Most gardeners can look at a job and have a rough idea what it’s worth. The hard part is turning that into a number you’re confident sending. Quote too low and you work hard for very little. Quote too high without being sure why and you lose the job.
I’m Luke, a working gardener from Yorkshire. I’ve quoted hundreds of jobs, made the mistakes, and learned what actually works. This guide shows you a practical method for getting from looking at the job to a price you can stand behind, and how to present it.
I’m not writing this from theory. I run a real, fully booked gardening business in the UK. I’ve made pricing mistakes, undercharged early on, and learned the hard way what works.
Everything on this site is based on real experience: quoting jobs, managing customers, covering costs, and building a sustainable round.
Before you think about numbers, categorise the job. Is it regular maintenance, a one-off clearance, hedge cutting, lawn work, or ongoing contract work? Different job types suit different quoting styles. If it's general maintenance, see my dedicated guide on how much to charge for garden maintenance in the UK for worked pricing examples, if it's specifically lawn work, see how much to charge for lawn mowing in the UK, and if it's a genuine one-off clearance, see how much to charge for garden clearance in the UK.
If you want a baseline for UK pricing, read: How much a gardener should charge in the UK.
Nearly everyone underestimates time, especially early on. Factor in loading/unloading, travel, tidy-up time, weather delays, and anything the customer hasn’t considered.
A simple rule: if you think it’s 3 hours, it’s often 4. Build buffer. It’s better to finish early than work unpaid overtime.
You have three main options in the UK:
If you want the deeper breakdown, see: Hourly vs day rates for gardeners in the UK.
Your rate should already be built to cover the cost of running your business: fuel, the van, equipment that wears out, insurance, tip fees and the hours you can’t bill for. If you haven’t worked that through yet, the main UK pricing guide explains what a price actually has to cover, and the earnings guide shows what it adds up to over a year.
This step is about the costs that belong to this job rather than to your business in general. A tip run this job creates. Materials you’ll buy for it. A second visit if the work needs one. Those sit on top of your rate, not inside it.
This is the part most guides skip. You’ve looked at the job, estimated the time and chosen a structure. Now put the number together.
A word on travel, loading and setup. If you worked your rate out properly, so that it already recovers the hours you can’t bill for, don’t add that normal time again on every quote. You’d be charging for it twice. But if your rate is a market figure you picked up rather than one you calculated, it probably doesn’t cover that time, and it needs to go somewhere in the job price or you’ll end up undercharging. Either way, unusual extra travel or setup, like a long drive out or several tip runs, still gets priced on its own.
How I’d build the Sarah quote (an illustrative example, not a price list)
The job: reduce an overgrown hedge and tidy up the garden around it, with all the cuttings taken away.
Time on site: around 5 hours including the clean-up. At £30 an hour that’s £150. Your rate may be higher or lower. £30 sits in the middle of the typical £20 to £35 range and suits one-off work with waste.
Waste: a hedge reduction produces a lot of cuttings. One tip run, roughly an hour of loading, driving and unloading, plus the disposal fee. In this example, call it £60 all in. Tip fees vary a lot by area and by how you dispose of waste, so use your own figure.
Materials: none on this job. Travel and setup: this gardener’s £30 rate was worked out to recover normal travel, loading and setup, so nothing extra here. If yours wasn’t, this is where you’d add it.
Risk: a reduction can turn out thicker than it looks from the path. If it runs to six hours instead of five, that’s another £30. I’d rather have that inside the price than find it in unpaid overtime.
Total: £150 + £60 + £30 = £240, quoted as a fixed price.
Checked against the day: with the tip run that’s a full working day’s commitment, and £240 sits inside the typical £180 to £300+ day rate. If it took six hours it would still be worth doing. If it came in at five, you’ve had a good day.
Keep quotes simple, clear, and confident. Example:
Hi Sarah,
To complete the hedge reduction and full tidy-up as discussed, the total cost will be £240. This includes waste removal and a full clean-up afterwards.
Let me know if you’d like to go ahead and I’ll get you booked in.
Hedge cutting jobs like this one are worth pricing carefully on their own terms. See my guide on how much to charge for hedge cutting in the UK for per-metre and day-rate figures.
Give yourself a minute before it goes. Five questions:
If any of those make you hesitate, adjust the price now rather than regret it later. And if you want to know whether the price contributes enough towards what your whole business needs to earn over the year, my guide on what your gardening business actually needs to earn shows the sense-check.
Those five questions are as far as a page can take you. Answering them for a particular job, with evidence from comparable work and your own business numbers, is exactly what TradeNavigator is built to help with.
The other half of the job, handling the enquiry well before you ever quote, and knowing when to say no, is covered in the Enquiries to Booked Work playbook inside The Gardening Business Year.
Yes, most UK gardeners do. But keep site visits efficient, batch them by area, and avoid spending hours creating free “plans”. Your time still matters.
The gardeners who quote well aren’t guessing better. They’ve checked their guesses. Estimate the job, quote it, do it, then write down what actually happened: how long it took, how much waste there really was, anything you missed on the visit, and whether the price still felt worth it at the end of the day. Compare that against what you quoted. Then use it on the next similar job.
It doesn’t need to be a system. A note on your phone after each job is enough. After 20 or 30 quotes the pattern is obvious and your estimates get sharper.
Confident quoting comes from knowing how you got to the number, not from charging the most. Build it, check it, send it, and learn from what happens.
For most one-off jobs, a fixed price is usually more professional and protects you from undercharging if the job runs over. Hourly works well for regular maintenance where the scope stays consistent.
Build in buffer time and always include loading/unloading, travel, tidy-up, and any “unknowns” you spot on the visit. If you think it’s 3 hours, it’s often 4.
Either include it clearly in your fixed price or list it as a separate line item. Waste can destroy your margin if you forget tip fees and extra time.
For many jobs, yes. A quick visit helps you spot access issues, waste volume, hidden tasks, and reduces the risk of pricing mistakes.
If you’d like the pricing cheatsheet, the 30-day checklist and the client enquiry email template in one place, the free Starter Toolkit is below. It’s written mainly with newer gardeners in mind, but the pricing cheatsheet can be useful if you’re already trading too.
Get the free toolkit