Average Self-Employed Landscaper Salary

What should be MY salary?

If you’re a self-employed landscape business owner, pushing to grow your business, trying to acquire all the equipment you need, hiring the right people, …and managing your cash flow and finances… you’ll likely arrive at the question of “What should MY salary be anyway?”

One advantage of being self-employed is you get to set the number.

But set it too low, and you won’t get the reward for the risk of being a business owner, and the time and TLC a business takes can suck the life out of you, and rob precious time from your family. It’s not worth it. You need the reward.

Set it too high, and you could be out of balance so to speak. And too much of the business’s available cash flow is going to the owner, crippling the business’s ability to grow as quickly and healthily as it could.

One side note that I for sure want to clarify is: you need to have your personal and business finances separated. It’s impossible to get a clear look at your business’s numbers and finances if you mingle both together. You need to have a separate business and a personal checking account, and the business should pay you by making owners’ draws, aka transfers, from the business checking to your personal checking. Then you live out of the personal, and all business expenses get paid out of business. This’ll let you see exactly what’s what when studying your numbers and finances. Your business’s profit, or extra cash in business checking, is not your owner’s pay necessarily. You need to be paying yourself a salary as the owner.

At SynkedUP, I have helped hundreds of landscape business owners build their company budget, and one question that needs to be answered on every one of those is: what are you going to pay yourself?

And here’s what I typically see as an average self-employed landscape business owner’s salary. I’m talking about full-time businesses only, not talking about part-time side gigs.

If the business is a brand-new startup, usually in the $150k-$500k gross revenue range, I typically see $50k-$75k going to the owner’s annual income.

If the business is more mature, in the $500k-$1m range, I typically see $75k-$120k.

For the $1m-$5m+ range – $100k-$200k+.

A couple of notes regarding these salary bands. My comments on these numbers and salary bands refer to your owner’s salary, W2, or owner’s draws income. It does not include the net profit the business makes after paying this owner’s salary.

That net profit the business makes after paying this owner’s salary could be paid out to the owners via net profit distributions. Or it could be used to pay off debt, build up cash reserves, buy equipment or property, etc.

The owner’s total income from the business would be their salary, plus whatever they decide to take home in cash from the business’s net profit. Often in the early stages of business, owners choose to let all or most of the business’s net profit in the business as a way to accelerate growth. Often in more mature companies, the net profit distribution portion of the owner’s income can be more than the salary itself.

As the owner you get to decide what happens to that net profit. Just make sure you’re pricing your work in such a way that there is a net profit after paying yourself a reasonable salary! 😜 But yes, to be clear, this article is only talking about the salary itself. The net profit part is another topic entirely.

$150k-$500k revenue – $50k-$75k owner’s salary

I am not a fan of staying in this salary band. In my mind, this salary amount is a temporary position until you can get the business’s revenue up a bit higher to have the cash flow available to get it up to 6 figures. Here’s why I think that: You can easily make $50-$75k at a “job” without the risk of owning your own business. If all your business can ever pay you is the $50k-$75k, why are you doing it? Why not get a job with no risk and responsibility? You could argue that you have more freedom, and yes, you may be right. But owning a business takes a dedication that a job just never will, which often means your family gets less of you. So in my mind, while I am in this stage, I have two goals:

1. Grow the business’s revenues to the point that it can pay me as the owner a six-figure salary and the business still be 10%+ profitable, after paying me that.
2. Build up the team and processes in the business that allows me to have a little more freedom, and not be a slave to the business.

No doubt, owning a business takes a lot. Just don’t let the business own you and not pay you. This stage should be as short and temporary as possible.

I just listened to a short clip from Dave Ramsey this week where a business owner was asking for advice on how much to pay himself. (He was paying himself $100k, the business was doing $3m, and his wife thought he should get paid more)

Dave’s advice was: double or triple your salary, and don’t look at your phone when you’re on a date with your wife.

Which was a super short succinct way to way to essentially say what I just said above in those two points. Dave was kind of alluding that this guy’s wife was competing with the business for his love and attention.

$500k-$1m revene – $75k-$120k owner’s salary

This range is a place where a 3-5 man company can kind of stay at long term, in a holding pattern, not looking for aggressive growth. I know of a lot of business owners in this range and are happy. The business is manageable, they are making 6 figures+ and have a good work/life balance.

To stay in this place you need a really good “number 2” person on your team to help you have the freedom you need and not be a slave to the business. (BTW, this person should easily be making $75k-$120k as well)

At this size, you haven’t really grown beyond the “what if I as the owner break a leg” risk. The business often still depends on you heavily to exist and produce the work needed to turn a profit.

But at least you can design your life to not be a slave to the business, and be making a comfortable income. This is also the lowest band that I’d want to see someone “settle in” at and is not really a temporary position. As a business owner, I think you should be shooting for a six-figure salary, plus putting some away for retirement. The idea is to not get to the place where you were working hard for 30 years, doing amazing work, but getting to the end and having nothing to show for it. You need something to show for it. For your sake and your family’s.

$1m-$5m+ revene – $100k-$200k+ owner’s salary

In this season of business you can optimize for whichever outcome you want… as high personal income as possible. Or as much time freedom as possible. Or even a blend of both.

I know some folks who grow a business to this point, and are happy to leave the personal income at the bottom end of this band but focus on diverting the money the company makes to building the team and processes that allow them to have considerable day-to-day freedom, and not be tied to the business.

Others stay heavily involved in the production aspect of the business, meaning they are contributing a lot of value to the business and are directly responsible for a lot of the revenue the business makes. In this scenario, the owner often will make $200k+. …but, then the business is still susceptible to the “break a leg” risk.

It just all depends on what you want to optimize for.

Now, a clarifying side note:

Owners not paying themselves

Owners not paying themselves at all is way too common. I cringe when I am on a budget building call, am talking with a hard-working entrepreneur that gives his or her all to the business (meaning the family is getting less of them) and is literally not paying themselves, or barely paying themselves.

Please don’t do this to yourself and your family… It’s just not worth it. At a minimum, pay yourself $50-75k, and get to 6-figure+ as quickly as possible.

You may respond to that by saying, “Sure, I’d like to, but I can’t!”

Well… in most cases if that is true, you’re simply not charging enough for your work, and need to raise your prices. I know, I know, you’re already higher than your competition!

But listen, you can not compete on price, and stay in business.

There are too many people out there that simply don’t know their numbers and are charging less than what you can break even for. Find other ways to compete. Better product, better client experience, more 5-star reviews than anyone else…. compete on anything but price.

You can do a quick sanity check on what your man-hour price should be on this little calculator I made that allows you to plug in your labor expenses, hours, and overhead, and it’ll tell you where your man-hour price should be. If you fill this out and are significantly lower than what the calculator tells you, well…. then that’s your problem.

Want some help?

If you want help in looking over your man-hour price, or in building a company budget, let’s get on a call. I’m experimenting with the concept of providing a limited number of consultation calls, giving you the chance to have someone just look over your shoulder at your math and pricing, and sanity check what you’re doing. I charge $100 for one of these calls, as I want it to be low enough that anyone can access it. Often it’s the folks that need it the most that can’t afford the high ticket coaching. My goal in these calls is to discover one thing that you can tweak or change in your business that produces a lot of value, that can get you to a place of thriving, not surviving.

If you feel like you’re the one that needs this, just hit reply. Looking forward to talking!

Cheers, and happy Saturday!

Weston Zimmerman

SynkedUP CEO & co-founder