Lawncare Maintenance Services

Lawn care

Lawn maintenance is a wage business, and the wages are public

Lawn maintenance is priced off labour, and labour is the one part of it the federal government actually measures. In May 2025 the Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 1,048,490 grounds maintenance workers, at a mean of $20.78 an hour and a median of $19.27.¹ The largest group inside that, landscaping and groundskeeping workers, numbered 952,640 with a median hourly wage of $18.82.¹

The crew is not the whole crew. First-line supervisors of landscaping, lawn service and groundskeeping workers, 130,760 of them, have a median hourly wage of $28.09, roughly 49 percent above the crew median.¹ That gap is the arithmetic behind why a crew with a working supervisor prices differently from a one-person operation, and both numbers come out of the same BLS table.²

Two parts of this work are federally regulated and the rest is not. Chemical treatment falls under EPA certification standards when restricted use pesticides are involved.⁶ Irrigation is where EPA publishes hard savings figures you can act on.⁵ What nobody publishes is a price. No government agency, regulator or trade association puts out a figure for a mowing visit or a season contract, and every average in circulation traces back to a lead aggregator with no stated method or sample.

Six things a maintenance contract can actually mean

Lawn care is sold as one word and delivered as several separate services, priced and regulated differently.

Mow, trim and edge visits

The base service, and the one most quotes are built around. It is crew labour on a route, which is why property size, gate access and drive time move the number more than grass does. BLS puts the landscaping and groundskeeping median at $18.82 an hour.¹

Season-long maintenance contracts

A fixed schedule across the growing season rather than per visit. BLS notes the work is done outdoors in all weather and that some of it is seasonal, available mainly in spring, summer and autumn.³ That seasonality is a real, sourced reason availability and quotes shift through the year.

Fertiliser and weed treatment

A separate occupation, not a mowing add-on. BLS counts 27,050 pesticide handlers, sprayers and applicators in vegetation work at a $22.28 median hourly wage.¹ EPA sets a federal minimum age of 18 for certified applicators of restricted use pesticides.⁶

Irrigation service and tune-ups

EPA states that properly managing an irrigation system can cut annual outdoor water use by nearly 8,800 gallons, which it compares to the water used for 500 showers.⁵ That is the figure that justifies paying for a service visit rather than replacing hardware.

Tree and shrub pruning

Also a different occupation with a different pay profile. BLS counts 55,160 tree trimmers and pruners at a $24.50 median hourly wage, well above the mowing crew median.¹ If a lawn company quotes tree work at its mowing rate, ask who is doing it.

Watering schedule and controller setup

EPA's rule of thumb is that a landscape typically needs one inch of water a week including rainfall, varying with location, weather and plants.⁴ It also warns that watering too frequently can drown plants or produce shallow roots.⁴ Good crews will set the timer to that.

Crew median hourly wage, BLS May 2025$18.82

Supervisor median hourly wage, same table$28.09

What does it cost?

There is no authoritative price for lawn maintenance, and this guide will not invent one. What is published is what the work pays. Grounds maintenance workers as a whole earned a $20.78 mean hourly wage and $43,220 mean annual wage in May 2025, against $33.54 and $69,770 across all occupations.¹ The crew median of $18.82 and the supervisor median of $28.09 come from the same federal table.² Those are wages paid to workers, not rates charged to you.

What moves your number is the shape of the job. Property size and visit frequency set the labour hours. Crew composition sets the wage mix, because a supervised crew carries a worker paid about 49 percent more per hour than the crew median.¹ Bundling changes it again, since treatment and tree work are separate occupations with their own pay profiles.¹ Season matters, because the work is seasonal by BLS's own description.³ And if you irrigate, the running cost lands on your water bill: EPA reports the average family spends more than $1,000 a year on water, with outdoor use accounting for more than 30 percent of household use.⁷

Every figure above is either a Bureau of Labor Statistics wage from the May 2025 OEWS release or an EPA WaterSense water figure, both cited; wages exclude equipment, fuel, insurance, overhead and margin, and are not a quote.

Hiring

How to hire for lawn maintenance

1

Who does the work

Crews, usually. Two BLS programs count them differently and both are worth knowing: the Occupational Outlook Handbook puts grounds maintenance workers at 1,296,400 jobs in 2024, while the May 2025 wage survey counted 1,048,490.³¹ Neither is wrong. They are different surveys with different scope, so name the source and year whenever you use a number.

2

What pros will ask

Lot size and how much of it is turf. Gate widths and whether a rider fits. Visit frequency and preferred day. Whether you have an in-ground irrigation system and where the heads sit. Whether you want treatment, which is regulated work under EPA standards when restricted use products are involved.⁶ Whether tree and shrub work is in scope, since that is priced separately.¹

3

What to check before signing

EPA's own advice for hiring landscape and irrigation help is to confirm the contractor is licensed and bonded, then ask for training and professional certifications.⁵ Ask specifically what certifications address water efficiency.⁵ Ask who applies chemicals and whether any product is restricted use.⁶ Then get the visit list in writing: mowing, edging, clean-up, treatment and pruning are not one service.

Lawn maintenance questions, answered straight

What does a lawn service cost per visit?

No authoritative source publishes that number. Not BLS, not EPA, not any regulator or trade association. Every per-visit average you find online traces back to a lead aggregator that does not state its method or its sample, so it is a marketing estimate rather than data. What is published is the labour underneath it: a $18.82 median hourly wage for landscaping and groundskeeping workers in May 2025, and $28.09 for their supervisors.¹ Use that to sanity check a quote, not to predict one.

Is my lawn company allowed to spray chemicals?

It depends on the product. EPA's federal certification standards apply to restricted use pesticides, and for those the federal minimum age is 18 for certified applicators and for anyone using them under a certified applicator's direct supervision.⁶ The 2017 rule also set a maximum recertification interval of five years.⁶ A great deal of routine lawn treatment uses general-use products that this federal rule does not reach, and state licensing for commercial applicators is a separate layer this guide does not cover. Ask which products are being used.

How much should the lawn actually be watered?

EPA's guidance is that a landscape typically requires one inch of water a week including rainfall, and that this varies with where you live, recent weather and what is planted.⁴ To calibrate, EPA suggests placing a few empty tuna cans around the lawn while watering, timing how long the sprinkler takes to fill them with a half inch, then watering that long twice a week and adjusting to the weather.⁴ It also warns that watering too often can drown plants or leave shallow roots.⁴

Why do quotes and availability change through the year?

Because the work genuinely is seasonal. BLS states that most grounds maintenance work is done outdoors in all weather, and that some of it is available mainly in spring, summer and autumn.³ A crew that is fully booked in May has spare capacity in a way it does not in a shoulder month. There is no published monthly price index for this work, so nobody can tell you how much the season moves a quote, only that it does.

Is a bigger company worth paying more for?

No data settles it. What the federal numbers show is a real wage difference inside the same industry: the crew median is $18.82 an hour and the first-line supervisor median is $28.09, about 49 percent higher.¹ A supervised crew carries that cost and a solo operator does not. Whether the supervision buys you better work is a judgement about the specific company, not something BLS measures. Judge it on the written scope and on references.

Sources

Where these facts came from

Every figure on this page was read out of the page linked below. We do not cite cost aggregators.

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