Lawn Care Break-Even Calculator
How many lawns a month cover your fixed costs — and what a small price change does to that number.
These are your numbers, not market rates. This calculator works from the costs you enter. It does not tell you what your area pays — that varies by region, season and year, and any site quoting you a single national figure is guessing. Use this to find the price that covers your costs and target profit, then sanity-check it against what you can actually win locally.
The formula and a worked example Show the arithmetic
Contribution per job = price - variable cost Break-even jobs = fixed costs / contribution Profit at N jobs = N x contribution - fixed costs Overhead is NOT subtracted per job here. The fixed costs figure IS your overhead; taking it off both sides would count it twice and overstate the jobs you need.
Worked example
Fixed costs $1,350 / month
Price per job $ 45
Variable cost $ 27
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Contribution $ 18 per job
Break-even = 1,350 / 18 = 75 jobs per month
At 90 jobs: 90 x 18 - 1,350 = $270 profit
At 60 jobs: 60 x 18 - 1,350 = -$270 loss Now raise the price 10%, to $49.50. Contribution goes from $18 to $22.50 — a 25% jump — and break-even falls from 75 jobs to 60. A tenth on the price removed a fifth of the work needed to cover your costs. That leverage is the strongest argument against discounting: cutting price 10% would push break-even from 75 jobs to 100.
Common questions
What is break-even for a lawn care business?
The number of jobs per month at which your contribution exactly covers your fixed costs. Below it the business loses money no matter how busy you look; above it, every additional job contributes profit.
Contribution is price minus VARIABLE cost — the wages, fuel and consumables that job consumes. It deliberately excludes fixed costs, because those are the thing being covered.
Why exclude overhead from the variable cost here?
Because it would be counted twice. The fixed-costs figure on the left of the equation already is your overhead; subtracting an overhead allocation from each job as well would double-count it and overstate how many jobs you need.
This is different from the price calculator, which includes an overhead rate in job cost. There the goal is a price that carries overhead; here the goal is to see how many such jobs it takes to actually pay it.
Why does a small price rise change break-even so much?
Because the price rise lands entirely on contribution. If a job earns $60 against $35 of variable cost, contribution is $25. Raise the price 10% to $66 and contribution becomes $31 — a 24% increase, so you need roughly a fifth fewer jobs to break even.
That leverage is why raising prices beats chasing volume in a business with meaningful fixed costs, and it works in reverse: discounting cuts contribution far faster than it cuts price.
What if I never break even?
If price is at or below variable cost, contribution is zero or negative and no number of jobs will cover fixed costs — every job makes it worse. The calculator says so rather than returning a large number.
The fix is price or cost, not volume. Working harder at a losing price accelerates the loss.
Related tools
- Overhead Recovery CalculatorWhat every billable hour must carry to pay your fixed costs. The number most people omit.
- Lawn Care Contract CalculatorTurn a season of mowing into a level monthly payment, and see the delivered work you carry unpaid at season end.
- Lawn Care Startup Cost CalculatorTotal startup cost and how many lawns it takes to pay it back.
Sources
- Contribution margin and break-even - break-even units = fixed costs / (price - variable cost per unit). Standard managerial accounting; unit-tested in this site's suite including the no-break-even case.
- Overhead Recovery Calculator - where the fixed-costs figure comes from