Landscaping Cost

I cannot remember the exact costs but when I built a house, landscaping was expensive. I was able to DIY for a lot less.

Where are you located? Dept of ag in Louisiana has a list of licensed landscape contractors you can find through the consumer portion of the website

Landscape architects who own install companies make a shite ton of money. For plants only, not including sod and irrigation, our average budget is 10k. Typically our clients add another 10k if not more because it just doesn't get you very far.

If you get multiple bids on it, ask for jobs they’ve done and go see them. A lot of landscapers have a style that you’ll want to see so it matches what you want without having to explain it. It will also show you which houses still look good and which are having issues.

That’s not exactly true at least in my experience doing this. Our price never changed seasonally. Hell one or two of our slowest months were summer months. It all goes by what the company has as volume of work. A lot of people plan to do large scale renovations and re plants in fall. Winter time is typically a dead time but not at all ideal for planting.

I would 100% tell the OP if he was getting ripped off or not if he listed all what was quoted.

Yep, same for us, we don’t price based on how busy we are. The price is based on the cost of materials, which vary, and the amount of labor to do the job. I have heard of companies that give inflated quotes if they are “too busy” and take it if the customer accepts, but I couldn’t do that. We price things so that our company can hopefully make a little after all expenses are paid. What many people don’t realize when they get a quote is we have to pay for materials, labor, liability insurance, workers comp, truck note, truck insurance, equipment upkeep, fuel, taxes on labor, taxes on materials, etc. etc. etc. We are only trying to make a living, raise a family, and stay in business.

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Yep, same for us, we don’t price based on how busy we are

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There's nothing wrong with this and I'm not going to talk to you about how to run your business, but in the grand scheme of basic business this makes absolutely no sense. Price is always affected by demand in one shape or form. That may be labor, in a great economy like we have now manual labor is in high demand and very expensive. Same with summer labor, labor is always higher in the summer and the economy is generally busier.

My point to the OP was simply that landscaping is in high demand this time of year, he shouldn't expect a low ball price as almost everyone is working. Materials are also in high demand.

No one is saying you aren’t right in your statement. When we were bidding a job we never simply reduced the price. We maybe eliminated plants, went smaller, or removed aspects of the project that weren’t vital. We never simply lower the price just to get the job.

Also if you wait for winter you run the risk of plant availability and losing your investment due to potential freezes.

Realistically get three quotes. Compare alll three and find out what the market rates seem to be. You can always go to the one you like most and say “hey look I like you guys and want to go with you. Company X says they will do it for this price, if you can match that we can do this with you”. I’ve done that once before when the month was looking bad. We just removed a few hours of labor in the job. We always over estimate labor just in case. So there is wiggle room for sure. But that was one time over several years and it was a really big job. On a small job, it will be tough.

Hell if its small I’d almost just do it myself.

You’re probably right that it makes no business sense, lol, my wife and I are both retired educators with no background in business. I personally just feel that to adjust pricing based on how “busy” I am is no different than contractors who price gouge after natural disasters. My wife bids jobs, she takes into account the current price of all materials and our estimated labor projections. If we are too busy we simply tell them we can’t get to them for awhile and if that costs us a job so be it. We have a great relationship with our customer base and rarely lose a customer, and I like to think it has a lot to do with our honesty and fair/consistent pricing. But we also have a lot to learn about business since we are only 3 years and some change into this next chapter of our lives.

And that has happened for us...we didn’t have the best price, but my wife did a better job giving the customer a design based on what they communicated to her during their meetings. In the end they agreed to pay more because of that along with our reputation for doing good work from the person who referred us.