Research
Lawn care cost, built up from wages
BLS wage data for landscaping workers, May 2024 state means, and one worked two-person stop at three overhead levels.
Written by HyreYard Research Desk Primary-source research and fact checking
The finding
No sourced national lawn care price exists that we can audit, so we build the labor cost from wages. BLS puts the May 2025 median for landscaping workers (SOC 37-3011) at $18.82 an hour.
Two workers on a 45-minute stop cost $28.23 in straight wages. Loaded 1.3× to 2.0× for payroll tax, insurance, truck and supervision, the floor is $37 to $56 per stop. A bid below it has left something out.
Read these limits first
No national average lawn price is published here. One number would blend wages, route density, season length, turf type and what the bid includes. Nobody could check it.
Two BLS vintages, two frames. Median hourly wages are May 2025 OEWS, via the Occupational Outlook Handbook. State means and the 943,430 establishment employment count are May 2024 OEWS. The handbook’s 1,188,600 for 37-3011 is the projections base and counts self-employment differently. These are different products, not a disagreement.
A wage is not a bid. The worked stop is arithmetic on a median and three assumed burden factors. It cannot see a slope, a gate, a dog or an HOA spec. Our landscaping cost estimator takes the amounts you type from a written bid.
Company counts are not prices. HyreYard’s research files list 10,711 companies in seven states. Texas is 2,999 of them, on a sales-tax permit, because Texas licenses no landscaper. The counts show register density, nothing more.
What does BLS measure for landscaping workers?
May 2025, Occupational Outlook Handbook. Landscaping and groundskeeping workers (37-3011): median $18.82 an hour. Grounds maintenance workers as a group: $19.27 an hour, $40,080 a year. The group’s 10th percentile is under $15.01 and its 90th is over $28.10.
For comparison, the median for all occupations is $24.51. Tree trimmers and pruners earn $24.50. Pesticide handlers, sprayers and applicators (vegetation) earn $22.28.
Where they work, same handbook. 48% of grounds maintenance workers are in services to buildings and dwellings (median $20.90). 20% are self-employed, and OEWS establishment wages do not cover them. Recreation industries pay less ($17.45); educational services pay more ($21.39).
May 2024 OEWS, news release USDL-25-0451. 37-3011 establishment employment: 943,430, annual mean $40,880. First-line supervisors (37-1012): 124,130 employed, mean $59,380. The floor below uses the median. The mean appears only where BLS published a mean and no median.
HyreYard analysis. A homeowner searching “lawn care cost” wants a monthly number. The unit you can check is dollars per hour of named labor, times a burden the bid can defend, times how long the stop takes. Region moves the wage. Season and route density move the hours. Scope moves the rest.
Highest- and lowest-paying states for landscaping workers, May 2024
| Area | Annual mean wage | Implied hourly mean (÷ 2,080) | Where it sits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Massachusetts | $49,130 | $23.62 | Among the highest in the BLS table |
| District of Columbia | $49,130 | $23.62 | Among the highest in the BLS table |
| Washington | $48,260 | $23.20 | Among the highest in the BLS table |
| Alaska | $46,230 | $22.23 | Among the highest in the BLS table |
| California | $46,120 | $22.17 | Among the highest in the BLS table |
| United States | $40,880 | $19.65 | National mean, not a median |
| South Dakota | $33,900 | $16.30 | Among the lowest in the BLS table |
| Arkansas | $33,750 | $16.23 | Among the lowest in the BLS table |
| Louisiana | $33,470 | $16.09 | Among the lowest in the BLS table |
| Mississippi | $32,750 | $15.75 | Among the lowest in the BLS table |
| West Virginia | $32,310 | $15.53 | Among the lowest in the BLS table |
BLS May 2024 OEWS, featured data tables and USDL-25-0451, retrieved September 5, 2026. HyreYard calculation: annual mean ÷ 2,080 hours. That divisor assumes full-year, full-time work, which seasonal crews do not do. It still compares states more fairly than annual means read as lawn prices.
Washington and California are in HyreYard’s seven-state research files and sit near the top of this table. Texas, Florida and North Carolina are in the files but not in the BLS highest/lowest list, so we print no mean for them.
What does one mowing stop cost in labor?
This is a HyreYard calculation, not a BLS statistic. Assumptions: 2 workers at the May 2025 37-3011 median of $18.82, 45 minutes (0.75 hours) on a 5,000-square-foot lawn.
Straight labor before burden: 2 × 0.75 × $18.82 = $28.23.
The burden multipliers (1.3×, 1.6×, 2.0×) stand in for payroll tax, workers’ compensation, the truck, fuel, dump fees and the supervisor time the median wage leaves out. They are assumptions, not a measured overhead study, which is why we run three and not one.
Labor floor for one 45-minute, two-person stop at the May 2025 37-3011 median. HyreYard calculation. Not a quote, not a monthly plan.
The May 2024 supervisor mean of $59,380 a year is about $28.55 an hour at 2,080 hours. That is a different occupation and vintage. It is part of what burden pays for: someone routes the crew.
What each floor covers, and what it does not
| Burden | Floor for the worked stop | What it can cover | What it cannot |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.3× | $37 | Payroll tax and little else | A truck, workers’ comp or a supervisor |
| 1.6× | $45 | A middle loaded labor number in this arithmetic | Fuel spikes, a second truck, or a stop that runs long |
| 2.0× | $56 | Heavier insurance, more idle time, more supervision | Materials, dump fees or a renovation |
HyreYard calculation from the assumptions above. A written bid below the 1.3× floor that is silent on what it left out is incomplete, not cheap.
Does lawn care cost more where wages are higher?
May 2024 state means. The same occupation paid a mean of $49,130 in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, $48,260 in Washington, $46,120 in California and $32,310 in West Virginia. That is the regional wage spread. It becomes a lawn-price spread only once you know season length and stops per day.
HyreYard research files, seven states. TX 2,999 · AZ 2,284 · WA 1,730 · CA 1,600 · OR 1,140 · FL 552 · NC 406. Total 10,711.
Texas is the largest count on the weakest evidence (self-reported NAICS sales-tax permit: Texas licenses no landscaper). Arizona’s rests on CR-21, which covers hardscape and irrigation, not planting. Florida’s sits where DBPR has no mandatory landscape license. The counts reflect how public each register is, not market share or price.
HyreYard analysis. A high-wage state with a short mowing season, like Washington, and a lower-wage state with a long one would not price lawns in the ratio of their wages.
Hours per year and stops per day can move the monthly number more than the hourly mean. That is why this page prints no US monthly average.
Why this page does not quote Angi or HomeAdvisor ranges
HomeAdvisor, Angi and similar sites publish lawn care ranges built from their own flow of quotes and reported jobs. That is a real product. It is not a BLS wage, and it is not a measured job cost for a named scope.
HyreYard analysis. Where a quote-panel range and this labor floor disagree, they can be answering different questions. The panel asks what people said they paid. This page asks what the median worker costs before the truck. We did not retrieve a current Angi range, so we print none.
What a comparable lawn care bid should name
Mow, edge, blow. Beds. Hedges. A spring renovation is not a mow.
Pesticide application is a different occupation (37-3012) and can need a state pesticide applicator license. See landscaping licensing by state.
A gate, a slope, an HOA spec, clippings left or bagged. These change the time on site more than the wage.
Type the per-visit or monthly figure from the written bid into the estimator. HyreYard does not quote.
How we built this page
May 2025 OEWS medians from BLS OOH, retrieved September 5, 2026, page last modified August 27, 2026. May 2024 OEWS means and establishment employment from USDL-25-0451 (April 2, 2025) and featured_data.htm (July 23, 2025).
2 workers × 0.75 h × $18.82 × {1.3, 1.6, 2.0}. Change any input and the floor moves.
We did not retrieve Angi, HomeAdvisor or Thumbtack ranges, and we do not print remembered ones.
TX, AZ, WA, CA, OR, FL, NC. Not a national market and not a price.
Questions
How much does lawn care cost?
Why don’t you publish an average monthly price?
Is the BLS wage what I will pay per hour?
Does lawn care cost more in California or Washington?
How do I use the landscaping cost estimator with this page?
Does HyreYard mow lawns?
Written and audited by
HyreYard Research Desk
Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking
We are a research desk, not a landscaping company. We read the statute, the municipal code, the water-district rule or the federal soil file ourselves, and we publish the figure with the document it came from and the date we retrieved it.
Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we publish the shorter page and say what we could not verify. This desk is new.
The counts below are what we can already stand behind, and every one of them is counted from the studies on this site.
- 255
- source documents cited, each linked
- 112
- government (.gov) domains among them
- 258
- citations carrying a retrieval date
- 10
- research studies published
How this desk works
- Primary sources only. A rule comes from the statute, ordinance, board or agency that issued it, cited by section, with the URL and the retrieval date. We do not cite a blog that cites a code.
- Coverage is a number. A table titled to fifty states has fifty sourced rows. A table of cities is titled to the cities we actually read. Gaps are published as gaps.
- Company counts stay inside seven states. Texas, Arizona, Washington, California, Oregon, Florida and North Carolina. Texas is the largest roster on the weakest evidence, a self-reported NAICS sales-tax permit, because Texas licenses no landscaper. National claims rest on federal or state agency data, never on our counts.
- Fact, calculation, analysis and recommendation stay labeled. "According to…" is a source. "HyreYard analyzed… and calculated…" is ours. "This suggests…" is interpretation. We do not present our reading as something the source stated.
- We do not landscape, irrigate, plant, cut trees or pull permits, and we take no payment for placement, ranking or a favorable mention. Nobody buys a position on this site.
Data as of BLS OOH May 2025 wages retrieved September 5, 2026; May 2024 OEWS state means from the April 2, 2025 news release. Authorship on this site is organizational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold.
Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.
Sources & retrieval dates
Check the bid against the wage
HyreYard does not mow and does not quote. Type the figures from a written bid into the estimator, or tell us about the work.
This page is general information about published wages and a labeled arithmetic floor. It is not a quote, not a market survey of jobs, and not a recommendation of any company. HyreYard does not perform landscaping. Quote-panel ranges were not retrieved and are not printed.