If you’re thinking about hiring a professional lawn care service, you might be wondering about the cost. That’s a wise move. Anytime that you’re investing in home services, you want to have a good understanding of what you’re paying for. But lawn care pricing can be confusing.
There are a lot of different lawn care companies and you might find that they all advertise or quote different prices.
In this article, we’ll help you understand more about average lawn care costs and what goes into them.
We’ll cover:
At the end of the day, we want you to feel confident about your buying decision, whether you choose to work with Kingstowne Lawn & Landscape or not. We truly care about our community and also never want to see anyone duped by marketing gimmicks or schemes.
Many factors contribute to lawn care costs, and understanding these is the key to better understanding what you’re paying for.
One of the big factors that contributes to lawn care prices is what products the company invests in. We’re talking about things like fertilizer and weed control. Though you might assume that every lawn care company out there is using the same (or similar) products, the fact is, there is a wide range of professional-grade products and some are better than others.
Naturally, the better products cost more. That means, when a company uses a higher quality product, you’ll usually spend a little more for their services. But that benefits you with better results.
It’s ideal that lawn care companies have their technicians licensed by the Virginia Department of Agriculture. However, a lot of companies squeeze by with the bare minimum (meaning they are only “registered” and can verify there is at least one licensed applicator working at the company).
But you know it’s important to have highly trained and certified professionals on your property. That’s why you’d like to work with a company that has all of its technicians licensed.
In general, labor is a big factor in lawn service costs. The technician who comes to treat your lawn needs to be paid for their time and expertise, and these labor costs are included in the price for lawn care services.
A low-priced service could potentially mean that the technicians aren’t being paid well. Being unfairly compensated could lead them to cut corners. Ultimately, this causes frustration on your end because you’re not getting the quality of service you expected.
Low prices could also mean that the lawn care company has a high technician turnover rate. Oftentimes, technicians eventually move on from poor-paying companies that don’t value their employees. This can lead to a revolving door of different employees.
Companies that invest in quality staff and keep employees longer benefit you, the customer, in the long run. You wind up with well-trained and experienced technicians working on your lawn year after year. You get a technician who really gets to know your property instead of a totally different technician every month.
A lot of lawn care companies get away with lower lawn care pricing by having bare-bone staff in general. This means that they don’t have people available to answer questions if you call. In fact, you might find it difficult to even reach someone on the phone at these companies.
We find that this is an important detail to people. They want their questions answered and they want to receive high-quality customer care when they need something.
In addition to cutting corners with licensing, we’ve heard horror stories of lawn care companies who have cut corners by not fully paying for insurance coverage. Does the company you hire carry the proper insurance should something ever go wrong? Are they covered to handle it?
There are a lot of small operations out there that fail to pay for insurance coverage and are putting the homeowner at risk as a result. We’ve had many customers ask to see “proof of insurance” over the years and we appreciate that they’re exercising their right to information as a knowledgeable consumer. A lot of companies might claim to be “licensed and insured” but you should ask them to prove it.
As you can tell from the section above, there are many factors that contribute to setting lawn care prices and this is why one lawn care company might not charge the same as another.
This is why we stress that it is important not to shop on price alone.
A lawn care company might charge less, but it might be that they’re using subpar products or they aren’t focused on employing a well-trained or robust staff. While you might save a little bit of money, you might end up not being happy with your results or your service (or both).
If you are comparing lawn care quotes, you also need to consider what you’re getting for your investment. As with most things in life, you tend to get what you pay for. However, you also have to look at what’s included in that lawn care pricing.
Sometimes when you actually look at what one package offers compared to another, you’ll see that some companies leave services out to try and charge you more later. This is something that we’ll address in our section next.
But this is a reason why you should choose a company that is transparent about what is included in their lawn care packages.
When talking about lawn care costs, we would be remiss in not mentioning that some companies can be intentionally sneaky about this while others just aren’t as transparent with information.
As we mentioned, some companies use a “bait and switch” type of approach to selling lawn care where they sell you one package that seems really cheap to reel you in.
But then once they start working on your lawn, they begin to tell you all of the additional add-on services that you need. Leaving these services out made their lawn care program seem cheaper when in reality, perhaps it was the same price or more as a company that just told you what you needed from the start.
It’s important to look for a company that values transparency and honesty when shopping for professional lawn care.
At the end of the day, it’s important to do your research as you decide which professional lawn care company is going to be the best fit for you.
We have no problem admitting right off the bat that we are not going to be your cheapest quote if you’re exploring lawn care prices in the area.
However, our guess is, if you’ve made it this far in the article, you aren’t someone who is shopping on price alone. You care about the value that you will receive for your investment. You likely also know that under-investing can hurt you in the long run. Homeowners who wind up choosing the cheaper service could end up paying more in the long run. Being proactive can really save you from big costs down the road.
At Kingstowne, we may cost more for the reasons that we’ve outlined in this article. We use high-quality, professional-grade products, licensed and well-trained professional technicians, and we include quite a bit of services (that you need), even in our least expensive package.
The fact is, we don’t believe in cutting corners to try to beat the competition’s price. We also don’t believe in leaving out valuable services just to try and make our package appear cheaper. To us, that’s playing games and we don’t do business that way. You can count on us to tell you honestly what your lawn needs to look its best.
As you consider lawn care companies in the area, we hope that you’ll consider investing in one of our 3 programs, based on your needs. As with most things in life, you get what you pay for when it comes to lawn care and we want to give our clients the best.
If you want to feel confident that your investment in lawn care is going toward the best possible results, request your quote, choose from 3 lawn care package options, and relax as you get the royal treatment.