Mike AndesFounder, Augusta Lawn Care and Homeworks · Founder of Homeworks and Augusta Lawn Care

Setting Budgeted Hours For Lawn Care Pricing 🤔

9 Nov 2025 · 1 min

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0:43

Mike Andes (speaker) explains how to set budgeted labor hours for a lawn care business. He recommends assuming 75% efficiency (i.e., budget 30 productive hours per 40-hour employee), so five full-time employees yield a baseline of 150 budgeted hours per week (5 × 30). He describes using a spreadsheet to track weekly budgeted hours and to decide when to schedule new jobs, and references his book (Total Business Turnaround, p.108).

Questions this video answers

75% (three out of four hours productive).

30 budgeted hours per week per employee.

150 budgeted hours per week (5 × 30).

Chapters

If I have five full time guys and they're working 40 hours a week, I'm not going to assume that you're going to get 40 budget hours done. There's going to be waste, there's going to be job overages, the weather's going to get bad. I'm going to assume 30 budgeted hours or a 75% efficiency score. Three out of every four hours they work will actually be getting work done. Now I have a baseline 150 budget hours, 5 people times 30 per week is what I can accomplish. And now when I get an accepted job, I'm simply going to look at my spreadsheet like, okay, 150 this week, next week, 100. Okay, we're booked this week. 120. That's when we'll start. We'll start you on this week. Are you getting all this? Just. You got it all memorized? I got it all memorized, yeah. Is this in your book? You got like a.
It is in there. Total business turnaround, page 108.