Lawn care cost

What It Means

Lawn care cost is what you pay a company or a yard worker to keep your lawn and yard in shape. Mowing is often priced per visit, and other jobs such as aeration, fertilizing, mulchingMulchingSpreading a layer of material such as wood chips, bark or leaves over the soil around plants to hold moisture, keep roots cooler and hold back weeds. See more and fall leaf cleanup are priced on their own or bundled into a seasonal plan. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports what the workers earn: a median of $18.82 an hour for landscaping and groundskeeping workers in May 2025.

How People Say It at Work

• "The lawn guys come every Thursday."
• "We switched to every other week in August."
• "Leaf cleanup was extra this year."

The Breakdown

The dated figures. The Bureau of Labor Statistics put the median wage for landscaping and groundskeeping workers at $18.82 an hour in May 2025, and for grounds maintenance workers overall at $19.27, with the lowest 1010,000 stepsA popular daily step goal that began as the name of a 1960s Japanese pedometer; later studies find health benefits begin well below it. See more% earning less than $15.01 and the highest 10% more than $28.10. These are what workers earn, and a company's price per visit is a separate figure, so use them for context.

Worked example. Weekly mowing at an example $45 a visit across a 26-week season, plus $150 for aeration and $200 for fall leaf cleanup:

Switching to every two weeks in the same season means 13 mows, or $585 for mowing.

What moves the price (Buhata's own list)

• The size of the lawn and how hard it is to mow, such as slopes and obstacles
• How often the crew comes, and how long your growing season runs
• Extras: edging, trimming, aeration, fertilizing, mulching and leaf cleanup
• A seasonal contract or paying visit by visit
• Hiring a company or a person directly

Good to Know

Yard workers are on the IRS's list of household workers in Publication 926 (2026). A worker is your household employeeHousehold employeeA worker you hire to do household work, such as a nanny or housekeeper, when you control both what work they do and how they do it. See more when you control what work they do and how, while a lawn company that sends and directs its own crew, or a self-employed worker who decides how the job is done, brings their own tools and offers services to the public, generally isn't. If you do have a household employee, social security and Medicare taxes apply once you pay that person $3,000 or more in cash wages in 2026, and federal unemploymentUnemployment benefitsWeekly payments from a state's unemployment insurance program to eligible workers who lose a job through no fault of their own, with rules set by each state. See more tax once you pay $1,000 or more to household employees in a calendar quarter. Read Publication 926 or ask a tax professional for your own situation.

Related Terms and Categories

• Lawn care schedule

  A year-round plan that puts each lawn job, from mowing height to seeding and fertilizing, in the season that suits your type of grass.

• Lawn aeration

  Pulling small plugs of soil out of a lawn with a core aerator, so air, water and roots can get through compacted soil and thatch.

• Mulching

  Spreading a layer of material such as wood chips, bark or leaves over the soil around plants to hold moisture, keep roots cooler and hold back weeds.

• Seasonal home maintenance

  Home upkeep sorted by time of year, so each job lands when the weather suits it and before the system it protects is needed most.

• Household employee

  A worker you hire to do household work, such as a nanny or housekeeper, when you control both what work they do and how they do it.

Pay, rates and costs