If you compare a professional landscape service with other services that come to your home it is really quite a bargain. Plumbers and electricians have man hour rates averaging seventy five to over one hundred dollars an hour. Carpenters average fifty five to seventy five dollars per hour. By contrast the average landscape maintenance firm has hourly labor rates of thirty to forty five dollars. These numbers are from my un-scientific polling. All of these trades require skilled labor. The landscape maintenance contractor shows up with a far greater investment in trucks and equipment than these other trades on most occasions. I would estimate the average truck, trailer and equipment used today to average around sixty to eighty thousand dollars. The average life span of that equipment is about five years.

Think about the volume of work at those rates you need to pay for that investment. Now add the cost of truck, trailer, and equipment repairs and maintenance. Now factor in the cost of labor, insurances and all the other general overhead items. You may think it doesn’t add up. You are right. Our industry is caught up in a price war similar to what you read about with the airlines. Margins are very close and the slightest unplanned expense can cause losses. Many landscape business owners do not realize their actual cost of doing business. This hurts our industry and effects quality to the consumer.

As land becomes more of a premium in the Garden State it becomes harder to find legal places to lease or purchase for landscapers. Many townships and municipalities will not allow landscape firms to park in their towns at all. Yet these same individuals demand our services at a “reasonable” price. Many small firms I know are being forced to travel greater distances from their operating areas to find parking and yard space. This affects the cost of services as well.

Let’s not forget disposal. As more town dumps close or refuse the landscape professional more landscapers are paying premiums to private recycling firms. These sights are also farther on many occasions and time is money.

Fuel prices keep rising. Landscape contractors consume great amounts of gas, diesel, and oil. Many companies including my own have been forced to institute a fuel surcharge. While the average surcharge in my non scientific polling is about one to three dollars per week many clients are upset by it. The landscape industry is not alone in fuel surcharges. Trucking companies, disposal companies, delivery companies and the local quarries all have instituted their own fuel surcharge. Until fuel prices return to normal these surcharges will have to continue when margins in landscaping remain so tight.

By understanding the numbers side of the landscape business I hope you will gain appreciation for the services you receive and the dollars you pay. Your landscape contractor has a huge investment and a daunting task of running a successful service business. This all must be done with only an average of one hundred and sixty to one hundred and eighty production days when you factor out winter, rain, holidays and weekends.