How to price a landscaping job (step by step, with a worked example)

Landscaping quotes go wrong in the gap between the plan and the ground: the extra few centimetres of dig, the trailer load nobody priced, the two wet days, the side gate the machine will not fit through. This is a way to price a landscaping job that puts a number on each of those before the client sees a price.

It is the landscaping version of how to price a job, which covers the pricing methods for any trade, and how to quote a job as a tradie covers putting the price in writing, with a free quote template.

1. Measure the site, then write the scope

You cannot price what you have not measured. Walk the site with a tape or a measuring wheel and a checklist, take photos, and write down every task, including the ones that are not on the plan:

• Areas and lengths for every surface: lawn, beds, paving, paths, edging, walls
• Levels and falls, and where the water will go
• Access: gate width, how far you will barrow, whether a machine can get in, where deliveries can be dropped
• What is coming out: old turf, concrete, roots, rubble, and where it is going
• What is underground. Before You Dig Australia gives free plans of underground services for your dig site
• What the client is supplying, and what happens if it is late

Then write the scope as included, excluded and assumed. "Excavation to 150 mm in soil, rock excluded" is the line that lets you price a variation later without an argument.

2. Turn the plan into quantities

Most landscaping materials are sold by area, by volume or by length, so convert every surface on the plan into one of those. Volume is area x depth, with the depth in metres.

Price every line at what your supplier and nursery charge today, and add the delivery charge for every load. Bulk materials often come on separate trucks, so two cubic metres of soil and one of mulch can mean two delivery fees.

3. Cost the crew and the machines

Estimate the hours task by task, for everyone on the job: strip-out, dig, base, edging, planting, turf, clean-up, and the trips to the tip and the yard. Multiply by your true hourly cost, not your wage. The landscaper example on the tradie hourly rate calculator comes to about $96 an hour once wages, super, overheads, the ute, the trailer and the machinery are counted.

Price machine hire the way you will be charged for it. If the excavator comes for a day, price the day plus delivery, even if the dig only takes four hours, and count the operator's hours as labour.

4. Allow for weather, access and disposal

These three are where landscaping margins disappear:

• Weather: decide who carries it. Build a weather allowance into the price, or say in the quote that extra hire days caused by wet weather are charged at cost. Leaving it unsaid means you carry all of it.
• Access: a narrow side gate means a smaller machine or more barrowing, and both mean more hours. Price the site you saw, not a flat one.
• Disposal: green waste and spoil go by the load or the tonne. Dug soil takes up more room than it did in the ground, so allow for that when you count trailer loads or skip bins.

5. Add overhead and a real margin

If your hourly cost already includes your overheads, as the calculator's does, the last step is the margin. To make 20%, divide your total cost by 0.8. Adding 20% on top gives a 20% markup, which is only about a 17% margin. Plants, bulk materials and hard landscaping can each carry their own markup; the markup vs margin calculator shows what each one gives you.

A worked example: a backyard refresh

A client wants 60 square metres of new turf on 100 mm of underlay, a 20 square metre garden bed mulched to 75 mm, and 24 metres of steel edging. Access is through a side gate wide enough for a mini excavator. The prices are illustrative, not a benchmark for your area.

As a sense-check, $8,960 over the 80 square metres of lawn and bed is $112 a square metre ex GST. Compare that with similar jobs you have done, but do not price from it: a job with a tighter gate or a deeper dig costs more per square metre. Try your own markups below.

How to price a landscaping job when the client wants a number on site

The client is standing in the yard and wants a figure. Give a range and a date: what similar jobs have come in at, what could push this one up (rock, access, drainage), and when the written quote will arrive. Then measure properly and send it on that date. A range given on site is an estimate, not a quote, and quote vs estimate explains why that matters once the job starts.

Deposits, stages and variations

Take a deposit before you order plants, pavers or sleepers, so you are not carrying the supplier's bill on your own card. Bigger builds can be claimed in stages, such as deposit, base works and completion; deposit limits for home building work differ by state, and progress claims and payment stages lists them. When the client adds a bed, upgrades the pavers or wants a second irrigation zone, price it in writing on the day and get a yes before you do it. Variations: how to price them and get them approved covers the wording.

Safety costs time, and time belongs in the price. Safe Work Australia lists cutting and laying pavers among the work that can create respirable crystalline silica dust, so price the dust controls and the extra time into any job with paver or stone cutting.

The mistakes that cost you the most

• Pricing turf by the exact area, with nothing for cuts and edges
• Forgetting the delivery charge on each load of bulk material
• Counting spoil by its volume in the ground, not once it is dug
• Pricing a one-day hire for a job that needs the machine for two
• Putting plants and materials on the quote at cost, with no markup
• Saying nothing about weather, so every wet day is yours
• Quoting a site you have not walked, so the access surprises you on the day

Do this on every job and two things happen: you stop winning work that was always going to lose money, and after a few jobs your own numbers (hours per square metre of turf, loads per cubic metre of dig) start to price the next quote for you. Logging the crew's hours and every supplier docket against each job is what makes that possible, and it is what TrackYaTradie is built for landscapers to do.