How to Start a Lawn Care Business

Six steps from the first registration to the first route: the paperwork, the cover, the kit at list price, what to charge, and how to win the first lawns.

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Starting a Lawn Care Business, in Short

Register the business with your state and get a free EIN, check whether your state licenses fertilizer and weed control before you sell them, and buy general liability before the first mow. Start with a commercial push mower, trimmer, blower and edger on a trailer, price each lawn from its measured size and your time, and add aeration and fertilization to the lawns you already mow.

Starter kit: $4,390Commercial push mower, trimmer, blower, edger and a year of liability cover, before the trailer and truck.
Liability: $761 a yearInsureon's median for landscaping customers.
License: State and localMowing rarely needs one; fertilizer and weed control often do.
Margin: 5–20%Jobber's average for landscape jobs.

Register the Business

Pick a name, register it with your state (most solo operators start as a sole proprietor or an LLC), and get an EIN from the IRS, which is free. Open a business bank account so the mower payments and the customer payments never mix with your own.

Then ask your city and county. The SBA puts it plainly: the licenses you need from the state, county or city depend on what you do and where. A general business license is common; a mowing license is not.

Check the Licenses Before You Spray or Spread

Mowing, edging and blowing rarely need a trade license. Weed control and fertilizer are where the states step in, and the rules differ from one state to the next. Four examples:

Federal
EPA: anyone who applies or supervises restricted-use pesticides must be certified under federal and state rules.
Ohio
A commercial applicator license to apply pesticides for a pesticide business without direct supervision (Revised Code 921.06).
Texas
A TDA license to apply any pesticide, general-use included, to lawns, trees or ornamentals for hire. Applying only fertilizer needs no TDA license.
Florida
A state certification for anyone applying commercial fertilizer to an urban landscape, renewed every 4 years. It does not cover pesticides, weed control included, which need a separate pesticide license or certification.

Your state's pesticide regulator, usually the department of agriculture, runs the exams. Get licensed before you sell the first fertilization round, then use the fertilizer calculator to load the spreader.

Insure It Before the First Mow

General liability pays when a thrown rock breaks a window or a mower clips a sprinkler head. Insureon's median premiums for its landscaping customers:

Median annual insurance premiums for landscaping businesses
Policy	A year	What it covers
General liabilityA thrown rock through a window, a customer's broken sprinkler.	$761	A thrown rock through a window, a customer's broken sprinkler.
Commercial autoThe truck that tows the trailer. A personal policy may not cover business use; ask your agent.	$3,590	The truck that tows the trailer. A personal policy may not cover business use; ask your agent.
Tools and equipmentA stolen mower off the trailer.	$637	A stolen mower off the trailer.
Workers' compensationOnce you hire; your state sets when it's required.	$1,802	Once you hire; your state sets when it's required.
Business owner's policyLiability and property bundled, for a shop or office.	$1,101	Liability and property bundled, for a shop or office.

Start with general liability. Add commercial auto when the truck works for the business, and workers' comp the day you hire.

Buy the Kit for the Lawns You'll Mow

A residential route starts with a commercial push mower and the three tools that finish the lawn. A zero-turn earns its price once the route has lawns big enough for it. List prices, from the makers:

Lawn care equipment list prices
Tool	List price
21 in commercial mowerExmark Commercial 21 X-Series	$1,899
String trimmerSTIHL FS 131 R	$570
Backpack blowerSTIHL BR 700	$730
EdgerSTIHL FC 91	$430
60 in zero-turn mowerToro 2000 Series 77285, before any tariff surcharge	$9,999
TrailerGorillaDesk's range	$1,000–$5,000

Published totals vary with how new the kit is:

Part-time: $500–$1,500, plus vehicle (GorillaDesk)
Full-time: $1,500–$5,000, plus vehicle (GorillaDesk)
Most lawn businesses: $5,000–$8,000, not counting the truck (Lawn Love)
Multi-team: $5,000–$20,000, plus vehicles (GorillaDesk)
Depending on equipment quality: $15,000 to over $50,000, truck on its list (LawnStarter)

Price Each Lawn From Its Size and Your Time

A mow is sold by the visit. The published range for a lawn up to ¼ acre is $41 to $61; the lawn mowing cost calculator has every size and turns your minutes, crew cost and margin into a price.

Your cost starts with labor: the median landscaping worker earns $18.82 an hour (BLS, May 2025), before payroll taxes, fuel and wear. A 61 in deck at its planning speed covers about 3.0 acres an hour, which is why bigger lawns and commercial accounts are priced from a production rate instead.

Then sell more to the same lawns: core aeration once a year, a fertilization program, and sod for the bare patches. Each is priced from the same measurement.

Win the First Lawns by Quoting First

The first customers come from neighbors, door hangers, a Google Business Profile and the local groups where people ask for a mower. Whoever answers with a real price first often wins the lawn, so get the size without driving over.

In SurfaceMeasure's Lawn mode you search the address, trace the lawn in sections, cut out the house, drive and beds, and the result card shows the market range for mowing, fertilization, aeration or sod. Send a branded quote from your phone, and keep every lawn on your list for next season. Build the route tight: lawns on the same streets pay better than lawns across town at the same price.

Starting a Lawn Care Business: Questions

Contracts, winter, getting paid, and the payback.

Jobber advises pricing a contract from the visit: work out one mow's price, multiply by the visits in the contract, and show the customer the total and the recurring payment. Seasonal contracts usually run April to November. Jobber's case for them is a steadier income and less risk of a customer paying late or not at all.

Jobber suggests offering snow removal and winter landscaping to the lawn customers you already have, and Lawn Love says to market it in late fall so customers have your number when the snow comes.

Invoice as soon as the job is done. Jobber advises keeping cards on file to charge recurring service automatically, payment terms of 14 days, and a reminder email when an invoice is past due.

At $51 a mow, the middle of the published range for a lawn up to ¼ acre, 87 mows bring in the kit's price in revenue. Revenue isn't profit: at Jobber's top landscape margin of 20%, it takes 431 mows to pay the kit back. Put your own cost per mow into the estimator for your count.