Texting for lawn care and snow
Spring calls come all at once. You are on a mower for most of them.
The founder ran a lawn and snow company for 12 years. This is the setup he wished he had: text back every missed call, re-sign last year’s customers before the season, and sell cleanups without making a single phone call.
Lawn and snow: spring calls all arrive in the same three weeks.
- 8:05 AMMissed call, the first warm week of spring
- 8:05 AMYour number texts them back, automatically
- 8:09 AM“Need weekly mowing starting this month. Do you have room?”
- 8:20 AMSeason booked, 26 weekly visits$3,198
One caller, start to finish. An example, except the green figure: that one comes from the published averages in 02, with their sources.
No trap here
- No contract
- Prices on the site
- Set up for you by a real person
- Texts from your own number
Where the money goes
Four leaks in a lawn care and snow company.
Spring calls you cannot answer
In April everyone wants a quote the same week. Miss the call and they hire the next truck that drives by.
Last year’s customers who never re-signed
Most of them would have said yes. Nobody asked. A spring win-back text asks all of them in one morning.
Cleanups and extras nobody offered
Spring and fall cleanups, aeration, mulch, bed edging. A short text to your existing route sells these without a sales call.
Snow contracts signed too late
If you wait for the first storm, customers have already called someone. A pre-season reminder in October locks them in.
What a job is worth
One mowing call is a whole season.
A single visit is a hundred-odd dollars, which is why a missed call in April does not feel like much. But nobody calls for one mow. They call for the season, and the same customer wants the driveway cleared in January.
- $123
average professional mowing visit, in a range of $49 to $203
- $126
average snow removal visit, in a range of $51 to $203
- $300 to $700
for a seasonal snow contract on one property
What one caller adds up to
- One mowing visit, at the average$123
- A season of them, weekly from April to October (26 visits)$3,198
- The same property through winter, at the midpoint of a seasonal snow contract$500
Each line states its own assumption. The averages are the ones above.
A month of missed calls, at the average
$1,333
10 missed calls a week, one in 4 of them ready to book, at $123 each. Those are the calculator’s defaults, not your company’s numbers.
A week in a lawn care and snow company
Five days, one phone
nobody could answer.
Every rust line is a call you could not take. Every teal line is your number answering for you. Every green line is the job it became, priced near the averages above.
One week, one company
ExampleMonday
- 7:20 AMMissed call, trailer half loaded, first route of the week
- 7:20 AMText-back goes out from your number
- 7:34 AM“Weekly mowing, corner lot on Maple.” Quoted by text, on the route Thursday$3,198
Tuesday
- 8:00 AMLast year’s route gets the spring re-sign text, all 140 of them, in one morning
- 8:36 AM“YES. Add the spring cleanup too.” Nine replies before lunch$1,107
Wednesday
- 10:05 AMMissed call, you are on the mower with ear protection in
- 10:05 AMText-back goes out
- 10:41 AM“412 Maple Ct, weekly, beds need a cleanup.” Stopped by, signed$3,198
- 4:45 PMYesterday’s new customers get the review request after their first cut
Thursday
- 8:00 AMEveryone on the Thursday route gets the aeration and overseeding offer
- 12:10 PMSix replies. Aeration added to six stops you were already making$834
Friday
- 2:15 PMMissed call while you are blowing off a driveway
- 2:15 PMText-back goes out
- 2:50 PM“Just need the hedges and a one-time cut before a party.” Booked Saturday$123
Booked that week, from texts
$8,460
Made up, like every ledger on this site, and priced at the published averages in 02 so it is a week you would recognise. Your dashboard shows the real one.
What your customer sees
In your words, from your own number.
We write every message with you during setup, in lawn care and snow language. You approve all of them before a single one goes out.
Missed call from the mower
ExampleYour text goes out while you finish the pass.
New caller- Missed call, 10:05 AM
- Hey, this is Alex at Northside Lawn & Snow. Sorry I missed you, I’m on a mower. Text me your address and what you need and I’ll get you a price today.10:05 AM
- 412 Maple Ct. Weekly mowing, and the beds need a cleanup10:09 AM
- I’m two streets over Thursday. $45 weekly, cleanup I’ll quote on site. Want me to stop by?10:41 AM
- New customer
Spring win-back to last year’s route
ExampleSent in March to everyone you served last season.
The Ortegas- Hi, it’s Alex from Northside Lawn & Snow. Getting the spring route set. Want to keep your Thursday mowing spot again this year? Same price as last season. Reply YES and you’re in.8:00 AM
- YES. Can you add the spring cleanup too?8:36 AM
- Renewed plus cleanup
Pre-season snow contract reminder
ExampleGoes out in October, before the first storm.
Karen L.- Karen, Alex at Northside. Snow season is coming. Want your driveway on the plow list again this winter? Seasonal is $480, or per-push is available. Reply and I’ll send the agreement.9:00 AM
- Seasonal please, same as last year11:20 AM
- Snow contract renewed
Every text, explained
Seven messages. Here is each one,
and why it is written that way.
When it goes, what it says, why it works in lawn care and snow, and the one thing it will never do. You approve every word of every one before it goes live.
01
Missed-call text-back
When. Within seconds of a call you did not answer, during your working hours. In April, that is most of them.
In spring a homeowner calls three companies off a lawn sign and a search, and goes with the first one that answers in a way that feels like a real person. A text from the number they just dialed, saying you are on a mower, is that. Asking for the address means you can quote off the satellite view before you call back.
Never. It never goes out when you answered, and it never goes out at 9 PM. A call that comes in after hours gets its text at 8 AM, worded for a call that came in last night.
What they read
ExampleHey, this is Alex at Northside Lawn & Snow. Sorry I missed you, I’m on a mower. Text me your address and what you need and I’ll get you a price today. Reply STOP to opt out.
173 characters · 2 segments02
Spring re-sign
When. The second week of March, to everyone you served last season who has not already called. One text, and a second ten days later only to the ones who did not reply.
The single most valuable morning of the year. Most of last year’s customers would say yes if somebody asked; the ones you lose are mostly the ones nobody asked before another company’s postcard arrived. Naming their day and holding their price is what gets a YES instead of a “let me think”.
Never. It never raises the price in the text. If your price is going up, the text says “I’ll send this year’s pricing” and you do, by hand, so the first thing they read is not a number.
What they read
ExampleHi, it’s Alex from Northside Lawn & Snow. Getting the spring route set. Want to keep your Thursday mowing spot again this year? Same price as last season. Reply YES and you’re in. Reply STOP to opt out.
202 characters · 2 segments03
Cleanup and extras offer
When. Late March for spring cleanups and mulch, the first week of September for aeration and overseeding, early October for fall cleanup. To the active route only.
Extras are the margin in this trade, and the hardest thing to sell by phone because nobody wants a sales call from their mowing guy. A short text to people who already trust you, with one price and a date you will already be there, sells them without a single call.
Never. It never goes to someone who is not on the route. An extra is offered to a customer, not to a list.
What they read
ExampleAlex at Northside. We’re doing aeration and overseeding on the route the week of the 15th. Since we’re already at your place, it’s $139 for your lawn. Reply YES to add it. Reply STOP to opt out.
194 characters · 2 segments04
Snow contract renewal
When. The first week of October, before the first storm, to every property you plowed last winter. One reminder two weeks later to the ones who have not answered.
If you wait for the first storm, the phone rings all at once and half of last year’s driveways have already signed with the truck that sent a letter in September. October is when the list is yours to keep. Naming both options lets the customer pick without a conversation.
Never. It never goes out after the first plowable snow. Once the season has started, a renewal text reads as a threat, so the ones who did not answer get a call from you instead.
What they read
ExampleKaren, Alex at Northside. Snow season is coming. Want your driveway on the plow list again this winter? Seasonal is $480, or per-push is available. Reply and I’ll send the agreement. Reply STOP to opt out.
205 characters · 2 segments05
Storm-day note
When. The morning of a plowable storm, to the seasonal list, once.
On a storm day every seasonal customer calls to ask when you are coming, and you cannot answer any of them from the truck. One text at 5 AM takes forty calls off the phone and tells the per-push customers who did not sign that the route is full.
Never. It never promises a time. A storm does not keep appointments and neither should the text.
What they read
ExampleNorthside Lawn & Snow: we’re out plowing. Seasonal customers are on the route and we’ll be by as the snow lets up. No need to call. Reply if anything’s changed at your place. Reply STOP to opt out.
197 characters · 2 segments06
Google review request
When. The evening after a new customer’s first cut, and once at the end of the season to everyone on the route.
Lawn care is picked off the lawn sign next door and the review count behind it. Twenty reviews in a town is the difference between the spring calls coming to you or to the franchise. The first cut is when a new customer is happiest; the end of season is when a long one is.
Never. It never goes to a customer who had a complaint that week, and it never asks twice in a season.
What they read
ExampleThanks for having Northside out today. If the lawn looks the way you hoped, a quick Google review helps a small company more than you’d think: g.page/r/northside-lawn. Reply STOP to opt out.
190 characters · 2 segments07
Win-back
When. Late February, once, to anyone who was on the route two seasons ago and not last season.
Half of the customers who leave did not decide to. They moved their day, the new guy fell through, and nobody from you ever asked them back. One text in February, before anyone else is thinking about grass, is enough.
Never. It is one text. If they do not answer, they are not asked again next year either; two seasons away is a decision.
What they read
ExampleHi, it’s Alex at Northside Lawn & Snow. We used to take care of your lawn on Maple. If you’d like a spot on this year’s route, reply here and I’ll hold one. Reply STOP to opt out.
179 characters · 2 segments
The year, already written
Twelve months in lawn care and snow,
and what goes out in each.
Set once during setup around your seasons, not ours. Change any month by texting us. The quiet months stay quiet on purpose.
January
Storm-day notes to the seasonal list. Text-backs on every missed call, which on a storm day is all of them.
The plow truck is the one place you truly cannot pick up. The storm note is what stops the phone.
February
Win-backs to anyone who left two seasons ago. Nothing else.
Nobody is thinking about grass yet, which is exactly why a text about it gets read.
March
The spring re-sign goes out in the second week. Spring cleanup and mulch offers go to the route in the last week.
The whole year is decided in these three weeks. The re-sign text fills the route in one morning instead of over a month.
April
Text-backs on every missed call. Review requests after first cuts. Second re-sign nudge to the ones who did not answer.
Peak call month. You do not need more marketing in April; you need to not lose the calls that come.
May
Text-backs. Review requests. Mulch and bed-edging offers to the route.
Route is set; the money now is in extras to the customers you already drive past.
June
Text-backs. Quiet hours hold.
Drought and heat make the mowing calls slow and the irrigation and weed calls pick up. Answer them.
July
Text-backs only. No offers.
A lawn company that pushes extras in a July drought is remembered for it.
August
Text-backs. Review requests to anyone who has been on the route all season and never got one.
The happiest long-season customers. The reviews land before fall shoppers search.
September
Aeration and overseeding offer to the route in the first week.
The highest-margin extra of the year, sold at the one time of year the lawn wants it.
October
Snow contract renewals in the first week, the nudge in the third. Fall cleanup offers to the route.
October is the February of snow: the list is yours until the first storm, and not after.
November
Last cuts and cleanup bookings. End-of-season review requests. Snow renewals close.
The season ends with the review ask and the plow list signed, in that order.
December
Storm-day notes. Text-backs. Holiday closed dates set.
The storm note is the whole product this month. Nobody should get a cleanup offer on the 24th.
The standing reminders
The rules behind the calendar, each one a date the customer would otherwise have to remember.
- Spring route win-back
- March
- Spring cleanup offer
- March to April
- Aeration and overseeding
- September
- Fall cleanup offer
- October
- Snow contract renewal
- October, before the first storm
- Review request
- After the first visit and end of season
An example month
What a month of this looks like.
Every line is a booked job that started with a text, priced near the averages above. Your dashboard shows yours, not this one.
Lawn care and snow removal
Example- 3 jobsMissed-call text-backs$2,850
- 9 jobsRe-sign reminders$1,350
- 4 jobsSnow contract follow-ups$2,000
Recovered this month
$6,200
Made up figures for a lawn care and snow company of average size. Not a promise, and not another shop’s results.
The first week
Set up for a lawn care and snow company, by a person.
About an hour of your time, once. We do the carrier paperwork, the number, the list and the writing. Here is what that week looks like for your trade.
Day 0
Kickoff call, 30 minutes
We ask how many crews and trucks, what the route days are, what you charge for a standard cut and the extras you actually sell, whether you plow and how you contract it (seasonal, per push, per inch), and whether you have commercial or HOA accounts that want different treatment. We ask for last season’s list in whatever shape it is in: Jobber export, Yardbook, a spreadsheet, a notebook. The founder has run this exact call for his own company.
Days 1 to 3
Your number, made text-capable
We register your business number with the carriers under your company’s legal name. Calls do not change. If your number is your cell, we talk about whether to keep it that way (most one-crew companies do) or put a business line in front of it.
Days 2 to 4
Your texts, in your words
We draft the seven messages above with your company name, your first name, your real route days, your prices for the extras and your review link. You read them on your phone and change what you want. The re-sign text and the snow renewal get the most edits, because the price in them is yours.
Days 4 to 7
Go live, and the inbox on your phone
The text-back goes on first and we watch a day of it with you. The re-sign or the snow renewal, whichever season is next, goes out on a morning you pick, so you see the replies land while you are at the shop and not on a mower. A 20-minute call shows you and whoever runs the phone the inbox.
Every month after
The dashboard, together
Before each window (February, March, September, October) we look at what went out and what came back, move the dates if the weather moved, and set the next one. If the number is not comfortably above what you pay us, we say so.
What it costs
Three plans. Which one
is yours, by the size of the company.
Every price is on this site and there is no contract. Here is how the three plans map onto the way this trade is usually run.
Starter
$249 /month
One crew, your cell is the business number, you are on the mower
The text-back alone covers April. The review requests build the count that brings next April’s calls to you.
Pro
$449 /month
Most lawn care and snow companies
Two to four crews, a route list from last year, a plow truck or two
The re-sign, the extras offers and the snow renewals are the whole year’s margin, sent in four mornings. This is the plan the founder runs his own company on.
Full
$649 /month
Running Jobber, LMN or Aspire with an office person, commercial and HOA accounts
The route and the contracts are read from your software, so re-signs and renewals go out from what is actually scheduled, and nothing is typed twice.
Software we commonly connect
On the Full plan. Names only; what we can read depends on what your software allows, and we confirm yours on the call.
- Jobber
- Clients, recurring jobs and visits, quotes. Reminders key off the route schedule it already holds.
- Yardbook
- Customers and their services. The most common system on a one-crew company.
- LMN
- Customers and estimates, for companies bidding commercial and HOA work.
- Service Autopilot
- Customers, routes and recurring services.
- Aspire
- Properties, contracts and work tickets, for the larger commercial operators.
Why not just…
The other ways a lawn care and snow company handles a missed call.
Each one is a real option, and some are the right one at a certain size. Here is what each costs and where it falls down, as plainly as we can put it.
Keep letting it ring from the mower
Nothing on paper.
In April it is a season per missed call. You find out in May, when the lawn two doors down has somebody else’s sign in it.
An answering service
Roughly $200 to $500 a month, more in spring.
A stranger who cannot quote a cut from a satellite view, does not know your route days, and takes a message you call back at 6 PM. By then the first company that texted has the account.
A spring postcard to last year’s list
A few hundred dollars printed and mailed, once.
It works, slowly, and the customer still has to call you. A text that says “reply YES” gets the answer in a morning, and the second nudge costs nothing.
A big texting and reviews platform
Typically $300 to $600 a month, on an annual contract, from a number that is not yours.
Built for dentists. You set it up yourself over the winter, the account manager goes quiet, and the texts come from a number your customers have never seen.
Do it yourself from your cell phone
Your evenings.
This is what the founder did for years. It works in February. It does not work in April, when the one text that matters is the one you did not send because you were on a mower.
Questions lawn care and snow owners ask
The ones specific to your trade.
The contract, the number and the cancel-by-text answers are on the FAQ page. These are the ones that only come up on a call with a lawn care and snow company.
No. A route customer hears from you four or five times a year: the re-sign in March, the extras offers in their season, the review request once, the snow renewal in October if you plow for them. The weekly visit itself is not a text. Nobody wants a message every Thursday saying you mowed.
Yes, and it is the most common setup on a one-crew company. We make the number text-capable under your business name, the texts go out from it, and your phone still rings exactly as it does now. If you ever want a separate business line in front of your cell, we can do that later.
Yes. A customer is on a mowing list, a snow list or both, and only hears about the season they buy. A mowing-only customer never gets a snow renewal, and a plow-only driveway never gets a mulch offer. You can move someone between lists by texting us.
They get the text-back and the follow-ups, which property managers like because they are judged on response time. They do not get the residential offers or the re-sign text unless you want them to, because a commercial account is usually on a contract with its own renewal date, which we can remind you about instead of them.
Whoever you want. The inbox is on as many phones as you like, and every reply shows who answered it. Most two-crew companies put it on the owner’s phone and the office phone and leave the crews out of it.
No. The storm note goes to seasonal customers only. A per-push customer who calls on a storm day gets the normal text-back, which can say the route is full if you tell us to word it that way.
The storm note is the one text that can go out early, because the customer signed a contract that says you plow overnight and they want to know you are coming. You decide the earliest time on the kickoff call. Everything else waits until 8 AM.
The text never names a price you have not approved. If the price is holding, it says so, because that is the strongest thing it can say. If it is going up, the text says you will send this season’s pricing and you do, by hand, in the same thread, so the first thing they read is you and not a number.
On the Full plan texts go out in English or Spanish per customer, and replies in either language land in the same inbox. The crews are not involved in the texting at all unless you want a crew leader on the inbox.
Lines we do not cross
Six rules, written for lawn care and snow.
They are not settings. They are how it is built, and no plan or request turns them off.
Nothing goes out between 8 PM and 8 AM, the customer’s time. The storm note is the one exception, and you set its hour.
A lawn company that texts at 10 PM once is the company that texts at 10 PM forever.
A route customer hears from you a handful of times a year, never weekly.
The weekly visit is the relationship. The text is for the four decisions a year that keep it.
STOP means stop, in English or Spanish, instantly, on every message type.
It is the law, and it is also just what you would do if someone said it to your face across the fence.
No price appears in an automated text that you did not approve for this season.
The re-sign text is read by 140 people in one morning. A wrong number in it is 140 phone calls.
Offers go to the route, never to a list you bought or a neighborhood you want.
A text to someone who never hired you is spam from a lawn company, and the carriers shut numbers off for it.
Review requests go once after a first cut and once at season’s end, and never to a customer with an open complaint.
Asking for a review in the week the mower scalped the lawn is how a company earns its first one-star.
Book a demo
Fifteen minutes, about
your company.
A phone call with the person who would set it up. We look at how many calls you miss, what lawn care and snow jobs are worth to you, and whether this fits. If it does not, we will say so.
- No contract
- Prices on the site
- Set up for you by a real person
- Texts from your own number