Landscaping
Landscaping Labor Markup Calculator
Check what the billed rate recovers against what a crew hour genuinely costs.
Result
Markup is measured against your cost, margin against the price you charge. A 50% markup is a 33.3% margin, not a 50% one. Pricing off the wrong one is the most common way a job that looked profitable turns out not to have been.
Get a Free Business AuditWhat moves the number
- Burden on wages including seasonal employment costs.
- Travel between properties, which is paid and unbillable.
- Equipment and vehicle cost attached to the crew.
Where this one goes wrong
Costing a crew at wages plus fuel. Trailers, mowers and handheld equipment all wear, and landscaping is equipment-intensive enough that omitting it understates the hour significantly.
Questions
About this calculator
What should a crew hour include?
Burdened wages for everyone on the crew, the truck and trailer, the equipment they use, and a share of travel. All of it is consumed by the hour on site.
Does seasonal employment change the burden?
It can, through unemployment insurance rates and the cost of recruiting and training each season. Both are real and both are frequently left out.
How do I handle travel between properties?
Either in the hourly rate or as a route-density adjustment to the price. Absorbing it is what makes scattered rounds quietly unprofitable.
The formula
price = cost x (1 + markup%); margin = profit / price
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How to use this calculator
- Your cost ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $190.
- Markup on cost (%). Enter your own figure; the page starts at 45%.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to price, 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 |
|---|---|
| Your cost | $190 |
| Markup on cost | 45% |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Price main result | $275.50 |
| Gross profit | $85.50 |
| Margin that gives you | 31.0% |
A 45% markup on $190 prices the job at $275.50, which is 31.0% margin, not 45%.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only your cost, this is what happens to price. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Your cost ($) | Price |
|---|---|
| $95 | $137.75 |
| $143 | $207.35 |
| $190 example above | $275.50 |
| $285 | $413.25 |
| $380 | $551 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Your cost ($)
- A money amount, starting at $190.
- Markup on cost (%)
- A percentage, between 0 and 500, starting at 45%.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Price | The headline result. A money figure. |
| Gross profit | A money figure. |
| Margin that gives you | A percentage. |
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.