TradesLandscapersPricing and profit

Landscaper Business PricingBusy all spring, flat out all summer, and the bank account never shows it.

Pricing for landscaping business owners. How to build a charge-out rate that carries award labour, on-costs, machine hire, materials and green waste fees, and how to quote a sloping block or a design and construct build without eating the difference yourself.

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A painted scene of a landscaping crew screeding a bed of sand along a rail, stacked pavers waiting beside them

The week this is about

Sound Like Your Landscaping Business?

You price off what the bloke down the road charges

You heard a number at the supplier and worked backwards from it. Nobody checked whether that rate covers the award, super, workers comp, the ute, the trailer, the excavator payment and the tip fees. So you match a price you cannot afford.

The sloping block kills the quote every time

Flat block rates do not survive a fall, poor access, or wheeling everything down a side path. You know it before you start, quote it like a flat block anyway because the client compared you to someone who did, and then absorb the extra days.

Nobody knows which jobs actually make money

The paving might carry the business and the maintenance round might be losing on fuel and tip fees, or the other way around. Without a per job margin you cannot tell, so you keep saying yes to everything and hoping the year comes out ahead.

Underpricing does not show up as a loss, it shows up as a landscaper working every weekend to stay level and calling it a busy year.

A trade business owner working alone at the kitchen table late at night, laptop open and paperwork spread across the table, work boots and tool bag by the door

Pricing and profit

Here Is What We Do About It.

The Profitable Pricing Masterclass shows you how to build a charge-out rate from your real costs, and the Profit & Freedom Masterclass connects it to what the business pays you. Pricing training in the Learning Hub goes deeper, and coaching sits with you on your actual quotes until you can hold the price.

The Tradies App

Free with an active ABN in Australia and New Zealand. No card, no trial clock.

Learning Hub

The full lesson library inside the Tradies App, self paced, $199/month.

Business Foundations

Weekly live sessions hosted by Greg Allan, where you bring your own numbers.

Free tool, no sign-up

Charge-out rate calculator

Put in what labour costs you, how many hours you can actually invoice and what the business spends, and it builds the rate that covers all of it and leaves a margin. It runs in your browser and nothing you type is sent anywhere.

Work out your rate

How it works

Three Steps, Starting Tonight.

Step 1

Work out what an hour really costs you

Not the wage. The wage plus the ute, the insurance, the phone, the unbilled hours and the time you spend quoting. Most owners have never put that number on paper.

Step 2

Price off the number, not off the last bloke

The Profitable Pricing Masterclass takes you through building a rate that carries your overheads and a margin, so you stop pricing against whoever is cheapest this month.

Step 3

Hold the price and watch what happens

The Profit and Freedom Masterclass covers the part nobody warns you about: what to do when someone pushes back, and why losing the wrong job is a win.

A small group of trade business owners in a coaching session, one of them explaining a plan at the head of the table

What changes

What Landscaping Business Pricing Actually Changes.

Three things landscaping business owners walk away able to do.

Calculate a charge-out rate that covers award labour, on-costs, plant and overheads.

Load a quote properly for fall, access and site conditions before you send it.

See the margin on each job type and drop the work that loses money.

A trade business owner watching his child play sport on a Saturday morning, coffee in hand and phone face down
Nights and weekends back
A trade business owner and his partner in the kitchen looking at a tablet showing the numbers going up
Work that actually pays
A trade business owner shaking hands with a new apprentice in the work yard
A good hire who stays
A trade business owner standing calmly in the yard while his crew load two utes behind him
Out of the middle of everything
9,000+tradies trained4.9★Google rating4.9★App Store rating

Questions

Landscaper Business Pricing, Answered.

How do I work out my landscaping charge-out rate?
Start with what an hour of crew time actually costs you: the award rate under MA000101, super, workers compensation, leave and the rest of the on-costs. Add plant, vehicle and overheads, then the margin you need. That is a rate, not a guess. The Profitable Pricing Masterclass walks you through building it on your own numbers.
Should I quote landscaping per hour, per square metre or per job?
Quote the client a fixed price for the job, and price it internally per hour and per square metre so you know what it costs. Square metre rates are useful for turf, paving and mulch, and dangerous on a sloping block with poor access. The pricing training covers when each measure works and how to load for site conditions.
How much deposit can I ask for on a landscaping contract?
Deposit caps on residential building work are set by state law and they are low, commonly 5% or 10% depending on the contract value, so never assume you can take a third up front. Check your state regulator before you write the contract, then stage payments to the build so materials and plant are funded. Coaching will work through your payment schedule with you.

Landscapers

The Other Ways We Help Landscapers.

Training

Landscaper Business Training

Structured training that turns what landscapers know on the tools into a business that runs properly.

Coaching

Landscaper Business Coaching

A coach who has run a trade business, in your corner, holding landscapers to the plan.

Systems

Landscaper Business Systems

The documented process that lets the work happen properly when landscapers are not standing there.

The free app

Landscaper Business App

Lessons, tools and a room full of other owners, free for landscapers with an active ABN.

Marketing and leads

Landscaper Business Marketing

How landscapers get the phone ringing with the jobs worth having, not just the cheap ones.

Hiring and team

Landscaper Business Hiring

How landscapers build a crew that does it right without being watched.

Everything for landscapers
A painted scene of a trade business owner home before dark, sitting on the tray of his ute while his son runs to meet him

Start Tonight, For Nothing.

Get started freeBook your AI Coaching Call

The Crew, daily Q&A, starter courses and your AI Coaching Call. Free with an active ABN. No card, no trial clock.

Turning over $10k a month or more? Thirty minutes, one on one, on what AI would actually do in your business, which part to build first, and how fast the Pathway gets you there.