Real 2026 rates for cleaning, lawn, pool, and tree pros, built from real invoice data. See what to charge and how to set your own price.
Setting your price is the hardest call you make as a solo operator or small crew. Go too low and you work yourself into the ground for nothing. Go too high without the scope to back it and the customer walks.
This guide is a 2026 pricing benchmark for solo operators and small crews in four trades: cleaning, lawn and yard, pool, and tree service. For each service it gives the median rate and the typical range, the pricing model that fits the trade, and a simple method for setting your own number. It speaks to you pricing your own work, not to a homeowner shopping for a quote.
Use this guide two ways. First, find your service and read the median as a market anchor and the range as your room to move. Second, use the formula and pricing models below to build your own number from your own costs, then check it against the data. The benchmark and your cost math should meet in the middle.
Quick answer: Based on 632,741 invoices processed through Tofu (January 2024 – June 2026, USD), the median job by trade is: cleaning $385 (range $230–$761 depending on service type), lawn and yard $433 for mowing up to $1,651 for tree and shrub care, pool maintenance $410 per job ($125 per visit), and tree removal $2,359. Full breakdowns by service are below.
Three things make these benchmarks usable.
The median is the middle invoice, not the average. Averages get dragged upward by a handful of very large jobs, which makes them a poor target. Half of all invoices land above the median and half below, so it is the most honest single number to anchor on.
The range is your pricing room. Each figure shows the 25th to 75th percentile, the middle half of invoices. The bottom of the range is usually a small or simple job; the top is larger square footage, harder access, or specialized work. Where you land inside that range is a scope decision, not luck.
Recurring and one-time work are different businesses. A maintenance plan and a one-off project price very differently, and lumping them together hides the real picture. We break that split out in its own section below.
Across 632,741 invoices, here is what solo and small-crew contractors typically charge per job in 2026.
These are medians. Your number sits somewhere inside the range next to each service, and the rest of this guide explains what moves you up or down it.
Tofu turns your estimate into an invoice and gets you paid, right from the job site.
A benchmark is not a price. It tells you where the market sits, but your price has to start from your own costs. The method every profitable contractor uses is the same across trades:
Add up your labor for the job, including your own time and any crew, loaded with taxes and insurance. Add your materials and supplies. Add the job's share of operating costs, the overhead that keeps the business running whether or not you are on a job: vehicle, fuel, insurance, software, equipment wear, and marketing. That total is your cost floor, the number you can never price below without losing money. On top of it, add the profit margin you want. That number is yours to set based on your market and how you want to grow.
Now check that cost-plus number against the data. Say you price a deep clean from your own costs and land at $320. The median deep clean invoiced through Tofu is $454, with most jobs between $304 and $722. That tells you the market has room above your floor, so you are likely underpricing. If your cost-plus number came out above the top of the range instead, either your scope is genuinely premium, in which case the estimate should spell out why, or your costs are running hot and need a look. The data gives you the ceiling and floor of the market. Your costs give you a floor you can never cross. Your price lives between them.
This is why invoice benchmarks beat homeowner averages for a working pro. A homeowner survey cannot tell you whether a number covers overhead and profit. Real invoices already have both baked in.
Before you set a number, pick the structure you bill in. The model that fits depends on the trade and how predictable the job is.
A rule of thumb that holds across trades: flat pricing wins when you can estimate the job in a quick walkthrough, because customers prefer a number they can count on. Hourly is the safer model when the scope is unclear, like a first cleaning, an overgrown first cut, or a repair where you do not know what you will find until you start. A common move is to bill the unknown first visit hourly, then lock a flat rate once you know the property. The medians in this guide are per completed job, so they map cleanly to flat pricing and give you a target to reverse-engineer any per-hour or per-unit rate from.
Based on 214,077 cleaning invoices, the median house cleaning job is $385, and most land between $256 and $761.
Standard residential work clusters in the $385 to $485 band. The real money is in specialization. Post-construction cleanup runs a $507 median at about $180 per unit, and window cleaning reaches a $620 median at about $200 per unit, both well above general housekeeping. Commercial and office cleaning runs a $580 median, above most residential work. If a customer asks how much you should charge for a deep clean, the data puts the median at $454. Move-out cleans, often smaller and more standardized, sit lowest at a $347 median.
What moves a cleaning price up or down: home size and square footage, the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, how much buildup there is since the last clean, and service frequency. A first-time or one-off clean takes longer than a maintained recurring home, so it should cost more.
If you run a house cleaning business software setup, the takeaway is to stop quoting one flat rate. Price the specialized jobs as the premium work they are. New to the trade? Our guide on how to start a cleaning business covers the setup, and a free cleaning estimate template gives you a simple way to scope and send a quote.
Lawn care pricing trips up more pros than any other trade, because "lawn care" is not one service, and pricing it as one will cost you. Treat each job type on its own.
Mowing is a volume game: a $433 median job at about $70 per cut, won on routes and repetition rather than ticket size. From there the ladder climbs fast. Lawn maintenance runs a $766 median, irrigation $1,220, and landscaping $1,241, which means one landscaping job is worth roughly three mows. Tree and shrub care tops the group at a $1,651 median. So when someone asks how much you should charge to mow a lawn, $70 per cut is the anchor, but that is the floor of what your truck can bill in a day, not the ceiling.
What moves a lawn price: lot size, terrain and slope, gate and equipment access, grass condition, and the add-ons you bundle in like edging, bagging, or haul-away. Two rules pay for themselves. Charge more for the first cut on an overgrown lawn, because it takes more passes and more wear than a maintained one, then move the customer to your standard rate. And set a minimum job price so a small yard still covers your stop, even when the per-area math comes out low.
Whatever mix you run, do not headline a single "yard work" rate. Price by sub-service and let your lawn care invoicing reflect the real job. If you are just getting going, our guide on how to start a lawn care business covers the basics, and a free lawn care estimate template helps you quote each job by sub-service.
Based on 50,802 pool invoices, recurring maintenance is the base of the business at a $410 median job, about $125 per visit. Repairs roughly double that at a $771 median, and installation is a separate tier entirely at a $5,122 median.
Pool service is really a subscription business, so price it like one. Most pros bill a flat monthly rate for weekly service, and the first decision is whether chemicals are included in that rate or billed separately. Including them is simpler for the customer; billing them separately protects your margin when chemical costs move. Quote the customer one monthly number rather than a per-visit figure, because per-visit pricing tempts people to skip weeks, and a skipped pool turns green and becomes an emergency call.
Recurring service is what keeps a pool service software route profitable. The ticket per visit is small, but the predictability is the point. When you are ready to quote new accounts, a free pool service estimate template lays out the plan and what is included.
Tree work is built on removal and stump jobs. Tree removal carries a $2,359 median, about $1,000 per tree, and stump removal or grinding sits right alongside it at a $2,356 median. When someone asks how much tree removal costs, $2,359 is the median job, with most falling between $1,693 and $3,470.
Tree removal pricing is driven mainly by tree size, risk, access, species, and condition. Trees near buildings or power lines, as well as dead or storm-damaged trees, typically cost more to remove.
Most contractors charge per tree or by height, while stump grinding is priced by diameter. Crane work, permits, and emergency jobs also increase costs.
Trimming and pruning can provide steady revenue between larger removal projects, but the figures in this dataset should be treated as rough benchmarks due to limited sample sizes. Where possible, rely on your own job data and use tree service software to track pricing and profitability.
New to the industry? Our guide on how to start a tree service business covers the basics, and a free estimate template can help you build accurate quotes.
This is where most pricing advice gets it wrong. It is not true that one-time jobs are always bigger. Whether recurring or one-time tickets are larger depends entirely on the trade.
For lawn and pool, one-time work is much bigger per job. Lawn one-time jobs run a $1,395 median against $551 for recurring, roughly 2.5 times higher, and pool one-time jobs hit $1,366 against $381 recurring, about 3.6 times higher. Recurring is the smaller ticket, but it is predictable income you can build a route and a schedule around, and tight routes lower your cost per stop over time.
For cleaning, the two are nearly even, with recurring at $475 and one-time at $436. For tree work, recurring actually edges ahead at $2,660 versus $2,349. So the lesson is not "chase the big one-time job." It is to price recurring for the cash-flow stability it gives you, and to know which side of your trade carries the bigger ticket before you discount either one.
Volume is seasonal. Price is mostly not, and in lawn it moves opposite to what most pros expect.
Cleaning is the most stable trade in both volume and price. The monthly median barely moves across the year, staying within a $16 range from the lowest to the highest month. Seasonal demand spikes in spring cleaning or end-of-year deep cleans show up in volume, not in what the job pays.
Lawn and yard is the most surprising. Volume peaks in May at roughly 2.4 times the January level, but the monthly median price actually runs higher in winter and early spring, when snow removal and heavier maintenance work dominate the mix, and lower in peak summer, when high-volume mowing pulls the median down. The practical read: do not discount your rates in summer just because it is busy. The calendar drives job count, not what each job pays.
Pool follows a mild seasonal curve, with monthly median prices roughly 35% higher in the late spring peak than in the winter trough. Volume swings about 1.5 times from the slowest month to the busiest.
Tree work has the steadiest pricing of all four trades. The median barely moves through the year, while volume is less seasonal than in lawn, with a modest uptick in October when fall cleanup and storm work pick up.
One caution on volume trends. The overall climb in job counts from 2024 through 2026 mostly reflects Tofu adding users, not the market growing. Read the seasonal shape within a single year, not the year-over-year volume growth, as a demand signal.
Tofu schedules your recurring jobs, keeps a card on file, and turns every visit into an invoice that gets paid.
The gap between the bottom and top of each range is scope. A $256 cleaning job and a $761 cleaning job are different amounts of work, access, and finish, not the same job priced by mood. A $1,693 tree removal and a $3,470 one are the same story: different height, access, and risk, not a number picked by feel.
A few levers move you toward the top of your range. Specialize, because post-construction, window, and commercial cleaning all out-earn general housekeeping, and the same premium shows up in irrigation and landscaping over plain mowing. Bundle related services into one larger ticket. Put recurring service agreements in place so the income is predictable. Account for access and condition, since a tight backyard, a steep slope, an off-route pool, or a tree wedged against the house all take more time and risk than the easy version of the same job. And scope the work clearly up front, because a vague quote invites pushback while a detailed one justifies the number. The cleanest way to handle that last part is to send a professional estimate that itemizes the work, so the customer sees exactly what they are paying for.
One more thing the range hides: your local market. These are national medians, so a maintained quarter-acre mow that sits near the bottom in one metro can sit mid-range in another. Use the data to gut-check whether your rates are in line with what the trade invoices nationally, then adjust for your own market, route density, and operating costs. The width of the range is not noise. It is the room you have to price for the job in front of you.
Your costs go up every year. Fuel, labor, insurance, and supplies all climb, and a rate you set two seasons ago is quietly worth less today. Review your pricing at least once a year, and raise it when the math says to rather than waiting until a job loses money.
Raising rates on existing recurring clients is easier than most pros expect. Give notice, keep it simple, and tie it to value. A short message that names the new rate, the date it takes effect, and any improvements you have made to the service is enough. You are running a business, not asking permission, and the predictable recurring clients you are most afraid to lose are usually the ones least likely to leave over a fair increase.
Six mistakes show up over and over once you compare real invoices to how contractors talk about pricing.
Those numbers describe what customers pay, often to national chains with very different cost structures, not what an independent operator needs to charge to run a healthy business.
This hits lawn and tree pros hardest. Mowing and landscaping are different businesses, and a single "yard work" rate either underprices the big jobs or overprices the small ones.
It does not. In cleaning the recurring and one-time medians are nearly even, and in tree work recurring is higher. Discounting a recurring client on autopilot can leave real money on the table.
Post-construction, window, and commercial cleaning command clear premiums in the data, yet plenty of pros quote them at general-cleaning rates. If the work is harder or more specialized, the price should say so.
Without a floor, a small lawn or a quick pool stop can cost you money once drive time and setup are counted. A minimum keeps every stop worth making.
Costs climb every year. If your prices do not move with them, your margin shrinks quietly until a once-profitable job is breaking even.
Figures given in the article are based on 632,741 invoices processed through Tofu between January 2024 and June 2026 (USD). Tofu is used primarily by solo operators and small crews, so these figures reflect what independent and small-team contractors actually charge, not what national franchises advertise. They come from a single platform and from contractors who invoice digitally, so treat them as a large real-world sample rather than a national census. Because they cover USD invoices only, they effectively represent U.S. pricing – rates in other markets will differ. Every figure is a median, the middle invoice, so a few oversized jobs do not skew the number. The typical range shown is the 25th to 75th percentile, the middle half of all invoices. Seasonal figures average each calendar month's median across 2024–2026.
