Why We Don't Cut Front Yards for "Half The Price"

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]All right. So, we got a pool going in the backyard here. So, I talked with the homeowner. He said, "Yep, just go ahead and cut the front. Don't worry about the back today." Um, so that's what we're going to do. And, uh, we'll get a time on this lawn. Um, we'll check our rate here. Give him a little bit of discount since it's the front yard only. So, we're at 11 11:30 right now. So, let's jump on this lawn. Um, get it taken care of. Okay, guys. So, there's there's one question that everybody they're going to get at some point in their lawn career, and that is, "Hey, I just need you to cut the front yard. Can can you do it for for half the price?" And I get it. I understand why people ask that. You know, from from the customer's perspective, it's simple. They look at the property, they say half the yard, it should be half the price. So, I mean, on the surface, that sounds reasonable, but in reality, that's just that's just not how service-based businesses work. Um, so when a lawn care company shows up to your property, you're not just paying for the grass to get to cut. You're paying for the entire process that made that cut possible. You're paying for the truck. You are paying for the trailer, the mower, the trimmer, the blower, the fuel, the insurance, the payroll, the scheduling, drive time. I mean, every bit of it, guys. Like all of that stuff, like to get the trailer to the job site.

[00:01:20]So today I want to talk to you, you know, why we don't just do half rate mowing for, you know, just the front yard. And every single lawn care business needs to have a a pricing minimum because if you don't understand this, it will absolutely kill your profit uh for your lawn care business.

[00:01:35]And if you're a customer watching this, um you know, hopefully this helps you understand why a small job, you know, still has real a cost, you know, attached to it. Okay, so let's just start with the obvious here, right?

[00:01:48]Cutting the front yard only, it might reduce some of the labor, but it does not reduce most of the cost. The part that most everybody doesn't doesn't see is yes, if we if we mow the entire property, we are spending more time on the grass. But if we only mow the front yard, we still have to do almost everything else. We still have to load the route. We have to drive to the property. We have to park the truck and the trailer, unload the equipment. We got to string trim, edge, blow. We have to communicate like all this stuff, you know, all this stuff, it goes into to cutting the lawn. So, whenever they ask, you know, can we just do it for half the price? You're only cutting half the grass. But what the what the business owner hears is is like, I still I've got to perform almost the entire service, but for half the money. And that doesn't work. Like, there's a lot of cost associated with getting the equipment to the job site. And um you know, if you want to stay in business, you just have to have a a pricing minimum. So like here's here's a quick example. Let's say that you have a lawn that normally cost $60 to cut and then the customer, you know, they only want the front yard done and they say, "Hey, $30 seems fair." But from a business side, how much time you really save? Like, okay, let's say the the full property takes 25 minutes, but the front yard only takes, you know, 15 or 18 minutes. So, I didn't save half the time on my end. You know, I maybe saved seven to 10 minutes, but I still drove there. I still unloaded. I still trimmed and edged all that stuff. And, you know, it might have been 20% cheaper, but not 50%. You know, not 50%.

[00:03:25]Okay? Just doesn't make sense. So, this is why we have a minimum price. Period.

[00:03:32]So, the minimum price, it protects a business from doing work where the math just is isn't mathing. Okay? So for us, we have a minimum charge of $45. Okay, that is that is my my bare minimum um rate because every stop on the route, it has a baseline cost, right? You need to understand that. So So if somebody calls and they're like, "Hey, John, we want you to, you know, go cut, you know, uh this small little property over here."

[00:03:57]If I drop the gate and pull a trimmer off and like and I cut a blade of grass with a trimmer, it's 45 bucks because the cost is in getting there and parking the trailer, all that stuff to get there. All of that stuff adds up and that's you need to have a pricing minimum. Pricing minimums matter period.

[00:04:15]Okay. So, when you're first starting out, it's very tempting. It is it is yes to say everything because you know you want the work. You know, you you're you value the customer and that relationship. You want the revenue, but and and like you don't want to lose, you know, the job over 10 or 20 bucks. I get that. All right. So, you start making exceptions. Sure, I'll just cut the front yard for half the price. Sure, I'll just do this tiny area for 20 or $25. And guys, that is that is one of the fastest ways for you to absolutely race to the bottom. Okay, the customer, they do not understand your pricing. You understand your pricing. All right? They don't understand how your schedule gets [music] chopped up. You know, your route becomes less efficient and you're doing like low profit work. They don't understand that. It's not their business to understand that. Okay? It's your [music] business and it's and it's your business to make sure that every single service that you're doing is profitable.

[00:05:08]Okay? So, I just I really want to discourage you from doing half rate lawn services from just just the front yard.

[00:05:15]All right? So, you need pricing rules, right? Guard rails a minimum. Now, here's here's here's what I would do.

[00:05:22]Think think about what the work is worth and not just not just like the the time there. So, like [music] this job right here. Okay, I'm going to finish this job myself. We can sit here and look at what my time is going to be. I can guarantee it'll be less than 15 minutes. I think this yard probably averages about 12 minutes. All right. This yard, it will take me 12 minutes to do it. All right.

[00:05:45]And it probably would save the customer 45 minutes, maybe an hour, you know, if they're doing this with the push mower, right? So, so my thing is is like just because I'm able to do this lawn efficiently and fast and do the front yard fast, that does not mean that does not mean that the price should just get absolutely slammed to zero. Guys, look at this truck and trailer up here. Like there is a lot of expensive equipment right there in this video um that allows me plus been an operator for a very very long time, guys. Like I I know what I'm doing here. Okay. So, they're paying to not have to deal with this lawn. All right. They're paying for a professional service to come in here and wipe this thing out. All right. So, the value in this lawn is for them not having to do it. It's not in the the time that it takes me because, you know, we all know, guys, like you are you are going to be way more efficient on a lawn than a homeowner is. And you need to be paid, you know, well for for your expertise.

[00:06:49]Now, let me be clear. This this does not mean that that you need to be rude to your customers. Um uh it doesn't mean that you should act offended if somebody asks for a discount. It's it's a reasonable thing for them to do. And most people, they're not trying to be disrespectful. Okay? They just don't know. They're thinking like a homeowner.

[00:07:08]They're not thinking like a business owner. And that's okay. All right. Part of our job is to communicate very clearly, you know, to our customers. So, if they ask, "Can you just do the front yard for half the price?" Like, we don't have to get upset at that. Okay? Because they're not they're not intentionally trying to to to gouge us. All right?

[00:07:29]Simply say this. It's very easy. Just say, "Hey, we have a minimum service charge. You know, the majority of my cost is like getting here, unloading, and all that stuff. I'm happy to do the front yard, but it would still just be our minimum pricing." And for me, my minimum pricing is 40 $45. So again, that protects me from coming over here, taking the time to get on site and doing work for half the price. And you can come up with something that is your own lingo, but what you want to revert to is, hey, we have we have a minimum price, and I'd be happy to do the front yard, but it would just fall under a minimum price of X. You know, what whatever yours is. And guys, I'm just going to tell you, I wouldn't have it too much lower than 45 bucks. like you just don't need to be pulling up to people's lawns and doing any work for less than that in my opinion. Okay, so that is like that's professional. That's clear. It's not emotional. It gives the customer choice. They can say yes or no.

[00:08:22]You know, you are not bending your business around for every little request. And that's the key. Minimum pricing. It's not about being greedy, okay? It is about being sustainable.

[00:08:33]It's about being able to pay your people very very well. um you know, being able to maintain your equipment, like all that stuff. Because let's be honest, a lot of lawn care business owners, like they don't fail because they don't have enough work. They fail because they price stuff wrong and and because they they they get the wrong kind of work.

[00:08:54]All right? Too many cheap jobs, underpriced jobs, one-off favors, exceptions, like all that stuff. It adds up. You're exhausted. You're not making money. Your equipment's worn out. Your schedule is packed. But your bank account does not reflect it. Okay? I'm here to tell you that it's absolutely a terrible spot to be. Okay? It's a terrible place to be. All right? I don't want that for you. I want you to make a lot of money if you're out here working.

[00:09:18]Like, this is hard work, guys. Like, it's already heating up in our area.

[00:09:21]Hey, you notice here that I finished my stream trimming right here at the truck.

[00:09:24]Maybe I'll do another video on how we trim um everything out really efficiently. Um that's should be a whole video in in of itself. But that really is the key to this.

[00:09:35]>> [clears throat] >> it is being efficient. And we are going to check our permanent hour rate just to see how much money we made per hour on this lawn. Um since it was a minimum rate at $45, but um you will you will see that it pays to have a minimum rate. Um we will we will discuss that uh here here in a second. Okay. Um let's see what else can I talk about here on this. Um the the most freeing thing honestly that you can do in your business is you you don't have to win every [music] single job.

[00:10:05]All right? I want to re-emphasize that you don't have to say yes or win every single job. All right? When you are new and you're doing this like losing a job or you know somebody not being happy with [music] you for like telling them like you have minimum pricing even though it's small like that feels scary to do. All right. But as you mature as a business owner, you realize that some jobs like those are not losses. Those are bullets dodged. Okay? There is a big difference between a lost job and a bullet dodged. Okay? And if [music] you can get that to sink into your mind, you will start viewing saying no a lot differently. You'll start [music] viewing it as a bullet dodged and not a lost a lost opportunity. Okay? If a customer wants you to lower your minimum um before the relationship even starts, they may not be a bad person, but they're probably just not a right fit [music] for your business. A customer who only sees your service is like, you know, how cheap can I get this this thing cut. They're probably not going to value your reliability uh and your professionalism, right? And that's fine.

[00:11:07]All right? There are businesses that will serve that customer. They're low price providers, neighborhood kids, and solo guys just getting started with almost zero overhead. Right. But I'm here to tell you that type of work [clears throat] is not sustainable. Um if you ever ever hope to um make a business that [music] you know is is capable of providing um for you and your family. Okay. So that's why I don't like breaking services down too far, guys. Um when you [music] start like line iteming everything and you know what if you don't edge, what if you don't blow the driveway? What if you only trim so?

[00:11:40]Don't do none of that. Right? At some point you're no longer selling a professional service. you're letting the [music] customer basically just just discount your your business into a business that you know is accommodating every little thing that they want to do to just crush your pricing. We don't want that for you.

[00:11:58]Okay. For us, a mow is a mo. We show up, we do it the right way, we string trim, we edge, um we blow the property clean, all the things. Right now, you'll see here like we do not get into flower beds. Like there's a lot going on here.

[00:12:10]They got construction. They got they got all kinds of things going on here. We do not get in people's flower beds unless we are specifically paid for. I don't get in there and string trim anything. I don't want to be damaging any plants.

[00:12:21]Um, none of that. So, when you see here and see these flower beds, you say, "John, those look ain't looking great, John. I know. I know they don't look very good, man. I know they don't, but I'm not paid to do anything with those beds, so I'm not not interested." All right. So, guys, uh, hope this was helpful. We are going to check our time on this. I I would encourage you to stay tuned right here at the end because uh we're going to talk about how much money I made per hour on this job by having a minimum pricing. All right, you turf pros, take care and I will see y'all in the next one.

[00:13:16]Okay, so we started that one at 11:30, 11:43 now. Um, so let's just let's just run that real quick. Uh, again, price overtime divided by 60. So 13 minutes divided by 60. And I have a minimum price here, guys. This lawn is typically $59 lawn, but since we only did the front yard, it was $45. So, I can't I can't do this lawn for half the amount just because we only did the front yard.

[00:13:44]Um it just costs too much money to get over here and you would just never make money if you were trying to charge people, you know, $29, you know, to cut their grass. So, again, um price over time divided by 60. Our time was 13. You divide that by 60 gives you 2167. You divide that number into your price. So our price here was $45 divided by 0.2167 and our effective hourly rate on this job was $27 an hour. So again that's why it is important to have pricing uh minimums because just look at the difference here if I had to charge let's let's say half rate um 59 divid by two let's call it 29 12. So 29.5 / 2167.

[00:14:30]That's a big difference there between 207 and 136. That's why it's so important that you have minimums uh whenever you show up to people's lawns.

[00:14:37]All right. My minimum is $45. I will not drop a trailer uh gate for less than $45. I don't care if I pull a weed eater off and and trim one blade of grass. $45 is our minimum. But still a good rate.

[00:14:50]you know, I did that lawn in 13 minutes when it probably would have taken the homeowner 45 minutes or maybe an hour with a push mower and residential equipment. So, they're getting a deal.

[00:15:00]Um, I'm being paid for my expertise because I'm efficient and that's a win-win. So, hope this refresher, guys, um, was good for you and figuring out your perman hour rate. If you want a deeper dive into this stuff, join us in Turf Pros Academy. That's where I help lawn guys run successful lawn care businesses. But if you just want to hang out, watch all the free content, a like, guys, is the easiest way for you to support the channel and tell YouTube that you're interested in this content so they'll show you more of it. All right, you guys take care and I'll see you turf pros in the next one.