Lawn Mower

Your duties as a lawn care professional are up to you, at least to some extent. You can provide whatever lawn-related services you’re interested in, and it’s your choice whether to specialize or be a generalist.

With that said, the most common tasks that lawn care pros handle include:

• Mowing and weeding
• Trimming trees and bushes
• Seeding plants
• Aerating and top-dressing lawns
• Leveling out uneven lawns
• Maintaining flower beds and gardens
• Removing debris, unwanted trees, or leaves

If you’re interested, you can also add in duties like applying fertilizer and spraying pesticides. However, Marino (who focuses on turf nutrition) cautioned us that you need special licensure to take on those tasks, as well as liability insurance, which protects you if you inadvertently injure someone or one of your customers claims you damaged their property.

“While you should have general liability insurance for basic mowing, etc., you 100% need both insurance and a license to apply pesticides,” he said. “This includes basic fertilizer, herbicides, and insecticides. You also need a business license in the town that you operate in. This can add up and get very expensive.”

It’s up to you how comprehensive you want your job to be. You can limit yourself to basic tasks, or you can provide more intensive services, but if you opt for the latter, make sure to set your prices accordingly.

Follow these steps to get your lawn care side business off to a strong start:

Step 1: Learn the basic skills

If you’re considering this side hustle, you may already possess the skills required for lawn care, such as mowing, weeding, and trimming bushes.

However, if you’ve never done any of these tasks before, familiarize yourself with them before charging people for your services.

How to acquire the skills and knowledge you need

You can get an idea of what to do by watching YouTube tutorials, but if you do, make sure to follow professionals. You may also be able to find helpful advice on online message boards and Facebook groups.

However, Marino told us that there’s no substitute for practice.

‘Nothing beats hands-on experience,” he said. “I used my lawn as a test plot for years before jumping into it professionally.”

Step 2: Purchase the necessary equipment

As mentioned, this side hustle requires certain tools and equipment. For instance, you may need:

• Lawn mower
• Leaf blower
• Weed whacker (string trimmer)
• Pruning shears
• Garden edger
• Spreader sprayer
• Rake
• Safety glasses
• Gloves

How to pick your equipment

What you should get obviously depends on what types of services you’re planning on providing. If you don’t plan on pruning shrubbery, for instance, you can skip the shears.

Consider how extensive your jobs will be. If you plan on mowing bigger lawns, Marino said that “you’ll likely want to consider a stander or ride-on mower to help with fatigue and mow more area in less time.”

Relatedly, when you get your mower, consider whether you plan on bagging or mulching. If you opt to bag the grass you cut, you’ll obviously need to get a mower that’s equipped to do so.

It’s worth spending a few hours or days researching the tools you’ll need to do the job you’ve picked (including what brands are considered reliable and fairly priced). Your equipment is a big investment, and it’s worth taking the time to get it right.

Where to acquire your equipment

Marino recommended buying secondhand equipment, at least in the beginning. He said there are some tools it’s best to buy new, such as backpack sprayers (if you decide to dip into the world of fertilizer and pesticide application), but that “for larger pieces, used is a great entry point.”

“It’s a way to buy professional grade equipment without spending too much money,” he said. “It can help you learn how to use bigger pieces of equipment, cover more area, and move faster and more efficiently.”

You can often find good deals online, such as on Facebook Marketplace, eBay, or Craigslist.

Step 3: Come up with a brand

With a side hustle like this, you’ll probably rely on word-of-mouth to land new clients. Naming and branding your business will make it easier for your clients to remember you and refer you to other people.

Keep your business name personal, simple, and memorable. Once you’ve created your name, do a quick search on Google to make sure no other business is currently using it.

If the name is available, claim it by using it to register an email address, then create social media accounts for your business on Facebook and any other popular platforms you want to advertise on.

In addition to a name, you can also create a logo for your business to catch people’s attention. One way of doing so is to find a freelance designer on an online services marketplace like Fiverr or Upwork to design a logo for you at a reasonable price.

Step 4: Set your pricing

As a lawn care professional, how you should set your pricing depends on the services you provide and how difficult and time-consuming they are.

You can start by conducting a little competitor research. Search online or ask people in your neighborhood how much other lawn care professionals who provide the same services as you typically charge.

However, you can’t simply match your prices to your competitors’—you also have to sit down and run the numbers to figure out what prices your business can sustain.

“While it’s good to see what other companies are charging, it’s important not to start competing,” Marino said. “You need to know your numbers, and if you start matching what larger companies charge, you’ll soon find yourself out of work, or unmotivated.”

He pointed out that as a solo operator or small business owner, you won’t have the buying power that large companies do, and “to charge $40 for an application just because it’s on par with larger national brands is not the way to go … you need to understand money in and money out, and stick to prices that will make you profitable.”

Tips on pricing your services

When it comes to setting a reasonable price, Marino recommended starting with:

• The cost of your products: Take the products you’ll use on each job (e.g., fertilizers, pesticides, etc.), figure out how much they’ll all cost, and set a margin to them mark up by (e.g., 50%).
• Your hourly rate: Add that to your own hourly rate. How much you want and expect to earn per hour is obviously up to you—in Marino’s words, you have to ask yourself how much you’re worth.

Calculating rates based on property size

You may also want to match your rates to the size of the property you’re treating.

“I like to break it down more specifically when it comes to property sizes,” Marino said. He gave us a four-step set of instructions for charging this way:

1. Begin with a flat rate per application or job (this is sometimes called a stop charge)
2. Charge a set amount per 1,000 square feet (and bear in mind that the bigger the lawn is, the less you should charge per square foot)
3. Figure out the (marked up) cost of your products
4. Add these three numbers together and make that your final price

Marino also pointed out the importance of tracking and considering your expenses—”Not only the easily known expenses like monthly insurance and truck payments, but the quarterly ones that might surprise you. Things like water bills and taxes.”

Factor all of this into the prices you charge so that your business stays economically viable.

Step 5: Find clients

Landing your first few clients can be hard, but it isn’t impossible. Marino gave us his tips on how to get your name out there in the beginning:

• Start SEO early: Create a website for your business with an accompanying blog and post on it regularly. “It can take some time to get off the ground, but it is long-term and evergreen,” said Marino. (“Evergreen” is a term in the marketing industry that refers to content that never becomes obsolete.)
• Stay active on social media: Marino recommended posting regularly on local pages and Facebook groups. “People are always asking for referrals, and it’s such a quick way to get your name out there and engage with the locals,” he said.

He told us that these two methods are the least expensive but yield the greatest rewards. “Generally, the people searching on Google and asking questions on social media are ready to buy.”

Engage with your community

Marino recommended sponsoring local groups and clubs, such as youth sports teams. This is a good way to “get your brand visibility out there” by getting your company name and logo on the “back of t-shirts, on baseball fields, and bulletins.”

You can also sponsor other local events, such as races, trunk-or-treating gatherings, and so on. At the events that you sponsor, you may be able to raffle off coupons for your business.

Lawn care apps

You can also try finding your first few clients on apps that will match you with people who need lawn care services. We’ve listed several prominent ones in the section below.

Regardless of how you land your first few clients, be sure to do a great job so they hire you again and recommend you to their friends.

Step 6: Manage and grow your business

For your lawn care side hustle to be successful, you need to operate it smoothly. Be sure to:

• Find time to meet with your clients to identify their needs
• Be punctual about checking and sending emails (or however you communicate with clients)
• Invoice your clients properly
• Track your cash flow
• Budget money for taxes every year

If your business really takes off, consider hiring additional workers or even an assistant to do your admin work so that you can run it on a larger scale. This is the path you’ll have to take if you decide that you want to take your lawn care side hustle and turn it into a full-fledged career.

These days, there’s an app for everything, and yard work is no exception. If you’re dipping your toes into the world of lawn care, consider finding work on one of these:

LawnGuru

LawnGuru is a gig app, like Uber. However, instead of taxi and delivery services, it lets you sign up to provide lawn care services (and perform other closely related tasks, such as pressure washing and shoveling snow).

Every time someone in your area posts a job, you’ll get an alert and will be free to accept or decline the job.

How much you can earn: LawnGuru claims that its gig workers earn an average of $700 per week, although this obviously depends on how much you work and how selective you are about the jobs you take. You’ll be able to view the price of every job before you accept it.

Where to download LawnGuru

App Store Google Play

LawnMowingOnline

LawnMowingOnline is a website that connects yard work “contractors” with clients. It’s narrower in focus than LawnGuru, since it only features mowing jobs.

In other respects, it works in much the same way as LawnGuru, although you’ll receive job offers via email, which you might find less convenient than in an app.

How much you can earn: LawnMowingOnline claims that many mowing jobs cost their clients just $19, which sets a relatively low cap on how much you can earn per gig. That said, their FAQ also claims that you’ll earn around 90% of the price of each job, with the platform taking a cut of just 10%.

Where to sign up

Sign Up with LawnMowingOnline

Handy

Handy is an app that’s primarily for indoor handyman services (assembling furniture, plumbing and electrical work, etc), but it also features lawn care gig work.

Unlike the other apps on this list, it says that it requires you to have some paid experience in your chosen type of work, so this might not be the best option for landing your first few clients.

How much you can earn: Handy pays its workers based on their rating in the app, so your rates will climb over time (as long as your clients end up leaving you good reviews). Unfortunately, some reports claim that rates start on the low end (potentially between $10–$20 per hour).

Where to download Handy

App Store Google Play

TaskRabbit

By far the most well-known platform on this list, TaskRabbit features many different types of jobs, not just lawn care. It works essentially the same way that LawnGuru does—you’ll be presented with jobs in your area as people create them and can accept or decline them after viewing the rates you’ll be paid.

How much you can earn: TaskRabbit says that its lawn care jobs often start at around $30 per hour. Unlike the other apps on this list, it won’t take a cut of your earnings; there is a service fee, but it’s paid by the customer and tacked onto their bill, which means you can keep 100% of what you make.

Where to download TaskRabbit

App Store Google Play

Again, lawn care requires equipment, which can get expensive. Your startup costs can easily add up to $5,000 to $9,000 (excluding the price of a trailer) if you purchase new equipment, set up a home office, and widely advertise your business.

However, there are many ways to cut costs if you have a tight budget. As we’ve already mentioned, you can start your business small and buy used equipment for under $1,000.

Moreover, you don’t have to set up a professional home office right away. Instead, you can call clients and sort out business-related items from your desk or the dining room table.

You don’t even have to pay for marketing in the beginning, although if you don’t, you’ll have to do a lot of it yourself. You can create a website for free using services like Wix and Squarespace and post your services on social media, such as local Facebook groups. Don’t forget to spread the word about your business among your family, friends, and neighbors.

Be aware that you’ll need a vehicle—preferably a utility trailer or truck—to haul all of your equipment. Be prepared to bump up your start-up costs if you don’t already have a suitable vehicle.

Lawn care work is seasonal. In most areas, you’ll only be able to find jobs from April to September—obviously, you won’t be able to weed and mow lawns during the snowy winter months.

However, that doesn’t mean you need to put a pause on earning extra money. Here’s work you can consider taking on during the lawn care off-season:

• Shoveling snow
• Hanging up holiday decorations, such as Christmas lights
• Sourcing and chopping firewood
• Offering indoor handyman services
• Washing (e.g., washing cars or windows, pressure washing, etc)
• Chimney and/or gutter cleaning
• Tree trimming

Of these gigs, the first one is probably the most common for lawn care pros. Marino commented that “Most lawn care guys I know do snow removal.”

Once you build up a roster of clients who trust you, finding this additional kind of work should be a cinch. Just ask them if there are any jobs they’d like you to do during the fall and winter months.