You land your first big landscape install: a multi-phase design for a property that could keep you busy for a year. The work itself does not scare you. The quote does. Price it too high and the client walks. Price it too low and you spend a year doing phases two, three, and four at a rate that barely covered phase one.
Landscape installs are harder to price than maintenance because every job mixes heavy labor, a lot of materials, equipment, disposal, and plants that might not survive. This guide covers how to build an install quote from your real costs, where profit should come from, how to handle a phased project, and what to check once the work is done.
Break the job into cost buckets
Before you think about price, list every cost the job will create. For most installs that means five buckets:
- Labor. Crew-hours for demo, grading, hardscape, planting, irrigation, mulch, and cleanup. Include loading, unloading, and supply runs.
- Materials. Plants, soil, amendments, stone, pavers, base, edging, mulch, fabric, irrigation parts. Use your actual supplier prices plus delivery fees.
- Equipment. Rentals like skid steers, sod cutters, plate compactors, and trenchers, or a usage charge for equipment you own.
- Disposal. Dump fees and haul trips for old sod, soil, stumps, and debris.
- Overhead. A share of insurance, vehicles, fuel, phone, software, and the hours you spend designing and selling the job.
Most underpriced installs are missing one of these entirely, usually disposal, equipment, or design time.
Estimate labor in crew-hours, not days
Break the job into tasks and estimate hours for each, then multiply by crew size. “Three days for two guys” hides too much. “Demo and grade: 16 crew-hours. Paver patio, 300 sq ft: 40 crew-hours” shows you exactly where the time goes and makes it easy to adjust when the scope changes. Pad tasks with unknowns like rocky soil, roots, or tight access. How to estimate job time covers padding and tracking estimate vs. actual.
Where should the profit come from: labor or materials?
Both. A common, defensible approach is:
- Bill labor at a rate that covers your overhead and profit, not at what you pay the crew.
- Mark up materials to cover sourcing time, pickup or delivery, waste, and the risk of plants that fail.
- Mark up equipment rentals and disposal lightly to cover handling, or include them in the labor rate.
When someone sees a big gap between what a supply yard charges and what a landscaper charged, they are usually not seeing the labor, design, sourcing, warranty, and overhead built into that price. You do not need to justify every dollar, but you do need to know what each line covers.
Worked example: phase one of a multi-phase install
Example numbers only. Swap in your own rates and supplier prices.
Your costs:
- Labor: 120 crew-hours at an example loaded cost of $45 per hour = $5,400
- Materials (plants, stone, soil, mulch): $8,000
- Equipment rental: $900
- Disposal: $400
- Total direct cost: $14,700
Your price:
- Labor billed at $75 per crew-hour: 120 × $75 = $9,000
- Materials with 20% markup: $9,600
- Equipment with 15% markup: $1,035
- Disposal with 15% markup: $460
- Total price: $20,095
Gross profit is $20,095 − $14,700 = $5,395, about a 27% margin before overhead like your truck and insurance. If that is lower than the margin you need, raise the labor rate or the markups and run it again. Do not cut the hours to make the number look better, because the hours do not change just because the quote did.
Notice how much of the profit sits in labor. If a client supplies their own plants or stone, your price drops, but your labor rate and margin should not.
Markup is not margin
A 20% markup on materials gives you about a 16.7% margin on those materials, not 20%. If you want a specific margin on the whole job, divide total cost by (1 − target margin). For a 30% margin on the example above, $14,700 ÷ 0.70 = $21,000. Then decide how to spread that across labor and materials on the proposal.
How to quote a phased project
Multi-phase projects are where landscapers get stuck honoring year-old prices. Protect yourself:
- Quote phase one firmly. You know the scope, the materials, and the timing.
- Quote later phases as budget ranges. State that they will be re-priced before each phase starts, based on current material costs and final scope.
- Put an expiration date on every price. Something like 30 or 60 days for the firm phase.
- Take a deposit per phase. Material-heavy jobs should not have you fronting thousands in plants and stone. See how to take deposits without losing the customer.
- Use change orders. When the client or board changes the design mid-phase, price the change in writing before you do it. How to handle change orders covers the process.
If the proposal goes to a board or committee, give them options: a base scope and one or two upgrades with separate prices. Committees approve options more easily than a single big number.
Decide on a plant warranty before you price
If you guarantee plants for a season or a year, some will die and you will replace them. That cost belongs in the quote, usually in the materials markup. If you only warranty plants when you also handle the watering or maintenance, say so in writing. A warranty you did not price is just a discount you give later.
Check the job after it is done
Once phase one is complete, compare estimated vs. actual crew-hours, materials, equipment, and disposal. That comparison is the most valuable pricing data you will get, because phase two is priced off it. If grading took twice as long as you thought, you will know before you quote the next phase, not after.
For recurring work on the same property, how much to charge for lawn care covers per-visit maintenance pricing.
The short version
List every cost bucket, estimate labor in crew-hours by task, bill labor at a rate that covers overhead and profit, mark up materials for sourcing and risk, and check your margin with cost ÷ (1 − margin). Quote phase one firmly, later phases as ranges with expiration dates, and take a deposit per phase. Then compare estimate vs. actual before you price the next phase.
SupaHandi keeps estimates, change orders, invoices, expenses, and job profit together, so you can see what each phase really made. See the SupaHandi features, or start free and build your next install quote from real numbers.