Landscaping
Landscaping Gross Profit Calculator
Work out gross profit with crew, equipment and material defined consistently as direct costs.
Result
Gross profit is what is left after the cost of doing the job. Overhead comes out of that: the building, the office wages, the vans, insurance, software and advertising. A healthy gross margin still loses money if overhead is larger.
Get a Free Business AuditWhat moves the number
- Crew labour with burden.
- Equipment wear attributable to the work.
- Material at landed cost including delivery.
Where this one goes wrong
Leaving equipment out of direct cost. Landscaping consumes machinery in proportion to hours worked, and treating it entirely as overhead makes labour-only jobs look better than they are.
Questions
About this calculator
Should equipment be a direct cost?
The wear portion, yes. It is consumed by the job in the same way fuel is, and attributing it shows which work is machinery-intensive.
Maintenance versus installation margins?
They differ substantially and should be measured apart. Blending them obscures which one is actually carrying the business.
What margin should landscaping carry?
It depends on overhead and mix. The more useful exercise is comparing your own work types against each other rather than against an external figure.
The formula
gross profit = revenue - direct costs
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Please keep the attribution line. It is the only thing we ask in return.
How to use this calculator
- Revenue ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $47,000.
- Direct labour ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $16,000.
- Materials and equipment ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $11,000.
- Other direct costs ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $2,200.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to gross profit, and change it back. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or saved.
A worked example
These are the figures the calculator opens with. Every number in the results column below is produced by the same calculation the page runs, so you can follow it through before putting your own figures in.
What goes in
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Revenue | $47,000 |
| Direct labour | $16,000 |
| Materials and equipment | $11,000 |
| Other direct costs | $2,200 |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Gross profit main result | $17,800 |
| Gross margin | 37.9% |
| Total direct cost | $29,200 |
| Profit per working day | $809.09 |
That is $17,800 at a 37.9% margin, about $809.09 for every working day. Overhead still has to come out of it.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only revenue, this is what happens to gross profit. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Revenue ($) | Gross profit |
|---|---|
| $23,500 | -$5,700 |
| $35,250 | $6,050 |
| $47,000 example above | $17,800 |
| $70,500 | $41,300 |
| $94,000 | $64,800 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Revenue ($)
- A money amount, starting at $47,000.
- Direct labour ($)
- A money amount, starting at $16,000.
- Materials and equipment ($)
- A money amount, starting at $11,000.
- Other direct costs ($)
- A money amount, starting at $2,200.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Gross profit | The headline result. A money figure. |
| Gross margin | A percentage. |
| Total direct cost | A money figure. |
| Profit per working day | A money figure. |
Seasonality is not in this
Coverage and material figures assume the area you enter. Slope, access for machinery, existing growth and the time of year all affect both quantity and labour, and none of them appear in a calculation like this.
Estimating is the easy part
The jobs you never hear about cost more than the ones you mis-measure. BDEVY builds the marketing, systems and automation that bring them in.