Commercial Mowing Pricing
Price a commercial lawn account from the acres you mow, the mower you run and what a man-hour costs you, for the visit, the season and the month.
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Commercial mowing calculator: mowing time, price per visit, season and month
Mowable turf
The grass only: take the buildings, parking, walks and beds out. One acre is 43,560 sq ft.
The mower
Enter the property's mowable area above, in square feet or acres, to see the mowing time.
A commercial property is mostly not grass. Trace the turf on satellite imagery and bid the acres you will actually mow.
The mowing time is the manufacturer's production formula. The price is yours: nothing in it is filled in for you.
Commercial Mowing Production Rates
Acres an hour = mph × width of cut in feet ÷ 8.25 × efficiency. At 80%, which leaves room for overlap, turns and obstacles:
| Mower | Acres / hr | 5 acres |
|---|---|---|
| 36 in deck at 4 mph | 1.16 | 258 min |
| 48 in deck at 5 mph | 1.94 | 155 min |
| 52 in deck at 5 mph | 2.10 | 143 min |
| 61 in deck at 6 mph | 2.96 | 101 min |
| 72 in deck at 6 mph | 3.49 | 86 min |
| 72 in deck at 8 mph | 4.65 | 64 min |
That is mowing only, with one machine. A 5-acre office park at 61 in deck at 6 mph is about 101 minutes on the mower; the string trimming around the building, the edging along the walks and blowing off the parking lot are on top. Time those on your own crews; they are what the calculator's other crew minutes are for.
How to Price Commercial Lawn Care
Five steps, the same ones the calculator runs. The only figures that are not yours are the production formula and the efficiency.
Measure the mowable acres
The turf only. A commercial parcel is mostly building, parking and walks, and quoting from the parcel prices grass that is not there.
Mowing hours from your mower
Acres divided by your mower's acres an hour. Two mowers on one site halve the clock time, not the man-hours.
Add the other crew time
Trimming, edging, blowing, unloading and the drive to the site, in man-minutes. Time it on the properties you already mow; it is the part that varies most.
Multiply by your loaded cost
What a man-hour costs you with wages, burden, equipment, fuel, insurance and overhead in it. Not the wage.
Add the margin, then the season
Divide by one minus your margin for the visit price, times the visits in the contract for the season, over the months you bill for the monthly price.
How Commercial Accounts Are Billed
The visit price is the building block. The contract decides how it is invoiced.
Per visit
One price per cut, billed for the cuts made. Simple to bid, and the account pays less in a dry summer.
Monthly, over the season
The season's visits priced, then split into equal monthly invoices. The property manager gets a fixed budget line; you get even cash flow.
Full-service contract
Mowing with fertilization, aeration, cleanups and mulch in one annual price. Price each service on its own first, then add them up.
Measure the Turf and the Lot Together
On a commercial site the grass is the strips, islands and borders around the parking. Trace the turf on satellite imagery for the mowing acres, and the same trace of the pavement prices the sweeping, the striping or the snow on the same account.
In SurfaceMeasure's Lawn mode you search the address and trace the turf in sections; for the pavement, use the parking lot square footage calculator, or the lawn square footage calculator to work the turf by hand.
Commercial Mowing Price Questions
Per acre or per hour, production rates, labor cost and monthly contracts.
Your man-hours per visit times what a man-hour costs you, with your margin on top. The hours come from the mowable acres and your mower's production rate (a 61 in deck at 6 mph cuts about 2.96 acres an hour at 80% efficiency), plus the trimming, blowing and drive time you time on your own crews. There is no national price per acre worth copying: the figures online disagree with each other because they come from different crews, mowers and markets.
Build it per hour and sell it per visit or per month. The hour is where your cost lives, so it is the only honest starting point; a per-acre figure is the result for one property, not a rate you can carry to the next, because trimming, obstacles and drive time do not scale with acres. Once you have the visit price, the calculator shows what it works out to per acre for that property.
Ground speed times width of cut in feet, divided by 8.25, times an efficiency for overlap and turns: the effective field capacity formula mower makers publish. At 80% the table on this page runs from the smallest deck to the largest; time a few of your own properties to see where your crews fall.
More than the wage. The BLS median for landscaping and groundskeeping workers was $18.82 an hour in May 2025; on top of what you pay go payroll taxes, workers' comp, liability insurance, the mower and truck (payments, fuel, blades, repairs), and the office. Add them up for a season and divide by the man-hours you bill. That loaded figure is the one the calculator needs.
Multiply the visit price by the visits in the contract, then divide by the months you bill. Property managers often prefer the same invoice every month, so a 28-visit season billed over seven months is four visits' worth each month even when June gets five cuts and October gets two. Write the visit count into the contract, and price extra visits at the per-visit rate.
Sources
Checked October 26, 2026.
- Ferris Mowers: Mowing Productivity CalculatorThe acres-an-hour formula (ASABE effective field capacity) and its table at 80% and 100% efficiency.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Grounds Maintenance WorkersLandscaping and groundskeeping workers, median hourly wage, May 2025.
More for Commercial Grounds Contractors
Bid the Acres You Will Actually Mow
Search the address, trace the turf around the building and the lot, and send a branded quote with the measured property on it. Card required, cancel anytime.