Walk the site and note the conditions
Landscaping looks simple from the street and gets complicated in the yard. Walk the whole property with the customer and note what you are working with: soil condition, slope and drainage, existing plants that stay or go, irrigation, and access for equipment and material delivery. A backyard you can only reach through a narrow gate is a different job than one a skid steer can drive into.
Take photos of every area in scope and of existing conditions like poor grading or a failing retaining edge. Photographs keep the scope honest on both sides: the customer remembers what was there, and you remember what you priced.
Ask what happens to the spoils. Soil, sod, and debris have to go somewhere, and haul-away is a real line item, not an afterthought.
Measure the areas and count the materials
Measure every area in scope. Beds and lawn are square footage: length times width, section by section for odd shapes. Edging, borders, and fence lines are linear feet. Plants are a count by type and container size. Write the measurements down area by area so the material list builds itself.
Bulk materials like mulch, soil, and gravel are sold by the cubic yard. The math is simple: multiply length times width times depth in feet, then divide by 27. Depth is where estimates go wrong, so agree on the finished depth with the customer before you order.
- Beds, lawn, and sod areas in square feet
- Edging, borders, and pathways in linear feet
- Plants, shrubs, and trees by count and size
- Mulch, soil, and gravel in cubic yards from area times depth
- Sod or seed with a waste allowance for cuts
- Irrigation parts, fabric, and fasteners
- Delivery fees, equipment time, and debris disposal
Build the line items
Estimate labor from your crew's production rate for each task: bed prep per square foot, plants installed per hour, sod laid per square foot, mulch spread per cubic yard. You learn these numbers by tracking a few jobs, and they are worth more than any rate sheet. Multiply the hours by your loaded crew cost, meaning wages plus the real cost of having people on payroll.
Materials go in at supplier cost including delivery. Equipment gets its own line, whether that is a rental or a fair rate for your own machine, because iron burns money whether it is yours or not. Overhead (truck, trailer, insurance, quoting time) and profit go on top as your markup, set from your own books.
| Line item | How you size it |
|---|---|
| Plants and materials | Counted list at supplier cost |
| Bulk materials | Cubic yards from area times depth |
| Labor | Task hours from your production rates |
| Equipment | Rental cost or your machine rate |
| Delivery and disposal | Actual fees per load |
| Overhead and profit | Your markup on real costs |
Mistakes that lose money
- Pricing from the front yard and missing what the backyard access costs you
- Guessing mulch or soil depth instead of agreeing on it in writing
- Forgetting delivery fees and minimum-load charges on bulk materials
- Leaving site prep out because the job was described as planting only
- No line for debris and spoils haul-away
- No wording on plant care, so replacement after neglect becomes your cost
What the customer should see
A finished landscaping estimate reads like a scope of work: areas covered, materials and quantities, plant list with sizes, site prep included, cleanup and disposal, and the total. State what is excluded, note who waters and maintains new plantings after install, and give the price a validity window since material costs move with the season.
You can draft this on site with an app like EstimateBook: describe the job by voice or snap photos of the yard, and it builds itemized line items you can edit for quantities, prices, and markup before sharing a PDF. Treat the draft as a starting point and check it against your measurements before it goes to the customer.