive and people are willing to pay that much for your services.

Step #9: Purchase the Right Lawn Care Equipment

When starting your lawn care business, you should not buy too much equipment too soon. You should start small and buy the essentials first. As your business grows, you can add more equipment to your arsenal.

Here’s a list of equipment you’ll need for starting a lawn care business:

• A service truck
• Commercial lawn mower
• Lawn care equipment such as a string trimmer, an edger, and a leaf blower
• Spreaders and sprayers
• Safety equipment such as face masks, eye goggles, and gloves
• Landscaping equipment for digging, cutting, grading

When starting a lawn care business, buy only the essential equipment first and then purchase more as you grow your business.

Step #10: Market Your Lawn Care Business to Find Clients

You may find it challenging to get people to trust your business and service during the first year. You should start by offering services to friends and family, who can then help you find more clients through word-of-mouth marketing.

To promote your lawn care company, you should:

• Build a business website for your lawn care company.
• List your lawn mowing business on Google My Business. Manage your business and contact information such as the name of your business, email address, hours of operation, and contact number.
• Create profiles on service websites and local-specific channels such as Yelp, Thumbtack, and Facebook.
• Create social media profiles for your business and publish content related to the lawn care industry.
• Showcase your service to potential clients using paid ads.
• Ask your current clients, family, and friends to promote your new lawn care business using word of mouth.
• Leave flyers and business cards with the prospective customers, for promoting your lawn care company.
• Ask your customers to review and rate your services on Google to attract more clients from the GMB listing for your lawn care business.

FAQs

1. How to start a lawn care business?

You can easily start a lawn care business by following these steps:

• Choose a location for your lawn care business.
• Conduct market research before starting a lawn care business.
• Choose a name for your landscaping business.
• Decide on the business structure – whether you want to work as a Sole Proprietor or form a Partnership with other people.
• Register your business, acquire the licenses you need to work, and buy business insurance.
• Determine the service you’ll offer – lawn mowing, insect and weed treatment, landscaping, trimming trees, etc.
• Buy the necessary equipment you’ll need to work.
• Hire employees who are experts in a particular service.
• Set a pricing plan and look for an opportunity to upsell or cross-sell your service to existing clients.
• Set up a payment method – PayPal, credit card, cash, etc.
• Build a web and social media presence to get more clients.

2. How to start a lawn care business with no money?

Wondering how much start-up costs you’ll need to start a lawn care business? Not too much.

You should start small and grow your small business gradually. When starting out, you just need to take care of the registration fees for your business and the cost of basic equipment.

You can promote your business on social media without any additional cost to attract your first few clients. Once you start earning money, invest a part of the revenue into upgrading equipment, building a website, and hiring employees.

3. How much does it cost to start a lawn care business?

To start a business from scratch, you’ll need at least $500 to buy lawn mowing equipment (lawn mower, trimmer, leaf blower).

Also, you’ll have to register your business. If you want to form a Sole Proprietorship or Partnership, it will cost $195 for state and federal filing fees. However, forming a Limited Liability Company (LLC) will cost you $345 or even higher in a few states.

This cost estimate is for business owners who want to work themselves and start a one-person business in the beginning. If you want to hire other people to work for you, the cost will increase depending on their wages.

4. Is lawn care a profitable business?

You can charge $30/hour to $120/hour for lawn mowing. In fact, you can charge up to $220/hour for mowing large lawn areas, especially those with a sloping landscape.

With the increase in popularity of green spaces, the opportunity and demand for lawn care service providers have also increased. If you provide your clients with good services and experiences, you can definitely make it big in this industry.

Success only depends on your quality of service, hard work, and dedication.

5. What licenses are needed for starting a lawn care business?

The license you need for starting a lawn care business will vary from state to state. If you want to get proper licenses, you should check with the state to see if you will need a business license and how to acquire it. When starting a lawn care business, you would also need approvals from EPA for pesticide use.

Ready to Start Your Lawn Care Business?

We’ve covered the basics of starting a lawn care business and the step-by-step plan that can help you get started. Now it’s your turn to work on it to start your lawn care business from scratch.

Don’t forget to conduct thorough market research and feasibility check before starting a lawn care business. Use this to form a solid business plan that will help you with starting a successful lawn care business.

While it can be a lot of work, it’s important to start your business legally and set it up for long-term success. If you want help registering your business, feel free to contact us.

Do you have questions about starting a lawn care business? Leave them in the comments below.