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

The MOST Important KPI in Lawn Care☝🏼

20 Jan 2025 · 1 min

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0:45

Mike Andes explains the most important KPI for lawn care is labor efficiency measured as budget hours divided by clocked (paid) hours. He gives concrete examples and thresholds: charging $60/hour while trying to make $60,000/month produced near-zero margin; a target of 30 budget hours per 40-hour employee equals 75% efficiency; efficiencies below 50% are unlikely to be profitable, ~70% will be acceptable, and ~90% is the gold standard.

Questions this video answers

$60,000 a month.

$60 per hour.

30 budget hours per 40-hour employee.

Less than 50%.

70%.

Chapters

The problem is we were getting all this work early this spring to make $60,000 a month. However, we were charging $60 an hour. So we were probably making like 0% margin. Usually around 55 to $60 per hour is what you need just to cover the cost of labor and your overhead. So typically, we want 30 budget hours of work per 40 hour employee, because that means a 75% efficiency. So if I can do 30 budget hours of work in a 40 hour week, that's pretty standard. Their efficiency score right now is like 40%, because they're probably doing about 35 budget 80 hours worth of work. In my opinion, if you, if you have budget hours divided by clocked hours and it's less than 50, you'll never make money. If you're at 70, you'll do okay. 90 is like the gold standard. That is where they are super efficient.