Free Lawn Care Quote Template (AU)

Why most lawn care quotes lose money

Most operators quote from gut feel. They look at a lawn, pick a number that sounds right, and hope it covers their costs. Sometimes it does. Often it doesn't — and they don't find out until the end of the month when the numbers don't add up.

The problem isn't effort. It's that there's no system. Without a repeatable quoting process, every job is a guess.

This template gives you a starting point: a structured format that forces you to account for the real costs before you name a price.

How to use this template

Once you've grabbed your copy, here's how to set it up:

1. Fill in your business details

Open the Setup tab and enter your business name, ABN, contact details, and hourly rate. These flow through to every quote you create.

2. Enter your costs

The template includes fields for:

• Labour cost per hour — what you actually pay yourself or your crew
• Equipment cost per hour — depreciation, fuel, maintenance (use our Equipment Cost Calculator to find this number)
• Travel time — the minutes spent getting to and from the job
• Materials — fertiliser, seed, disposal fees, anything extra

3. Measure the lawn

Estimate the lawn area in square metres. If you're not sure, pace it out or use Google Maps. For more accurate measurements, Gus uses satellite imagery to measure properties in seconds.

4. Send the quote

The template produces a clean, professional quote with your business details, itemised costs, and a total. Save it as a PDF from Google Sheets and send it to your customer.

What this template doesn't do

This is a spreadsheet. It's a solid starting point, but it has limits:

• No automatic lawn measurement — you need to estimate or measure manually
• No saved customer history — each quote starts from scratch
• No cost tracking across jobs — you can't see trends over time
• No branded output — it's a Google Sheets PDF, not a custom-designed quote

When you're doing 5+ quotes a week and want to move faster, Gus handles all of this automatically — satellite measurements, saved customers, equipment cost tracking, and branded PDF quotes that look like they came from a much bigger operation.

Tips for better quoting

Don't round down. Operators consistently underestimate their costs. If the numbers say $85, don't quote $75 because it "feels too high." Trust the maths.

Include travel time. Every minute driving to a job is a minute you're not earning. If a job is 20 minutes away, that's 40 minutes of unpaid time. Build it into the quote.

Track your actual time. After a few jobs, compare your estimated time to your actual time on site. Most operators quote 30 minutes and spend 45. The template helps you catch this.

Quote the job, not the hour. Customers don't care about your hourly rate. They care about the total. Use the template to calculate your cost, then present a fixed price for the job.