Lawn Care Pricing Guide 2026: Rates Per 1,000 Sq Ft for Every Service

Mowing gets the customer in the door. Fertilization, aeration, overseeding, mulch, cleanups and edging are where a small lawn business makes its margin, because they are priced per square foot or per yard and the customer rarely shops them line by line. This guide collects sourced 2026 price ranges for each service, shows how to express them per 1,000 sq ft, and ends with a rate sheet you can copy.

Every dollar figure below links to the page it came from. Where we could not find a published number that meets our bar, we give the method instead.

Why price per 1,000 sq ft

Turf products are labeled per 1,000 sq ft. The University of New Hampshire Extension notes that healthy grass can use about 0.9 lb of actual nitrogen per 1,000 sq ft per application, with an annual cap around 3.25 lb, per UNH Extension. If your product rate, your labor time and your price all use the same unit, the math on every quote is one multiplication.

The other reason is quoting speed. Once you know the turf area, which you can get from satellite imagery with our free Lawn Size Calculator or similar tools, every service on the rate sheet prices itself.

Fertilization

Lawn size	Per application (published)
1,000 sq ft	$20–$80, LawnStarter
2,500 sq ft	$50–$200, LawnStarter
7,260 sq ft (1/6 acre)	$145–$580, Lawn Love
10,890 sq ft (1/4 acre)	$218–$871, LawnStarter
21,780 sq ft (1/2 acre)	$436–$1,742, LawnStarter
1 acre	$871–$3,484, LawnStarter

The underlying rate is $0.02 to $0.08 per square foot, per LawnStarter, which is $20 to $80 per 1,000 sq ft. A typical visit lands at $64 to $385, per Lawn Love. HomeAdvisor puts a single application starting around $50, with full-program fertilization averaging $220 and ranging $80 to $380, per HomeAdvisor.

Notice how the by-size table scales linearly even though the big-lawn numbers look high. In practice, your rate per 1,000 should step down by band: a one-acre application does not take 40 times the labor of a 1,000 sq ft one. Build your bands from timed jobs, not from the table.

Organic programs price higher: synthetic applications run $100 to $300 and organic $200 to $500, per LawnStarter. Labor for application is $50 to $100 per hour, per LawnStarter.

Core aeration

Lawn size	Per visit (published)
1,000 sq ft	$53–$175, LawnStarter
5,000 sq ft	$125, HomeAdvisor
1/4 acre	$116–$191, LawnStarter
10,000 sq ft	$175, HomeAdvisor
1/2 acre	$162–$250, LawnStarter
20,000 sq ft	$350, HomeAdvisor
1 acre	$392–$550, LawnStarter

Aeration overall runs $107 to $202, with a per-square-foot rate of $0.07 to $0.27, per LawnStarter. HomeAdvisor's average is $141 with a normal range of $76 to $207, per HomeAdvisor. Core aeration specifically is $94 to $230, per LawnStarter.

The by-size numbers tell you how steep the volume discount is. HomeAdvisor's $125 for 5,000 sq ft is $25 per 1,000; its $350 for 20,000 sq ft is $17.50 per 1,000. Your rate sheet should reflect the same curve, with a floor that covers loading and unloading the aerator.

Aeration is the easiest upsell on the sheet. It pairs with overseeding and fall fertilization, and the machine is already on the trailer.

Overseeding

Overseeding with aeration runs $0.07 to $0.23 per square foot, per LawnStarter and Lawn Love, which is $70 to $230 per 1,000 sq ft. By size, Lawn Love lists $70–$230 for 1,000 sq ft and $350–$1,150 for 5,000 sq ft, per Lawn Love; LawnStarter lists $90–$150 for 1,000 sq ft and $400–$750 for 5,000 sq ft, per LawnStarter.

If you sell overseeding as an add-on to an aeration visit rather than a standalone job, HomeAdvisor lists the add-on at $100 to $160, per HomeAdvisor. A small overseeding job can go for as little as $150, with a standard quarter-acre lawn around $1,200, per Lawn Love. Seed is the swing cost: tall fescue runs $2 to $6 per pound and Kentucky bluegrass $7 to $15, per Lawn Love, so price the seed as a separate material line and keep your labor rate constant.

Full reseeding is a different job: $0.10 to $0.20 per square foot, per HomeAdvisor.

Mulch installation

Mulch is priced per cubic yard, not per square foot, so convert bed area first: square feet × depth in inches ÷ 324 = cubic yards. Our mulch calculator does this for you.

Item	Published range
Installed, per cubic yard	$77–$94, LawnStarter; $72–$87, Lawn Love
Bulk material only, per cubic yard	$30–$135, LawnStarter
Labor, per hour	$55–$95, Lawn Love
Labor, per cubic yard	$22–$55, Lawn Love
Delivery	$70–$140, LawnStarter; $50–$150, Lawn Love
Mulch blowing, per cubic yard	$38–$60, Lawn Love

Installed rates vary by market: $102–$124 per yard in New York, $78–$95 in Chicago, and $63–$76 in Dothan, AL, per LawnStarter. Quote material, delivery and labor as three lines. Customers who want to supply their own mulch can then see exactly what they are saving, and it is usually less than they think.

Spring and fall cleanups

Cleanups are the hardest service to price per square foot because leaf load, bed count and debris matter more than turf area. The published ranges are wide for that reason.

Yard size	Published range
Under 5,000 sq ft	$25–$380, Lawn Love
5,000–9,999 sq ft	$26–$451, Lawn Love
10,000–19,999 sq ft	$32–$560, Lawn Love
20,000+ sq ft	$46–$694, Lawn Love

The average cleanup is $169, per LawnStarter, or $180, per Lawn Love. HomeAdvisor's leaf removal and spring cleanup average is higher at $345, with a range of $200 to $550, per HomeAdvisor. Local independents charge $150 to $450, per Lawn Love.

Our advice: price cleanups as estimated labor hours at your loaded rate, plus a disposal line. Junk removal runs around $225 per load, per LawnStarter, so a haul-away line item is not padding; it is a real cost. Use satellite bed area and tree canopy to estimate hours before the visit, then confirm on site.

Bed edging

For installed landscape edging, the published range is $3.50 to $8.80 per linear foot, with labor at $1.50 to $10 per linear foot, per LawnStarter. Lawn Love's curbing range is $2 to $11.50 per linear foot, with labor at $1.50 to $10 per foot or $30 to $110 per hour, per Lawn Love. A 180-foot project runs $630 to $1,584 installed, per LawnStarter.

We did not find a published figure for plain spade-cut bed edging (no material), so price it by the linear foot from your own timing: measure bed perimeter from the satellite view, time a few jobs, and set a per-foot rate that covers labor plus margin.

Two related lines worth adding: power raking at $10 to $20 per 1,000 sq ft, and hand weeding at about $45 an hour, per HomeAdvisor.

How to build your rate sheet

A rate sheet is just the table above with your numbers in it. Here is the structure we recommend.

1. Loaded hourly cost. Add wages, your own pay, fuel, equipment, insurance and overhead; divide by billable hours.
2. Production rates. For each service, how many square feet (or yards, or linear feet) per labor hour. Time real jobs.
3. Rate per unit by band. (Hourly cost + margin) ÷ production rate, stepped down for larger bands.
4. Minimums. The shortest realistic visit, including drive time, at your hourly cost.
5. Materials as separate lines. Seed, fertilizer, mulch, disposal. Mark them up, but list them.
6. Add-ons with flat prices. Long-grass fee, bagging, haul-away, extra beds.

Service	Unit	Band 1	Band 2	Band 3	Minimum
Mowing	per 1,000 sq ft
Fertilization	per 1,000 sq ft
Aeration	per 1,000 sq ft
Overseeding	per 1,000 sq ft + seed
Mulch	per cubic yard + delivery
Cleanup	per labor hour + disposal
Bed edging	per linear foot

Fill it in once, then every quote is measurement times rate. This is the model AboveYard runs on: you enter the rate sheet, measure the property from satellite imagery, and the quote prices itself with the customer able to approve it online. A spreadsheet works too; the point is that you stop pricing from memory.

Revisit the sheet every winter: check it against the published ranges above, adjust for fuel and wages, and raise bands where your production rates improved.

Sources

• LawnStarter: Lawn Fertilization Cost
• Lawn Love: Lawn Fertilization Cost
• LawnStarter: Lawn Aeration Cost
• HomeAdvisor: Lawn Aeration Cost
• LawnStarter: Lawn Seeding Cost
• Lawn Love: Lawn Seeding Cost
• HomeAdvisor: Cost to Reseed a Lawn
• LawnStarter: Mulch Cost
• Lawn Love: Mulch Cost
• LawnStarter: Yard Cleanup Cost
• Lawn Love: Yard Cleanup Cost
• LawnStarter: Landscape Edging Cost
• Lawn Love: Landscape Curbing Cost
• HomeAdvisor: 2026 Lawn Care Costs
• UNH Extension: Calculating Lawn Fertilizer Rates