The average cost to mow a typical 5,000 sq ft yard is about $75 for a one-time cut, or $63.75 a visit on a weekly plan. That works out to roughly $60 per hour of mowing time.
Every price on this page is computed from the rates built into the CrewNest lawn mowing calculator. How that works, and where it stops being accurate, is explained below.
Price your own lawn with the calculatorQuick Answer
Lawn mowing costs about $0.015 per square foot per visit on the CrewNest calculator's base rate: $75 for a one-time cut of a 5,000 sq ft yard, $63.75 a visit weekly and $67.50 every two weeks. The rates imply about $60 per hour of mowing. Thick grass, slopes and obstacles each add 15-35%.
Price per visit for a standard lawn on flat, open ground. The last column is the price range the calculator displays for that size, 70% to 180% of the base price. It is wide on purpose: grass, slope, obstacles and local labor costs can each move a quote well away from the base.
| Yard size | One-time cut | Weekly, per visit | Every 2 weeks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2,000 sq ft | $30 | $25.50 | $27 |
| 3,000 sq ft | $45 | $38.25 | $40.50 |
| 5,000 sq ft | $75 | $63.75 | $67.50 |
| 7,500 sq ft | $112.50 | $95.63 | $101.25 |
For reference, a quarter acre is about 10,900 sq ft. The table stops at 7,500 sq ft on purpose: a flat per-square-foot rate overstates larger lots, which are mowed faster per foot. For half an acre and up, the lawn mowing calculator has a separate per-acre table.
At $0.015 per square foot and 4,000 sq ft mowed per hour (about 75 minutes for a 5,000 sq ft yard), the calculator's rates come to $60 per hour for a standard lawn. Homeowners rarely pay by the hour; the number is useful as a check on whether a per-visit quote is reasonable for the time the job takes.
The table shows what each adjustment in the calculator does to that hourly figure. Read it with one caveat: the calculator estimates time from square footage alone, so a steep slope raises the price without adding minutes, and appears here as a higher hourly rate. In practice the crew is also slower on that slope, so the true hourly rate sits somewhere between the base and the figure shown.
| Situation | Price multiplier | Per hour of mowing |
|---|---|---|
| Standard lawn, one-time cut | 1.00x | $60 |
| Weekly service | 0.85x | $51 |
| Every two weeks | 0.90x | $54 |
| Monthly service | 0.95x | $57 |
| Moderate slope | 1.15x | $69 |
| Steep slope | 1.35x | $81 |
| Thick or overgrown grass | 1.30x | $78 |
| Heavy obstacles | 1.30x | $78 |
Most mowing is quoted per visit, not per hour. A contractor measures the lawn (often from satellite imagery), multiplies by a per-square-foot rate, and then adjusts for the things that make one lawn slower than another. The CrewNest calculator follows that same sequence:
That is why two honest quotes for the same yard can differ: one contractor may see a slope or a maze of beds the other priced as open lawn, and local labor costs move the whole range. For a 5,000 sq ft lawn the calculator's own price range is $52.50 to $135 per visit.
This page does not survey what homeowners paid, and it has no regional price tables because CrewNest has no regional data to build them from. Every figure is computed from the rates in the public lawn mowing calculator: a base of $0.015 per square foot, 4,000 sq ft mowed per hour, and the frequency, grass, slope and obstacle multipliers listed above. If the calculator's rates change, this page changes with them. Treat the results as a reasonable starting point for comparing quotes, not a price any particular company will charge.
About $75 for a one-time cut of a typical 5,000 sq ft yard on the CrewNest calculator's base rate of $0.015 per square foot. On a weekly plan the same yard is $63.75 a visit. A small 2,000 sq ft city lot is about $30.
The calculator's rates work out to about $60 per hour of mowing time: $0.015 per sq ft at 4,000 sq ft an hour. Most mowing is not billed by the hour, though. It is quoted per visit, and the hourly figure is how a contractor checks that a quote is worth the time.
Weekly service carries the largest recurring discount in the calculator, 15% off the one-time price. For a 5,000 sq ft lawn that is $63.75 a visit, or about $255 a month at four visits.
No. A per-square-foot rate overstates large lots, because a riding mower covers open ground much faster than a push mower works around a small yard. For half an acre and up, use the per-acre table on the lawn mowing calculator page rather than multiplying the rate out.
Because the same square footage can take very different effort. In the calculator, thick grass adds 30%, a steep slope 35%, and heavy obstacles 30%. Stack two of those and the price moves by half or more before local labor costs are considered.
Enter your lawn size, grass, slope and how often you want it cut. The calculator returns a per-visit, monthly and yearly price on the same rates used on this page. Free, no signup.
Open the lawn mowing calculatorRun a lawn care business? CrewNest lawn care software measures lawns from satellite and turns them into quotes like these.
