Key takeaways
- Price follows scope: how many service and area pages, the project gallery, CRM integration and tracking.
- A maintenance-only company needs less site than one that also sells design-build and hardscaping.
- Ask for every ongoing cost in writing: domain, hosting, updates, seasonal changes and tracking numbers.
- Before signing, get answers on who owns the domain, the code, the photos and the CRM connection.
How much a website costs a landscaping company depends less on looks and more on what it has to do. A brochure site is cheap. A site with a page for each service and route area, a gallery that sells design-build work, and a request form wired into Jobber or LMN costs more, and it should earn that back in recurring clients.
What a website costs a landscaping company
It costs whatever the scope demands, so start by deciding which kind of site your company needs. Most landscaping sites fall into one of four kinds.
| Kind of site | What you usually get | Who it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Do-it-yourself builder | A handful of pages from a template, your photos, a contact form | An owner-operator with one crew and a full route from referrals |
| Template set up by a freelancer | A cleaner template, basic service pages, light setup | A small company that mainly needs to look established |
| Custom conversion build | Separate maintenance and design-build paths, service and area pages, a gallery, CRM integration and tracking | A multi-crew company that wants the site to fill routes and sell projects |
| "Free" site on a monthly marketing plan | A site you rent for as long as you pay | Rarely a good fit: you build a vendor's asset, not your own |
The first two can cost from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. The custom tier costs more, because each extra piece is real work. The fourth looks cheapest and often costs most, because you pay every month and keep nothing when you stop.
The real comparison is not price against price. It is what each site produces in requests and approved quotes, against what it costs over a few seasons.
Owned site vs rented site
| Question | Owned site | Rented site |
|---|---|---|
| The domain | In your name | Often in the provider's |
| Content and photos | Yours to move | Can stay with the provider |
| If you leave | The site goes with you | You may start over |
| What you pay for | The build, then hosting and care | A fee for as long as it runs |
What changes the price
Scope drives price. For a landscaping company, these are the pieces that move a quote most:
- How many services you sell. Mowing, treatment programs, aeration, cleanups, design, hardscaping, irrigation and snow can each warrant a page. A mowing-only company needs far fewer.
- Two buyers or one. Selling design-build alongside maintenance means a second path, a gallery and project pages written to a different buyer.
- Area pages. Pages for the parts of your service area where routes run take research and writing to be worth anything.
- Photography. A gallery is only as good as the photos. Shooting finished patios and summer lawns may mean paying a photographer, or a plan for crews to capture jobs.
- Copywriting. Pages that answer real questions about price, timing and process take longer to write than a list of services.
- CRM integration. Sending requests into Jobber or LMN, with the right fields, is setup work that saves retyping every spring.
- Moving an old site. Carrying existing pages over with redirects protects rankings you already have (Google's SEO starter guide).
- Instant estimates or booking. A lot-size estimate or a booking flow adds build and testing time.
Ongoing costs
A website keeps costing after launch. Ask for each of these in writing before you sign.
Domain : A yearly renewal. Cheap, and the one item you must never let a vendor register for you.
Hosting : A monthly or yearly fee for the server. Speed on a phone depends partly on it (Core Web Vitals).
Updates and security : Software, plugins and backups. Someone has to do it, and you should know who.
Seasonal changes : Spring signup offers, fall cleanup booking and snow contract deadlines. Either you can edit them yourself, or each one costs a change request.
Call tracking : Tracking numbers and the service behind them, so web calls are counted apart from yard-sign calls.
Content and SEO : Optional. New project photos and pages keep a site growing, but they are a separate decision from keeping it running.
Ownership and contract terms
Ask these questions before you sign, and get the answers in the contract, not in a sales call.
- Who registers the domain? It should be registered to your business, in an account you can log in to.
- Whose hosting account is it? If it is the vendor's, ask how you move the site out and what that costs.
- Do I get the code and the admin login? You should be able to hand the site to another developer without asking permission.
- Who owns the photos and the copy? Project photos from your jobs are your proof of work. Make sure they stay yours.
- What happens if I stop paying the monthly fee? "The site comes down" means you are renting, not buying.
- Who owns the CRM connection? The form-to-Jobber or form-to-LMN link should run on your accounts and keys.
- What does the monthly fee cover, item by item? "Maintenance" with no list is how activity gets billed as results.
- What will you report? Ask for requests, calls and approved quotes, not page views and "impressions".
If you are weighing the site against SEO spending, what SEO costs a landscaping company covers the other half of the budget. Website design for landscaping companies shows what a full build includes.
How VETS Growth Marketing helps
We scope landscaping websites as projects with a fixed price, a list of deliverables and a launch date set before spring signups. The domain, hosting, code and photos are yours from the start, and we report what the site produces in requests, approved quotes and recurring clients. Book a growth consultation and bring any quotes you already have. We will tell you what each one actually includes.
Sources
- Understanding Core Web Vitals and Google search results, Google Search Central
- SEO Starter Guide, Google Search Central