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Jesus Sanchez Garcia is a senior writer for USA TODAY Homefront. His expertise focuses on home warranties, with over 50 hours spent reviewing provider sample contracts to understand their benefits. He also regularly performs consumer research, such as surveys and customer interviews with an eye on incorporating data into his writing. Jesus has a bachelor’s in business administration from California State University, Stanislaus, and is still located within California’s vibrant Central Valley. When he is not researching or writing, he enjoys supporting his favorite sports teams, spending time with loved ones and chasing new adventures outdoors.
You can choose from two types of lawn care services in the market: full-service and subscription. As the name suggests, full-service companies perform most of the lawn care for your home. Subscription lawn care companies send lawn care products that you apply to your lawn at established intervals.
Full-service lawn care companies take the guesswork out of caring for your lawn. They have the knowledge, techniques and equipment to turn sickly, patchy grass into a lush, healthy lawn you can be proud of. Subscription lawn care companies send tailored packages of lawn products directly to your door that are plug and play, giving you flexibility and control of how you treat your lawn.
Our team researched, rated and scored full-service and subscription lawn care companies to help you find the right lawn care provider.
Our research strategy involves understanding the full-service and subscription lawn care industry from homeowner and provider perspectives. We uncover homeowner sentiments and decision-making through proprietary surveys. We read hundreds of consumer reviews from third-party review sites such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB), Google Reviews and Trustpilot.
We interact with company websites, noting the intuitiveness of each company’s quote process. We analyze a provider’s services, certifications and product offerings to understand the value it offers and how it differentiates itself. We contact the provider’s customer service representatives over the phone and through email to ask questions about its sales process.
Additionally, we interview industry experts and contractors to gather information that helps you make an informed decision. By speaking with lawn care professionals, we obtain the insights they’ve accumulated through their experience performing aeration, fertilization and other lawn care services.
We aim to compile the most helpful information about lawn care services and present it in a digestible format to help you make the right decision for your home.
Based on our thorough industry research, we created in-depth review standards to score each lawn care company. We rate companies out of 100 and divide each final score by 20 to obtain our star rating. We include each brand’s star rating in our reviews and recommendations.
We developed two versions of our review standards to score full-service lawn care and subscription lawn care providers fairly:
Full-service lawn care companies provide in-person services to repair, maintain and treat your lawn. They perform most lawn care tasks, although many won’t provide mowing and general watering. Their services are designed for convenience and for homeowners who are too busy or lack the knowledge to care for their lawns. Full-service companies typically charge more due to labor and overhead costs.
Our full-service review standards feature four major categories:
Full-service lawn care companies offer various services. We learned about the individual services that providers offer by speaking with representatives and reading their websites.
Companies that offer standard lawn care services such as aeration, fertilization, seeding and weed control scored well. We gave more points to providers with specialty service options, such as lawn disease remediation or tree and shrub control.
Full-service lawn care providers that are associated and certified with the National Association of Landscape Professionals (NALP) and have high Trustpilot and BBB ratings scored the most points in this category. Companies that lack NALP certification or have lower ratings from BBB or Trustpilot lost points.
Through reading hundreds of customer reviews from multiple full-service lawn care companies, we found that common pain points are poor customer service and communication. We rated companies well if they provide many communication options, such as an online chat tool, as well as phone and email customer support. We also allocated more points to companies that provide flexible scheduling and a la carte services.
Finally, we considered a company’s nationwide availability. Those available in 45 states or more scored the highest in this category.
Full-service lawn care providers differentiate themselves through their additional services and benefits. We gave points to providers with convenience features, such as a mobile app where you can schedule service appointments and pay within the app.
In addition, we gave more points to companies that offer pest control and landscaping services. Companies that provide eco-friendly and non-toxic lawn care solutions also scored well.
Subscription lawn care companies provide customized plans that send specific lawn care products to your door. You then apply these products to your lawn at intervals recommended by the company. This type of lawn care is cheaper than full-service lawn care, although it requires more labor from the homeowner to achieve satisfactory results.
Our subscription review standards include the following categories:
Similar to how we scored full-service companies’ service options, we rated subscription companies’ plans and product offerings. Where we differed in our analysis is product certifications. Subscription companies readily display the certifications their products have.
Companies that sell lawn care products with certifications from the National Organic Program and Organic Materials Review Institute scored well in this category.
To rate subscription companies fairly, we broke this category into five subcategories, including subscription cost and individual product pricing.
Through our research, we found that annual subscription plans range from $300–$600. Companies that charge $320 or less scored the most points. We also gave more points to companies that offered pay-as-you-go payment structures.
Providers that charge $25 or less for individual products received the highest number of points.
As we did for full-service companies, we rated the phone and email customer support for subscription companies. Subscription companies with a detailed frequently asked questions section scored additional points.
Finally, we rated the convenience features subscription lawn care companies offer. Providers with a mobile app and a “cancel anytime” policy scored well.
Editorial note: The name “Homefront” refers to the alliance between USA TODAY and Home Solutions that publishes review, comparison, and informational articles designed to help USA TODAY readers make smarter purchasing and investment decisions about their home. Under the alliance, Homefront provides and publishes research and articles about home service and home improvement topics.
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