CRM for landscapers: recurring routes, seasonal contracts and crews

Who this page is for

• You run a mowing and maintenance company, a design-build firm, or a commercial maintenance company with snow contracts.
• Weekly and biweekly routes live on a whiteboard, a spreadsheet or the crew lead’s memory.
• Spring renewals mean chasing customers one by one by phone and text.
• You apply fertilizer, weed control or other pesticides and keep application logs on paper.
• You’re comparing Jobber or Housecall Pro with landscaping-specific tools like LMN, Aspire, Service Autopilot or Yardbook.

The problem, in a landscaper’s words

It’s March and you have 200 customers to renew before the first mow. Last year’s prices are in a spreadsheet, some customers want to add bed maintenance, and three of them moved.

In May it rains on Tuesday. Tuesday’s route slides to Wednesday, Wednesday’s to Thursday, and by Friday a customer says the crew skipped her yard. You have no record of whether they came.

In July you treat a few dozen lawns for grubs. The application log is a clipboard in the truck. Landscaping software has to solve problems other trades don’t have: visit frequency, rain days, seasonal contracts and crews instead of individual techs.

What landscaping work asks of your software

Recurring routes and visit frequency

Lawn care runs on frequency: weekly, biweekly or every 10 days. The software should generate visits from that rule and group them into routes by area.

• Jobber’s lawn care page says it automatically generates visits for recurring jobs.
• Jobber’s route optimization page says it builds daily routes for one person or a whole crew and re-optimizes when jobs are delayed, canceled or added. The page doesn’t say which plans include it [VERIFICAR].
• Housecall Pro’s landscaping page describes weekly, biweekly and seasonal visit schedules. Its pricing page lists routes on Essentials and route optimization on Max.
• Service Autopilot lists route optimization from its Pro plan.
• LMN lists scheduling, calendars and route optimization.

Test the rain day in your trial. Push a full day of visits back one day and see how many clicks it takes to fix the week.

Seasonal contracts and renewals

Many maintenance customers sign for a season, for example April through November. Some pay per visit, others pay the same amount each month. The software has to handle both and remind you when the contract ends.

Housecall Pro says contract details and renewals are tracked in one place. Jobber says recurring work and maintenance contracts can be set up in a few clicks. Aspire, built mainly for commercial work, lists maintenance, landscape construction and snow and ice management as its focus.

Send renewals in winter, with the new season’s price already on the agreement. A customer who signs in February doesn’t shop around in April.

Crew scheduling

Landscaping schedules crews, not individual techs. A three-person crew shares one truck, one route and one set of equipment.

• Jobber lists crew scheduling on its Plus plan.
• LMN’s Starter plan includes 1 office or crew lead license and 5 crew member licenses, and its LMN Crew app handles punch-ins with GPS verification.
• Service Autopilot counts business users and mobile users separately, from 1 mobile user on Startup to 5 on Pro Plus.

Measurement-based estimates

Landscaping prices are built from measurements: square feet of turf, linear feet of bed edge, cubic yards of mulch. Measure once, save it on the property, and reuse it every season.

Jobber says quotes can include property measurements. Its satellite measuring appears in a free lawn care cost calculator, not as a described quoting feature. LMN builds estimates from a budget with overhead recovery and custom price lists, which suits design-build work where labor and overhead drive the price. Aspire lists estimating and job costing.

Snow removal

Snow work breaks normal scheduling. Jobs trigger on snowfall, priorities change by the hour, and billing can be per push, per event or seasonal.

Aspire lists snow and ice management among the work it supports. Service Autopilot links a snow removal industry page from its pricing page. The Jobber and Housecall Pro landscaping pages I reviewed don’t mention snow. If snow is a third of your revenue, put it at the top of your trial list.

Chemical application records

Pesticide application records are set by state law, and the rules vary by state. The agency is usually your state department of agriculture.

Washington is one example. The Washington State Department of Agriculture says:

• All certified applicators who apply pesticides must keep application records.
• Records must be kept for seven years.
• Records can be in any format, as long as the required information is included.
• The rules are in RCW 17.21.100 and WAC 16-228-1320.

Other states set different fields and retention periods. Your state agency confirms what you must record, not the software vendor.

The general landscaping pages I reviewed from Jobber and Housecall Pro don’t mention application records. Plan custom fields on the job for each item your state requires, and check that you can export them by date range for an inspection.

Landscaping software compared

Prices are from each provider’s own site, as of October 2026. Thryv is a provider I work with. I don’t work with Jobber, Housecall Pro, LMN, Aspire, Service Autopilot or Yardbook.

Option	Best for	Recurring visits and routes	Estimating	Published pricing
Jobber	Residential maintenance, 1 to 15 people	Auto-generated recurring visits; route optimization	Measurements on quotes	Core $29 to Plus $399+ per month billed annually
Housecall Pro	Residential maintenance that also sells add-on services	Weekly, biweekly and seasonal; routes on Essentials; optimization on Max	Not described on its landscaping page	Basic $59, Essentials $149, Max $299 per month billed annually
LMN (Granum)	Design-build and maintenance firms that budget by overhead	Scheduling and route optimization	Budget-based estimating	Starter $297, Professional $648 per month, plus onboarding fee
Aspire	Commercial landscaping with contracts and snow	Scheduling and GPS-based labor management	Estimating and job costing	Not published
Service Autopilot	Lawn care routes with heavy automation	Route optimization from Pro	Not itemized	Startup $49, Pro $199, Pro Plus $499 per month, plus sign-up fee
Yardbook	Solo operators starting out	Scheduling and routing	Estimates and invoices	Basic plan free; paid plan prices not shown
Thryv	Landscapers who need more leads and reviews	Booking and reminders; no route optimization described	Estimates with e-signature	Starter $99, Signature $399 per month

Service Autopilot says all its prices are based on annual subscription rates. Aspire says it is part of the ServiceTitan family of products.

What it costs a landscaping company

Landscaping pricing splits into three groups.

• Free or low entry: Yardbook’s basic plan is free, with a 1% fee on online customer payments. Jobber Core is $29 per month billed annually and Service Autopilot Startup is $49 per month plus a sign-up fee.
• Mid-range general tools: Jobber Grow for 5 users is $229 per month billed annually. Housecall Pro Essentials is $149 per month billed annually with 5 users included.
• Landscaping specialists: LMN Starter is $297 per month and Professional is $648 per month, after an onboarding fee. Aspire quotes after a demo.

Two questions change the yearly cost for a seasonal business. Does the provider let you pause or downgrade in winter? And does the price count crew members as full users? Ask both before you sign [VERIFICAR per provider].

My recommendation by scenario

Solo, one truck

Keep it light. Yardbook’s free plan or Jobber Core covers scheduling, invoices and payments. If you take most payments online, compare Yardbook’s 1% fee with a low paid plan.

2 to 4 crews, residential maintenance

Recurring visits and routes are the main job. Compare Jobber Connect or Grow with Housecall Pro Essentials. If automations and route density matter most, add Service Autopilot Pro to the trial list.

Design-build plus maintenance, 10 or more employees

Estimating accuracy drives profit here. LMN Professional, with real-time job costing and equipment and material costing, is the specialist to test against Jobber Plus.

Commercial maintenance with snow contracts

Contracts, job costing and snow events decide it. Ask Aspire for a demo and a written quote, and compare it with LMN Professional, or LMN Enterprise if you run several locations.

Marketing-first

If crews are idle because the phone is quiet, start with leads. My Thryv review covers its listings, reviews and website tools, and what it lacks for routing.

How implementation works for landscapers

1. Switch in winter. Load everything between the last fall cleanup and spring renewals.
2. Import properties with measurements. Turf area, bed edge and mulch volume go on the property, not the job.
3. Set frequencies, then build routes. Assign each recurring service its frequency, then group by area and crew.
4. Load contracts and renewals. Put each customer’s season, billing method and renewal date in the system.
5. Add application record fields. Match your state’s required fields before the first application.
6. Train crew leads. Each crew lead runs a full route in the app before the first mow.

Plan for four to six weeks of winter work for a few hundred properties.

Questions to ask any landscaping software vendor:

• How do I move a full day of recurring visits after a rain day?
• Can I bill a seasonal contract as equal monthly payments and as per visit?
• Do crew members count as paid users?
• Can I pause or downgrade the plan in winter?
• Where do I record pesticide applications, and can I export them by date range?
• How does snow billing work: per push, per event or seasonal?

Common mistakes landscapers make with software

• Scheduling people instead of crews. Routes and time tracking fall apart when one truck has three separate schedules.
• Launching in April. The first mow and the software rollout land in the same week.
• Picking the wrong billing model. Customers who expect a flat monthly bill get confused by per-visit invoices, and the reverse.
• Re-measuring every year. Save measurements on the property once and update them only when the yard changes.
• Keeping application records in a separate notebook. Records belong on the job, where the date, address and crew are already logged.
• Paying all year without asking. A seasonal business should ask about winter pricing before signing an annual term.

Landscaping needs differ from plumbing software needs and HVAC software needs, and the contractor CRM guide covers what they share. For a shortlist built around your crews and routes, send me your landscaping setup.