Lawn care business software for owners who still do every estimate
If you run a lawn care company with a few crews, the estimates are probably yours: written after the last crew is back, at the kitchen table, from notes and a measuring wheel. Landscapeestimating is lawn care business software for that owner. It gives the evenings back, puts the same pricing math behind every quote and shows whether the jobs you won made the money you priced in.
The problem
Where an owner's unpaid estimating hours go.
The estimating hours nobody pays for
An owner-operator is the salesperson, the estimator and often the crew lead. Every hour spent driving to measure a lawn is an hour off a mower or away from home, and a quote sent three days later competes with one sent the same afternoon.
- Drive-outs just to measure turf and beds.
- Pricing kept in your head, so nobody else in the company can quote.
- Delivery, disposal and drive time forgotten on busy weeks.
- No record of whether a job came in on budget.
The arithmetic
Time saved on estimates, calculated with your numbers.
The arithmetic, with your numbers replacing ours
Worked example, not a promise: replace every figure with your own. An owner writes 12 estimates a week in spring. Today each one takes about 60 minutes (25 driving, 15 measuring, 20 in a spreadsheet). With satellite measurement and a cost library, a property with turf, beds and edging takes about 10 minutes to trace and price, and site visits happen only where the job needs one.
| Item | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Time per estimate | 60 min | 10 min |
| Estimates per week | 12 | 12 |
| Owner hours per week on estimating | 12 h | 2 h |
| Hours returned per week | 10 h | |
| Value at an owner rate of $60 per hour | $600 per week | |
| Crew plan, billed monthly | $129 per month |
In this example the hours alone cover the monthly plan within the first week of the month. The second line of the calculation is margin: if 20 mulch jobs a month go out without an $85 delivery charge, that is $1,700 a month of cost nobody billed. An assembly that always includes delivery closes that gap on every estimate, not only on the weeks you remember.
Consistency
Letting someone else quote at your prices.
Pricing that works when you are not the one quoting
Growth for an owner-operator usually stalls at the point where only the owner can price a job. With Landscapeestimating the rates live in a company cost library, not in your head, so a second estimator or a crew lead quotes the same property the same way.
How to set those numbers is explained in how to price landscape jobs and in the lawn care pricing calculator.
- Materials with unit costs: mulch per cu yd, sod per sq ft, seed and fertilizer per 1,000 sq ft.
- Labor with production rates in sq ft per man-hour and your loaded hourly rate.
- Overhead recovery and target margin applied to every line, every time.
- Two estimator seats on Crew, six on Company, and billing per company rather than per user.
Same day
Proposals that reach the client before competing bids.
Quotes that go out before the other bid arrives
The proposal is built from the estimate, so it takes no extra evening: logo, colors, the traced map, scope of work, options and add-ons. The client signs online and you see sent, viewed and signed without calling to ask. Owners who quote between stops use the lawn care estimate app flow on a phone; the full segment view is on lawn care software, and the decision-maker case for larger companies is on software for landscaping business.
Real margin
Seeing whether each job earned what you priced.
Job costing when the business outgrows gut feel
On the Company plan, a signed proposal becomes a job budget. Crews log hours and materials, and each line shows estimate versus actual. If a bed refresh priced at 12 man-hours keeps taking 16, you see it in the margin report and correct the production rate once, for every future estimate. Accepted jobs and invoices export to QuickBooks Online, so your bookkeeper receives the same numbers the client signed.
FAQ
- Which plan fits a company with three to fifteen employees?
Crew at $129 per month covers two estimator seats and 60 satellite measurements per month with branded proposals and e-sign. Company at $299 per month adds assemblies, job costing, deposit links, the QuickBooks Online export and six seats.
- Is there a contract?
No long-term contract. Billing is monthly or yearly, and you can cancel anytime. Yearly billing on Crew is $1,290, which works out to $107 per month.
- How long does setup take?
Enter your most common materials, your loaded labor rate and a handful of production rates, and you can price a mowing or mulch job the same day. The library grows as you quote.
- Do I keep my data if I leave?
Your cost data stays yours. Estimates export to CSV any time, and accepted jobs export to QuickBooks Online on the Company plan and above.
Get started
Take the evenings back and keep the margin
Create your account, enter your rates and send tomorrow's first quote from the map.