Mowing & Growing: How to Start a Lawn-Care Business in 2025
Are you wondering how to start a lawn-care business? It’s an accessible, attractive industry to get into, given that there’s a lot of work to go around and relatively few barriers to entry.
However, as with founding any type of business, there are crucial steps you must follow before getting started. In this article, I draw on my firsthand experience – I have launched two businesses over the years – and explain which steps you need to take.
I also run through the pros and cons of running a lawn-care business to help you ascertain if it’s right for you. I close this piece with insight gained from one of my closest friends, who has run a successful lawn-mower business in the UK for over five years.
Why start a lawn-care business? Is it a good option for you?
Research from Zip Recruiter shows that experienced lawn care business owners can make up to $62 per hour, depending on area, expertise, and the extent of the services provided.
However, as a new lawn care business owner, your prices are likely to be closer to $20 or $30 per hour as you look to establish yourself in your area. So, if you price yourself well and work an average of 35 hours per week, you can definitely take home more than $4,000 per month before taxes.
However, you should recognize that in most parts of the world, a lawn care business is seasonal. It requires long hours and lots of work during the summer months and very little work in the winter.
So, you might be able to do 70-80 hours at the height of summer and only 10-20 hours during the bleak winter months, significantly affecting your earnings.
As such, you need to be great at budgeting and be willing to look for other sources of income when the garden-based work dries up.
Before I show you precisely how to start a lawn care business, I present the upsides and downsides of launching this type of business to help you decide if it’s right for you:
✅The upsides of a lawn-care business
- You have the chance to work outside daily.
- There’s a high demand for quality lawn care, given the number of homes with big gardens.
- If you’re good, you can earn decent money – between $20 and $60 per hour.
- There’s a great opportunity for expansion. After starting by mowing lawns, you can then offer landscaping and other services to your clients.
- Though it’s hard work, a low level of skill is required to launch this business. Therefore, it’s suitable for most people and doesn’t require much experience or extensive qualification.
❌The downsides of a lawn-care business
- It’s very competitive and difficult to get into, given the number of lawn-care businesses already out there. For instance, in the US alone, there are over 660,000 lawn-care companies already registered!
- The work is seasonal. You will have lots of work in the summer and very little work in the winter. Therefore, you must budget well and manage your finances carefully.
- Insurance can be expensive, particularly if you work with heavy machinery daily.
- You must buy and insure your own equipment and tools. If you don’t have the equipment already, it can be expensive to buy as a new business owner.
How to start a lawn care business from scratch: 5 steps to follow
If you like the sound of working seasonally outdoors, then a lawn care business is a good option to consider. One of my closest friends runs his own gardening and landscaping firm. He started his operation offering solely lawn mowing, so I spoke to him to help me write this article.
Here are the primary steps he followed to get his turn his lawn-care business from an idea into a reality:
Step 1: Customer & competitor research
In every major country, each community is served by a number of lawn care businesses. So, what part can you play in an already competitive landscape?
One crucial detail is to find your company’s USP. Can you offer a lower price than most of your competitors? Do you offer a specific type of lawn mowing (such as sit-on mowing) that few of your competitors offer?
You can’t just expect to register a company and immediately take clients from established firms in the area. This isn’t how it works. So, decide on the local area that you plan to work in. Then, contact as many lawn-care businesses as you can find and ask the following questions:
- What services do you offer?
- How much do you charge per service or per hour?
- How long does it take you to complete a job?
- Do you offer any discounts for special groups (veterans, seniors, etc.)?
When you ask each of these questions, you can note how much your competitors charge and what range of services they offer. You can then use these details as the basis of your business plan and to inform your own pricing structure.
As for customer research, conduct a survey of the area in which you want to work. How many houses have lawns? Is it an affluent area, and can people afford to hire a gardener? Is there enough business to go around, given how many lawn-care companies already operate here?
These questions will help you to identify gaps in the market. The answers will also give you a realistic insight into whether this area needs another lawn-care company. Alternatively, you may need to look elsewhere before setting your company up.
Step 2: Company structure and registration
Many people who operate lawn-care businesses begin as sole traders. From a taxing and accounting perspective, this might make life easier than owning and operating a limited company.
Should you wish to grow in the future and employ a team to work alongside you, there’s always the option of opening a company later on.
But at this first hurdle, consider how you want your lawn-care company to be structured. As the legal landscape differs around the world, ask Arvin to explain the requirements for new companies or sole traders wherever you live.
You can then follow the necessary steps to register your company or to tell the government that you’re now working as a sole trader. At this juncture, you will also need to consider the following:
- Bank account: If you’re a sole trader, you can use your personal bank account. However, if you create a new company, it will need its own bank account. Do some research into the best small business bank accounts in your country and look for accounts without fees.
Insurance: You will probably need several forms of insurance when running your lawn-care business. Get quotes for general liability insurance and motor insurance as a minimum. If you employ others, even as day workers, you will also need workers’ compensation insurance.
Writing a business plan to outline your intentions
After conducting your research and thinking about the structure of your company, you’re ready to write a business plan. While many new business owners get flustered when thinking of a business plan, it’s basically just an outline of your business activities and intentions.
It’s often for your eyes only as a business owner unless you’re applying for outside funding. Therefore, write it in a way that you can understand and include information you think is relevant.
If you’re stuck, read our guide to the best AI prompts for a business plan. You can then prompt Arvin to create a business plan template on your behalf. Your job is then extremely simple. Fill in the template with the relevant information, and you will have a high-quality business plan draft in a fraction of the time.
Step 3: Creating and launching your brand
You’re now ready to create a brand for your lawn-care business. Your brand helps people to better understand your business. It’s a step further than deciding to launch a business and contains the values, details, and vision of your company. To create a brand, you will need the following:
A company name
You can be as creative as you like when deciding on a name for your lawn-care brand. You might like to include your personal name or initials or perhaps the name of your child. Some companies also include their geographical location.
If you’re scratching your head and failing to decide on a specific name, read our guide that will help you come up with a compelling name for your new business.
A professional logo
Next, you need a professional logo that encapsulates the values of your brand. Most lawn-care firms go for a green color scheme and feature grass or other nature-based items in their logo.
Rather than paying a graphic designer thousands of dollars to create a logo, you can use our free AI logo designer to create one in seconds.
Prompt Arvin to create your logo by providing the name of your company and any other requirements. In less than ten seconds, you will have a professional logo that you can include on all of your marketing materials.
Branding guidelines
You will also need to establish some branding guidelines to accompany your name and logo. Branding guidelines indicate how you and other professionals will showcase your brand in all communication forms. They should include:
- Information about your preferred color scheme.
- Details of the font and font size you will use on your website and all written communications.
- Any imagery you will use when writing about your brand.
The more specific you can be with your branding guidelines, the easier things will be when it comes to marketing and promoting your business. Check out our Brand Bible for details on how to create excellent branding guidelines for the whole team.
Step 4: Marketing your lawn-care business
After creating your brand, you’re in the perfect position to promote your lawn-care business. But how do you do this? Well, for gardening and landscaping businesses, it’s best to have an online and offline marketing strategy, as I explain below:
Offline marketing
A lawn-care business benefits significantly from door-to-door marketing. Therefore, produce some high-quality pamphlets with details about your business and deliver them in the area you want to work in. You can even introduce yourself to homeowners and ask for their business directly.
Online marketing
In addition to this direct approach to marketing, your business will also benefit from the following types of online advertising:
- Social media marketing: Set yourself up on Facebook or any other platform and promote your business on social media. Create a page, outline your services, and regularly post pictures from the work you carry out.
- Blogging: Create a simple website and blog for your lawn-care business and write regular blog posts. You can target specific keywords that your target audience is likely to use, which may result in more traffic to your website.
If you don’t have the time or inclination to master high-quality content creation and don’t want to outsource it to freelancers, AI can help you. For instance, when writing your first blog post, use our free online AI article writer tool.
Prompt Arvin to create a blog post about a specific topic, such as the best fertilizers for lawn care, and watch us create an article in seconds. You can then spend a few minutes personalizing and editing the post before adding it to your website.
If you’re new to professional social media posting, read my recent article to develop a killer social media strategy for your lawn-care brand.
Step 5: Buy the right tools and equipment
Before onboarding your first clients, you must invest in the right tools and equipment to carry out your services. You might get away with using your own lawn mower when working for your first few clients.
However, as you increase your client base, you will need tools of your own. Consider whether to buy new or used mowers and whether you need specialty machines to work on specific projects.
Rather than buying all of your equipment outright, you might be able to lease some of it, offering significant cost savings.
As mentioned earlier in this article, you will need to get the right insurance to cover your tools and equipment in case any of it is stolen.
Expert insight: A company founder’s top tips for lawn-care business success
I’ve owned and operated two businesses over the years, and one of my closest friends has operated a successful gardening firm for more than five years. So, in addition to my tips and strategies above, I want to leave you with some expert insight that will help you as you register your company in 2025:
Plan your off-season accordingly
One of the key things to remember about running a lawn-care business is that it is seasonal. My friend, who runs his business in the UK, works extremely hard between March and early October every year. Then, when November rolls around, he packs up his tools and jets off to Thailand to see out the winter months at the beach.
Sure, this type of lifestyle won’t suit everyone, but he loves it! Some of his competitors spend the winter months working as day laborers on construction sites, while others work on maintenance projects.
The bottom line is that you need to have a clear plan in place for the off-season, particularly if you work in a lawn-care business in the UK, US, or Australia, where the seasons are markedly different.
Lease equipment to keep your costs down
If you want to use the best equipment but can’t afford to invest thousands of dollars into buying it, look into a leasing arrangement. Many of the biggest firms in lawn mowing like John Deere, offer great value leasing deals, enabling you to work with the best without paying up front.
I recommend shopping around and getting quotes from various suppliers before agreeing to a lease deal. Also, read the small print and check precisely what you’re signing up for before agreeing to the arrangement.
Be careful with your pricing
When you launch your new lawn-mowing business, the temptation is to undercut your competition by offering much cheaper rates. But you need to be so careful with this approach.
If you price yourself too cheaply, it might be a red flag for your potential clients. Moreover, it makes it really difficult to increase your prices when you grow your business.
For instance, if you charge $15 per hour when everyone else is charging $40, you might win some business right out of the gate. But, when you increase your rate after a month or so to $25 or $30, the client may go back to the guy they worked with initially.
So, it certainly makes sense to come in cheaper than the competition, but not by too much. Conduct comprehensive market research and maybe offer your services at an average of $5 less than more established firms.
Ask for referrals
My friend told me that one of the main ways he picks up new clients as an established gardener is through referrals. So often, he rocks up at a new client’s property because a friend of a friend recommended him.
He’s even got to the point where he has to turn away work at the height of the summer, given just how popular his services have become in his local area.
Not all businesses thrive on word-of-mouth referrals, but lawn-mowing businesses do. While referrals will come naturally to you (if you’re good), you can also ask your initial clients to recommend your services to people they know.
This is a brilliant way to grow your client base without spending anything on marketing. You’ll be surprised by how quickly you can fill your diary with this savvy promotional method.
The verdict: How to start a lawn-care business in 2025
As a recap, here’s how to start a lawn-care business in 2025 in five simple steps:
- Conduct thorough research into your competitors and target customer base. Contact your competitors directly to ask them how much they charge and which services they provide.
- Decide how to structure your company and register as a sole trader or limited company. Then, open a bank account and take out the necessary insurance.
- Launch your brand. This involves deciding on a name, creating a logo, and establishing branding guidelines for your communications.
- Market your lawn-care business. Develop an online and offline strategy to promote your business to prospective clients.
- Buy the right tools and equipment for your business. Or consider leasing expensive equipment to save yourself money.
Ultimately, a lawn-care business can be extremely successful if you follow these steps. Be methodical and considerate as you launch your company, and don’t be afraid to try different things to attract new business.
How to start a lawn-care business FAQ
How much do lawn-mowing companies charge?
This depends on numerous factors, including experience, area, and services offered. However, our research shows that most companies charge between $30 and $60 per hour. The more experienced you become, the higher the rate you can charge.
How much does it cost to launch a lawn-care business?
If you already own a mower and take care of all the registration steps yourself, you can launch a lawn-care business for free. However, if you need to buy or lease equipment and spend some money on marketing, it can cost between $1,000 and $10,000 to get your new business off the ground.
Who is the target market for a lawn-care business?
Essentially, anyone with a lawn is part of a target market for a lawn-care business owner. That said, most people who can afford to pay someone to cut their grass live in affluent areas. Therefore, you should look at the areas with the most disposable income near your home and use this as the basis for your market research.
Are lawn-mowing companies profitable?
Lawn-mowing companies can be extremely profitable, but there are many factors to consider. You need to find an underserved area and price yourself appropriately to beat the competition. Then, you must work hard and grow your business to maintain your success. If you follow the steps listed above, you will be well on your way to launching a successful business.
