Lawn care contract template
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Between
Customer name
Scope of work
Describe exactly what is included — and what is not.
Price and payment
Total: $0.00
Deposit (50%): $0.00 before work begins
Balance: $0.00 on completion
Terms
Payment
A deposit is due before work begins. The balance is due on completion. Invoices unpaid after 14 days may carry a late fee of 1.5% per month.
Changes to the work
Anything outside the scope above is a change order, priced and agreed in writing before that work starts. Verbal changes are not binding on either of us.
Access
The client agrees to provide access to the property, water and power where needed, on the agreed dates. If we cannot access the site on a scheduled day, a return visit may be charged.
Weather and delays
Work may be rescheduled for weather or conditions that make it unsafe or would affect quality. We will give as much notice as we can. Neither party is liable for delays outside their control.
Existing condition
We are not responsible for pre-existing damage or for defects revealed by the work. Where we find something unexpected, we will stop and tell you before continuing.
Insurance
The contractor carries liability insurance and will provide a certificate on request.
Cancellation
Either party may cancel in writing before work begins. Deposits cover materials already ordered and scheduling held for you, and may be non-refundable to that extent.
This is a starting point written for small home service work, not legal advice. Contract law varies by state, and some states require specific notices, licence numbers or cancellation language on residential contracts. Have a local attorney read it once before you use it for everything.
Define the visit, not just the service
“Lawn care” is the vaguest word in this trade. To you it means mow, edge, blow. To your customer it might include the beds, the hedge, the leaves and the weeds in the driveway.
Write the visit out:
Weekly service, April through October: mow all turf areas, edge all hard surfaces and bed lines, blow clippings from driveway, path and patio. Excludes bed weeding, hedge trimming, leaf clear-up, fertiliser and irrigation.
Every one of those exclusions is a job you can quote separately later. Leaving them vague is how you end up doing them for free.
Get the frequency and the season in writing
State the visit frequency, the months the agreement covers, and roughly how many visits that adds up to. A customer paying $180 a month in a dry August where the grass barely grew will feel overcharged unless the contract already explained that the monthly price is the season averaged out.
Say it plainly in the price section: “$180/month, April–October, covering approximately 28 visits across the season.”
The two clauses that protect a route
Access. Locked gates, dogs out, cars parked across the driveway. If your crew cannot get in, you have paid two people to drive somewhere and turn around. The access clause in the builder above lets you charge for that.
Cancellation notice. Thirty days. Lawn care runs on route density — you accepted this customer instead of one two streets over, and if they leave in July you cannot easily backfill the slot mid-season.
Renewal beats resale
Add a line that the agreement renews for the following season unless either side gives notice. Winning a lawn care customer costs you far more than keeping one, and an automatic renewal turns your spring from a sales season into a confirmation season.
When the paperwork becomes the bottleneck
One contract is a five-minute job. Forty contracts, each generating a monthly invoice across a season, is a different problem — and it is the one that eats the Sunday evenings.
That is where field service software earns its price. It turns the signed agreement into a recurring job and a monthly recurring invoice, so the round bills itself. Jobber at $49/mo handles recurring visits and monthly billing well and is the usual answer for a small round. QuoteIQ is cheaper at $29.99/mo and includes e-signatures from the Beginner tier. Housecall Pro is worth it at five or more people, where five seats come in at $189/mo.
Questions operators actually ask
What should a lawn care contract include?
Visit frequency, exactly what each visit covers, the monthly or per-visit price, the season it runs, how either side cancels, and what happens if nobody can access the yard. Frequency and scope are the two that cause arguments — 'mowing' means different things to you and to your customer.
Should I bill monthly or per visit?
Monthly, for anything recurring. A flat monthly price across the season smooths your cash flow and cuts your invoicing from roughly thirty invoices to one per customer. Say clearly in the contract how many visits the monthly figure covers so nobody feels short-changed in a slow-growth month.
How do I handle a customer who cancels mid-season?
Put a notice period in writing — 30 days is standard — and state that the season price assumes the full term. Mid-season cancellations are the main way lawn care revenue leaks, because you have already turned down the neighbour to keep that slot.
What about extras like fertiliser or leaf clearing?
List them as excluded from the base agreement and priced separately. Anything seasonal — spring clean-up, autumn leaves, aeration — should be its own line, otherwise a customer will reasonably assume it was included in what they already pay.
Is a signed contract necessary for residential mowing?
Not legally for most small jobs, but it is what stops a customer deciding in July that they thought you were also doing the hedges. A one-page signed agreement takes five minutes and prevents the conversation that ends the account.