For Landscaping Crew Leads
CrewNest is lawn care software for landscaping crews that runs the whole day: crew scheduling and dispatch, tight maintenance routes, per-crew job assignment, and estimates that turn into invoices without double entry. Built for crew leads and multi-crew operators running weekly and biweekly maintenance accounts.
Free plan to start | Pro is $29/month or $290/year | Unlimited team members included
Lawn care crew software, compared
CrewNest is lawn care software for landscaping crews that charges a flat rate instead of a per-seat fee: free to start, then $29/month (or $290/year) for Pro with unlimited users, so a 5-person crew is $29/month. The comparable per-seat plans that fit a 5-person crew are Jobber Grow at $199/month and LMN Starter at $297/month. CrewNest is the only option here with a free plan, and it adds satellite property measurement and route optimization built for outdoor maintenance work. It fits small and mid-size crews running recurring maintenance routes rather than enterprise landscaping firms.
Most crews run on a spreadsheet plus a group text, or a generic field-service platform that was built for one-off service calls. Neither fits how a maintenance crew actually moves through the week. These are the four pains crew leads describe most often when they switch.
When two or three crews get their day from a morning phone call and a text thread, jobs get missed, doubled up, or dropped. Nobody has a single board that shows what is booked, what a crew has claimed, and what is still unassigned. The office spends the first hour of every day dispatching by memory instead of the crews already knowing their stops.
When maintenance stops get scheduled in the order they were booked, a crew burns an hour a day driving between accounts on opposite ends of town. On a 10-to-15-stop day, that lost hour is one or two billable visits the crew never gets to. Drive time is the single biggest hidden cost on a maintenance route, and most tools do nothing about it.
Weekly and biweekly maintenance accounts are the backbone of a landscaping book, but generic CRMs treat every visit as a one-off you re-enter. When the season lives in someone's head or a paper route sheet, a skipped week or a double-booked property is only a matter of time, and it is the recurring revenue you can least afford to drop.
Generic tools make you re-key the same job three times: once to quote, once to schedule, once to invoice. Every re-entry is a delay, and delayed invoices mean delayed cash. A crew lead ends up retyping square footage at 8pm, and the customer gets billed days after the work is done instead of the same afternoon.
We built CrewNest for the field, not the back office. The features that decide whether a crew hits its route each day are the ones we lead with, not the ones that only look good in a demo. Here is how each one maps to the way a maintenance crew runs a week.
Assign each job to a specific crew and see the whole day at a glance: what is booked, what is claimed, and what is still unassigned. Jobs move through a simple pending, confirmed, and claimed flow, so a crew lead opens the app and knows the stops for the day without a morning phone call, while you keep the full picture across every crew from one board.
Run two, three, or more crews from the same schedule without a separate login for each. Assign the mow route to one crew and the cleanup or install to another, and reassign in seconds when someone calls out. Because every crew works off the same board, you never end up with two crews rolling up to the same property or a stop nobody claimed.
A maintenance crew running 10 to 15 stops lives and dies by drive time. CrewNest orders the day's jobs into the lowest-drive-time route, so the crew spends the day cutting and cleaning up rather than sitting in traffic between accounts. Scheduling stops in booked order instead of geographic order is what quietly costs a crew an hour a day.
Set a property on a weekly or biweekly cadence and the visits stay on the schedule for the season instead of being re-entered every week. Recurring maintenance visits are the base load a landscaping business is built on, and they should be on the calendar automatically, not carried in someone's head or a paper route sheet.
Measure a lawn, build a line-item estimate, send it from the app, and convert the approved estimate into an invoice the customer can pay online. Email estimates and invoices, plus SMS notifications, are included, so the crew lead is not chasing paperwork after the trucks are parked and the customer is billed the same day the work is done, not a week later.
Not everyone needs to see the money. Technicians get a simple view of their assigned jobs; any estimate or invoice they start routes to a manager or owner for approval before it reaches the customer. Managers get financial visibility; owners keep full control over billing. You decide what each role can see and do, so a new hire can help in the field without the risk of sending an underpriced quote.
Each customer record keeps that property's jobs, estimates, and invoices in one place, so before a crew rolls up you can see what was done last visit, what was quoted, and what is still owed. When a client calls about a missed edge or a past charge, the crew lead has the answer on their phone instead of digging through a text thread, and a new crew member can service an account they have never seen.
On top of scheduling and invoicing, CrewNest has the trade-specific tools a landscaping crew actually uses. Generic CRMs skip these because they try to serve every home service trade with one screen.
Draw a lawn, a bed, or a whole property on satellite imagery to get square footage without sending anyone out to measure. For a crew lead quoting a new maintenance account, that turns a site visit into a two-minute estimate from the truck.
CrewNest's estimate tools are built around the service, not a blank invoice. Turn a measured area into a priced, line-item estimate for the work your crew actually does, instead of forcing a generic quote template to fit lawn care.
Route optimization is part of the plan, not a paid add-on or a separate app. For a maintenance crew, the shortest route between today's stops is the difference between finishing at 3pm and finishing at 5pm.
Here is the weekly rhythm a landscaping business with two or three maintenance crews settles into, from setting the season's recurring visits through routing, field work, and getting paid.
Put each weekly and biweekly property on its cadence so the season's visits populate the schedule automatically instead of being re-entered every week.
On Monday, assign each job to a crew from one board. Jobs move through pending, confirmed, and claimed, so every crew lead can see and claim their stops without a morning phone call.
Sort each day's stops into the shortest-drive order so a maintenance crew fits more billable visits between the first and last job.
Crews work their assigned jobs on their phones. Offline mode keeps the schedule working when a property has no signal, and technicians see only the jobs assigned to them.
Measure a new lawn on satellite imagery, build a line-item estimate, and send it. Estimates a technician starts route to a manager or owner for approval before they reach the customer.
Turn an approved estimate into an invoice the customer can pay online, and keep customers updated with SMS notifications, so cash does not wait on paperwork.
Check analytics to see how each crew performed, then add or drop crew members for the coming week without changing what you pay.
The clearest difference between these tools is the pricing model. CrewNest is flat: one price with unlimited team members. The other three charge per user or bundle licenses, so the bill grows as the crew does. Here is what each costs for a landscaping crew.
| Dimension | CrewNest | Jobber | LMN | Housecall Pro |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Flat ($29/mo, unlimited users) | Per user (+$29/user/mo) | Bundled licenses (extra users for a fee) | Per user (MAX tier +$35/user/mo) |
| Starting price (month-to-month) | Free, then $29/mo Pro | $49/mo (Core) | $297/mo (Starter) | $79/mo (Basic) |
| Cheapest plan seating a 5-person crew | $29/mo (Pro, unlimited users) | $199/mo (Grow, 5 users) | $297/mo (Starter, 1 lead + 5 crew) | $189/mo (Essentials, up to 5) |
| Annual option | $290/yr | $149/mo billed annually (Grow) | Not published | $149/mo billed annually (Essentials) |
| Free tier | Yes | No | No | No |
Competitor figures are the cheapest published month-to-month plan whose included seats fit a 5-person crew, verified from public pricing pages (2026). LMN does not publish an annual rate. CrewNest's 5-person total is $29/month, because Pro includes unlimited users.
CrewNest Pro
$29/month
Or $290/year. Team members are included at no extra charge, however many you add. Start on the free plan and upgrade when you need unlimited estimates.
What a 5-person landscaping crew pays on published plans whose seats fit the crew:
CrewNest is not the right tool for everyone, and pretending otherwise wastes your time. Here is the honest fit.
Yes. Assign jobs to specific crews and manage every crew from one schedule. Each job moves through a pending, confirmed, and claimed flow, so a crew lead opens the app and sees the stops for the day while you keep the full picture across every crew. There is no separate login per crew and no extra platform fee for adding a second or third crew.
Yes. Put a property on a weekly or biweekly cadence and the visits stay on the schedule for the season instead of being re-entered each week. Recurring maintenance accounts are the base load a landscaping business runs on, so they belong on the calendar automatically rather than in someone's head or a paper route sheet.
Pricing is flat, not per seat. Pro is $29/month (or $290/year) and includes your whole team at no extra charge. Add crew for the busy season and drop them when it slows down; the bill does not move either way. If you are just starting out, the free plan lets you run without paying anything until you outgrow it.
On CrewNest, a 5-person crew is $29/month, the same as a one-person crew, because Pro includes unlimited users. For the same crew, the cheapest published month-to-month plan whose seats fit five people is Jobber Grow at $199/month (5 users included), Housecall Pro Essentials at $189/month (up to 5 users), or LMN Starter at $297/month (1 office or crew-lead license plus 5 crew licenses). All three competitors charge more than CrewNest for a five-person crew and none offer a free plan.
Technicians can start an estimate or invoice from the app, but it routes to a manager or owner for approval before it reaches the customer. Technicians see only their assigned jobs; managers get financial visibility; owners keep full control over billing. You set what each role can see and do, so a new crew member cannot accidentally send an underpriced quote.
Yes, and route optimization is part of the plan rather than a paid add-on or a separate app. CrewNest orders a crew's stops into the shortest-drive route, so a maintenance crew running 10 to 15 stops spends the day cutting and cleaning up instead of criss-crossing town between accounts. Less windshield time means more billable visits per crew per day.
Yes. Draw a lawn, a bed, or a whole property on satellite imagery to get square footage without sending anyone to measure. For a crew lead quoting a new maintenance account, that turns a site visit into a two-minute estimate from the truck. Satellite measurement is included with Pro and capped on the free plan.
Both cover scheduling, estimates, and invoicing. The difference is the pricing model and the outdoor tooling. Jobber charges per user: Core is $49/month for one user and each additional seat is $29/month, so a growing crew's bill climbs with every hire. CrewNest is flat: $29/month for Pro with unlimited users, so the bill stays the same whether you run three people or ten. CrewNest also adds satellite property measurement and service-specific estimate tools built for outdoor work, which Jobber does not include.
LMN is a landscaping-focused platform whose Starter plan is $297/month and bundles one office or crew-lead license plus 5 crew licenses, with additional users available for a fee and a one-time onboarding fee. It leans toward budgeting and estimating depth for larger operations. CrewNest is aimed at small and mid-size crews that want flat pricing, a free plan to start, and field-first scheduling, routing, and invoicing without an onboarding fee to get going.
The free plan covers up to 3 estimates per month, up to 10 satellite measurements, service-specific tools, customer management, job scheduling, basic invoicing, and offline mode so it keeps working when a crew loses signal on site. Upgrade to Pro for unlimited estimates, unlimited measurements, route optimization, SMS notifications, the customer booking portal, and advanced analytics.
CrewNest Pro is a month-to-month $29/month plan, or $290/year if you prefer to pay annually, and you can start on the free plan first. Team members are included at no extra charge, so the cost does not climb as you hire. You can sign up and start estimating the same day.
Crew scheduling, route optimization, recurring maintenance, satellite measurement, and estimate-to-invoice in one app. Start on the free plan and add crews and crew members as you grow.
Start free with your first crewFree plan to start. Pro is $29/month or $290/year, with team members included.
