Lawn Mowing Price Calculator
Price a mowing job from lawn size, mowing rate, extras and drive time at the hourly rate you want, per cut, month and season. The mowing rate starts from deck width × speed × field efficiency, the field capacity formula Iowa State University Extension uses for farm machines, and every assumption is editable. You get the time on site, the price per cut with your minimum, the monthly and season totals, and the hourly rate you actually earn. No regional going rates: your time, costs and target rate set the price.
Your numbers
The mowed area only: leave out the house, drive, patio and beds.
The share of the mower's full rate left after turns, overlap and obstacles. 70% is an assumption for a residential lawn; open turf runs higher, a lawn full of beds and trees lower.
If you know the square feet you really mow per hour, type it here and the deck, speed and efficiency are not used.
Person-minutes per cut.
Use 0 to leave it out.
The crew shares the on-site work; everyone is paid for the drive.
The hourly rate you want each person's time to earn, before job costs.
28 is an example (seven months at four cuts); type your own.
Price per cut
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- From time and costs, before the minimum
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- Per month
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- Per season
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- Effective hourly rate per person
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- Time on site
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- Paid time, drive included
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- Price per 1,000 sq ft
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- Mowing rate used
- 59,136 sq ft/h (1.36 acres/h)
The deck width, 4 mph and 70% efficiency are starting assumptions, not measurements. Time a few of your own lawns and type your real figures, or type the square feet per hour you actually mow.
Overheads such as insurance, the truck and equipment replacement are not in the cost per job: build them into the target rate.
The calculation runs in your browser and ParrotNotes does not store your numbers. They sit in the page address so you can bookmark or share the result.
How the price per cut is worked out
Start with the mowing rate: deck width in feet × speed in mph × 5,280 feet per mile × field efficiency gives the square feet one mower covers in an hour. Field efficiency is the share left after turns, overlap and stops. Iowa State University Extension uses the same formula for farm machines in acres per hour (width × speed × efficiency ÷ 8.25, where 8.25 is 43,560 sq ft per acre ÷ 5,280 ft per mile). If you know your real square feet per hour, type that instead.
Mowing time = lawn area ÷ mowing rate. Add the minutes for trimming, edging and blowing to get the person-hours on site. A crew shares that work, so the clock time on site is the person-hours ÷ crew size, but everyone is paid for the drive, so drive time counts once per person. Paid hours × your target rate per person is the labor; add fuel and other costs for the job, and if that is under your minimum charge, the minimum is the price.
Worked example with the default assumptions: a 48-inch deck at 4 mph and 70% mows 59,136 sq ft an hour. An 8,000 sq ft lawn takes 8.1 minutes to mow, plus 10 minutes of trimming and 15 of drive, 33.1 minutes for one person. At a rate of your own of $60 an hour that is $33.12 of labor; with $3 of fuel, $36.12 a cut. With a $40 minimum, the price is $40 and you earn $67.04 an hour on that lawn. Four cuts a month is $160; 28 cuts a season is $1,120.
The assumptions, and how to replace them
The defaults are ParrotNotes assumptions for a residential lawn, not survey figures: a 48-inch deck, 4 mph, 70% field efficiency, 10 minutes of trimming, edging and blowing, and 15 minutes of drive. Lawns with trees, beds, fences and slopes run at a lower efficiency than open turf, and wet or long grass slows the mower.
The fastest way to replace them is to time your own route for a week: note the lawn size, the minutes on site and the minutes between stops. Divide the square feet by the mowing hours to get your real rate and type it into the mowing rate field. The page gives no regional going rate; your costs and the rate you want set the price.
What the price per cut leaves out
The cost per job field is for costs that scale with the stop, such as fuel and blade wear. Overheads such as insurance, the truck and trailer payment, equipment replacement, software and the owner's time spent quoting and billing are not in it. Spread them over your hours and add them to the target rate, or the hourly rate you want will not be the hourly rate you keep.
Extras such as bagging clippings, leaf cleanup, edging beds or a first cut on overgrown grass take longer than a routine cut. Price them as extra minutes or as separate line items.
For lawn care operators on the first visit
The details that change the job get said at the first walk-round: the gate code, the dog, the beds to skip, the strip by the road the customer wants left long. They are easy to lose between the quote and the first cut.
Price the lawn here while you are there, and keep what the customer asked for with the quote so the crew mows it the way it was sold.
Source for the mowing rate formula, read on 2026-10-25. The default speed, efficiency and minutes are ParrotNotes assumptions:
Need the lawn size first? The square footage calculator measures it. Quoting more than the cut? The grass seed calculator prices overseeding and fertilizer, and the gravel calculator works out stone for paths and beds.
More for landscapers and lawn care pros: Landscaping sales, Pest control sales, Quote follow-up email.
The gate code, the dog, the beds to skip
Customers say it at the first visit. Record it in ParrotNotes and get a structured note with a summary and action items, so the crew does the job the way it was sold. Free for 100 minutes of recording a month.
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