How much does lawn care cost per year?
Three answers, and the ranking pages give the middle one. Doing it yourself costs a few hundred dollars in products plus whatever your Saturdays are worth; a lawn-care program (fertilizer and weed control, six to eight visits) costs $400–650 for a small lawn and more with size; and the line nobody itemizes — water, if you irrigate — is bigger than the program on most lawns and comes out of your pocket whichever way you go. The calculator builds all three from your square footage and grass using the same engine as every other tool here, so the fertilizer line is the species' actual nitrogen need in bags and the water line is the planner's monthly targets at your rate.
12.5 lb of nitrogen a year is 52 lb of 24-0-6 — 2 bags, $90. Overseeding at the species rate, 17.5 lb of seed, $70. Pre-emergent and broadleaf control by the bag, $80. Mowing it yourself, 8 hours of fuel, upkeep and a tenth of the mower, $104. And 27 inches of irrigation at $6 per thousand gallons: $506. Cash total $850; with 14 hours of your time at $25, $1,197.
Itemized by lawn size
| Lawn | Fertilizer | Seed | Weed control | Mowing (cash) | Water | DIY cash | Your hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2,500 sq ft | $45 | $35 | $40 | $97 | $253 | $470 | 8 |
| 5,000 sq ft | $90 | $70 | $80 | $104 | $506 | $850 | 14 |
| 10,000 sq ft | $135 | $140 | $160 | $118 | $1,012 | $1,565 | 26 |
| 20,000 sq ft | $225 | $280 | $320 | $147 | $2,023 | $2,995 | 49 |
Tall fescue (2.5 lb N, overseeded yearly at 3.5 lb/1,000), 24-0-6 at $45 a bag, seed at $4/lb, pre-emergent and broadleaf control, a 21 in gas push mower, irrigation to the planner's cool-season targets at $6 per 1,000 gal with no rain credited, 30-week season. Fertilizer jumps in steps because bags do.
On the irrigated 5,000 sq ft lawn above, water is $506 of $850 — 60% of the cash cost — more than fertilizer, seed and weed control combined. A lawn-care program replaces the $170 of products and the hours behind them; the water bill is yours either way. The same lawn rain-fed costs $344 a year to keep — which is the honest reason most of the country's lawns are rain-fed. If you want to cut the budget, the water page is where the money is; the fertilizer aisle isn't.
DIY vs a program, by size
| Lawn | DIY cash | Program (typical) | Program + your mowing + seed + water | Same, rain-fed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2,500 sq ft | $470 | $400–650 | $910 | $657 |
| 5,000 sq ft | $850 | $400–650 | $1,205 | $699 |
| 10,000 sq ft | $1,565 | $700–1,000 | $2,120 | $1,108 |
| 20,000 sq ft | $2,995 | $1,100–1,600 | $3,800 | $1,777 |
Program prices from 2026 TruGreen-class surveys (HomeGuide, Today's Homeowner), midpoint used in the totals: fertilizer and weed control only. The "program +" column is what you actually pay in a year if you hire the treatments — mowing, seed and water don't come with it.
What a lawn program actually includes
Fertilizer and weed control on a schedule — typically six to eight visits — and sometimes grub control. It does not include mowing (a separate contract, $42–63 a visit for a small lawn, per the mowing page), overseeding or aeration (add-ons, often $150–400), or water. The honest comparison is therefore program-plus-what-you-still-do against DIY-everything, which is the column above; "$525 a year for lawn care" is the cost of two of the six lines. What you're buying is the schedule, the spreader calibration, the licensed applicator for the herbicides, and your Saturdays back — worth paying for, as long as it's priced as what it is.
Your time
The other line the breakdowns skip. Mowing is most of it; each fertilizer or weed application is about ten minutes of setup plus four per 1,000 sq ft; overseeding is an afternoon. What that's worth is yours to decide, and the calculator asks — because at $0 the DIY lawn wins on every size, and at $50 a program starts winning on the big ones:
| Lawn | Hours / year | of which mowing | DIY at $0 / h | DIY at $15 / h | DIY at $25 / h | DIY at $50 / h |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2,500 sq ft | 8 | 4 | $470 | $590 | $670 | $871 |
| 5,000 sq ft | 14 | 8 | $850 | $1,058 | $1,197 | $1,543 |
| 10,000 sq ft | 26 | 16 | $1,565 | $1,949 | $2,204 | $2,843 |
| 20,000 sq ft | 49 | 32 | $2,995 | $3,730 | $4,219 | $5,443 |
Same assumptions as the itemized table; DIY cash plus hours × rate. Compare to the program column above plus your mowing hours — the program still leaves you the mowing.
By grass type
The species sets two lines — nitrogen and seed — and the season type sets the water. Bermuda eats 4 lb of N a year and doesn't get overseeded; fine fescue wants 1.5 and less water; centipede wants almost nothing and resents being fed:
| Grass, 5,000 sq ft | lb N / yr | Fertilizer | Seed | Water | DIY cash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kentucky bluegrass | 3 | $90 | $25 | $506 | $805 |
| Tall fescue | 2.5 | $90 | $70 | $506 | $850 |
| Fine fescue | 1.5 | $45 | $50 | $506 | $785 |
| Bermudagrass | 4 | $90 | — | $405 | $681 |
| Zoysiagrass | 2 | $45 | — | $405 | $636 |
| Centipedegrass | 1 | $45 | — | $405 | $636 |
Warm-season lawns use about 80% of the water and aren't overseeded (winter rye is a different, optional habit). Centipede's cheapness is real: feed it like bermuda and you kill it.
The first year: what you buy once
The tables above are running costs. A first DIY year also buys the kit, and most of it lasts a decade:
| Item | Typical | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Broadcast spreader | $60–150 | The one tool that makes rates mean anything. Calibrate it once. |
| Hose, oscillating sprinkler, timer | $50–120 | If you irrigate without an in-ground system. |
| Soil test (mail-in lab) | $15–30 | Decides lime and P/K for three years. Do it first. |
| Tuna cans / catch cups, rain gauge | $5–20 | Turns "an inch a week" into minutes. |
| Pump sprayer, 1–2 gal | $20–40 | Spot weed control; never the same sprayer as anything else. |
| Kit, before the mower | $150–360 | Plus the mower: $400 for a 21 in gas push, more for a rider. |
Typical 2026 big-box prices. The calculator spreads the mower over its life; the rest is cheap enough to count as year one. A program buys none of this for you, but also needs none of it.
Why is my lawn costing more than this?
Three usual reasons, in order of size. Watering more than the target — daily sprinkling instead of the deep-and- infrequent schedule doubles the water line, and the water line is already the biggest; the run-time calculator is the fix. Paying by the bag instead of by the pound of nitrogen — a name-brand "covers 5,000 sq ft" bag delivers nitrogen at roughly twice the price of a 50 lb generic, and the fertilizer calculator prints the $/lb N so you can see it. Buying the whole program when you needed two of its lines — grub preventive on a lawn that's never had grubs, and "soil amendments" that a $20 soil test would have said no to. None of these is a reason to feel bad; all three are a reason to run the numbers for your own lawn, which is what this page is for.
Where to cut, in order
| Lever | Saves, on the 5,000 sq ft example | How |
|---|---|---|
| Skip irrigation entirely (rain-fed lawn) | $506 | Most of the country’s lawns already are. |
| Let it go dormant in July and August instead of watering | $182 | Cool-season turf survives it; commit, or don’t start. |
| Buy fertilizer by the pound of nitrogen, not the brand | $36 | A generic 24-0-6 delivers N at half the price of a name-brand "5,000 sq ft" bag — see the fertilizer calculator’s $/lb N table. |
| Overseed only where it’s thin | $35 | Half the seed; the thick parts don’t need it. |
| Skip the grub preventive unless you’ve had grubs | $30 | Product only. It’s insurance; price it as such. |
Sorted by the engine. The top two are the same lever at different settings — water — and the next three together don't match either. Nothing on this list is "buy a different product".
Sources: species nitrogen and seed rates as in the fertilizer and seed calculators (extension tables); water from the planner's monthly targets; typical 2026 product prices from big-box listings (a 50 lb bag of 24-0-6, seed by the pound, granular pre-emergent, broadleaf and grub products by the 5,000 sq ft bag); program prices from HomeGuide and Today's Homeowner 2026 TruGreen cost surveys; mowing productivity as on the robot-mower page.