Unless you’re a grass go-getter, it’s unlikely that you want to spend your weekends searching for the perfect products and tools to maintain a pristine lawn. Whether through do-it-yourself (DIY) subscriptions or comprehensive offerings, the best lawn care services offer convenience, customized care, and personalized recommendations to keep your yard looking its best.
It can be challenging to determine what’s best for your individual needs with so many options available. We spent hours researching the top lawn care companies’ pricing, plans, benefits, and industry reputation. Make an informed decision with this guide to the best lawn care programs.
The Top Lawn Care Services of 2022
Get started with these three lawn care service companies:
TruGreen
Fast Facts:
- Frequency of Service: Every four to six weeks
- State Availability: 48 (all but Alaska and Hawaii)
- Get a Quick Quote: Visit TruGreen site
Upsides and Downsides: Offering convenient and comprehensive lawn care across the continental United States, TruGreen is one of the highest quality choices available. This provider tops our list of best lawn care companies thanks to its wide variety of plans, mobile app, impressive industry reputation, and more than four decades in service.
Despite these positive attributes, some customers may find TruGreen’s lawn care plans less competitively priced than DIY options. In addition, the company offers more limited phone hours on the weekend, making it less than ideal for homeowners who prefer more traditional forms of customer service.
Plans and Pricing
TruGreen offers four different plans for lawn, each providing a unique set of services:
- TruSignature Lawn Care Plan: Labeled the lawn care provider’s most comprehensive plan, this option provides overseeding, fertilization, tree and shrub services, preemergent and targeted weed control, aeration, and grub control and prevention. Typically, this plan services lawns with nine applications per year.
- TruComplete Lawn Care Plan: This plan offers lawn aeration, targeted and preemergent weed control, overseeding, lawn fertilization, and grub prevention and control. In most areas, customers can expect nine applications per year.
- TruHealth Lawn Care Plan: For simplified services, the TruHealth plan offers fertilization, grub control and prevention, and targeted and preemergent weed control. This plan is applied eight times annually in most parts of the country.
- TruMaintenance Lawn Care Plan: For a maintained lawn, TruMaintenance provides fertilization along with preemergent and targeted weed control to keep your yard healthy. This plan typically follows a schedule of seven applications per year.
All four plans come with a Healthy Lawn Analysis by lawn care specialists to determine your yard’s specific needs, as well as a Healthy Lawn Guarantee that ensures customer satisfaction.
Pricing for TruGreen services varies by lawn size, your lawn’s current condition, your location, and the plan and additional services you choose. We obtained these quotes while secret-shopping for a one-acre lawn in Nashville:
- TruSignature Lawn Care Plan: $3,346 per year
- TruComplete Lawn Care Plan: $2,047 per year
- TruHealth Lawn Care Plan: $1,738 per year
- TruMaintenance Lawn Care Plan: $1,506 per year
Other Offerings
If you find yourself with lawn care needs that fall outside the scope of these packages, TruGreen provides the following additional pest control services and lawn maintenance services for homeowners:
- Soil amendment and analysis: This service examines the current pH level of your soil. Once a TruGreen expert has analyzed your yard, they apply granulated lime to improve your soil’s health and nutrient levels for a vibrantly green lawn.
- Grub control and prevention: Grubs are notorious pests that feed on lawns. This treatment stops them from causing further damage if your yard is at risk.
- Mosquito control and defense: TruGreen uses mosquito repellent spray and makes a guarantee to control the mosquito population of your yard in just 24 hours from treatment.
- Tree and shrub care: TruGreen offers treatments that fertilize, combat diseases, fend off pests, and improve the overall health of your trees and shrubs.
Sunday
Fast Facts:
- Frequency of Service: Four shipments of DIY treatments per year
- State Availability: 50
- Get a Quick Quote: Visit Sunday site
Upsides and Downsides: Another option for DIY lawn care, Sunday offers a broad range of products for home, garden, and pest control. The company sends seasonally based nutrient pouches to spray in your yard and emphasizes using as many natural ingredients as possible in its broad scope of products. With clear descriptions and sunny packaging, this provider may be a good fit for homeowners new to lawn maintenance.
With no phone line available on the site and no mobile app offered, customers will need to be comfortable seeking help via online chat or the company website’s FAQs page. The company also may require a photo to replace any damaged products. Lastly, Sunday is not the ideal fit for larger yards—the provider recommends its products for lawns no larger than 14,000 square feet.
Plans and Pricing
Sunday plans come at three price points, each providing a different level of lawn care. Boxes of lawn products are shipped directly to your home during the growing season, with shipments placed on pause during the winter months.
Each plan will be customized to your lawn’s needs and your preferences. From least coverage to most, here are the three plans for lawn care:
- Basic Care: A typical Basic Care subscription includes 12 seasonal nutrient pouches catered to your lawn’s needs and a soil test kit distributed over four shipments per year.
- Keep & Protect: A typical Keep & Protect subscription provides 12 seasonal nutrient pouches, a reusable gallon sprayer, weed concentrate, and a soil test kit. These items come staggered over four shipments per year.
- Grow & Renew: A typical Grow & Renew subscription provides 12 seasonal nutrient pouches, a reusable gallon sprayer, weed concentrate, a soil test kit, and three bags of seed. These items come staggered in four shipments throughout the spring, summer, and fall.
No Sunday bundle offers aeration, lawn mowing, or shrub and tree services. All three bundles come with a satisfaction guarantee that promises help and replacements if a product is missing. However, Sunday does not offer a money-back guarantee.
We secret-shopped prices for a year of Sunday’s lawn care for a home in Nashville with an acre of lawn. In the online quoting process, prices were $229 for a Basic Care plan, $258 for a Keep & Protect plan, and $330 for a Grow & Renew plan. Note that both the contents of the box and pricing may vary by lawn.
Other Offerings
Beyond subscription boxes, Sunday sells a wide variety of stand-alone products to customize your lawn care experience, brighten your garden, fight off pests, weeds, and more.
- Pest control products: Sunday offers a range of options for pest control, with solutions for mosquitos, ticks, ants, and fire ants. The provider also has the Bug Doom Home Insect Barrier, designed to create a barrier around the perimeter of your lawn or indoor spaces.
- Seeds: You can purchase stand-alone bags of grass seeds from Sunday. The provider sells varieties such as Bermuda grass, shade grass, clover lawn grass, Kentucky bluegrass, and fertilizer to help your seed grow.
- Weed control: To eliminate unwanted growth in your yard, Sunday offers both Dandelion Doom for broadleaf weeds and Weed Warrior for a broad range of unwanted grasses and weeds.
- Pet repair: To protect your yard from brown patches, Sunday has Pet Patch, a lawn remediation for pet spots, as well as Pet Safe Ice Melt to keep your four-legged friends safe outdoors during the cold months.
- Garden: For those looking to grow more than grass, Sunday has a selection of kits, including Eastern Pollinator Wildflower Garden, Western Pollinator Wildflower Garden, Classic Bulb Garden, and Grand Bulb Garden. It also offers a flower and bloom plant food mix to keep your pollinators and bulbs thriving.
Lawnbright
Fast Facts:
- Frequency of Service: Two to three DIY applications shipped every six to eight weeks
- State Availability: 48 (all but Alaska and Hawaii)
- Get a Quick Quote: Visit Lawnbright site
Upsides and Downsides: Lawnbright is an excellent option for homeowners who want an environmentally conscious, hands-on approach to lawn maintenance. Specializing in sprayable, liquid products that can be attached to your garden hose, the company offers subscription boxes through annual plans that are catered to the results of your lawn’s soil test. The company’s Ingredient Promise also pledges never to use harsh chemicals. Instead, Lawnbright aims for low nitrogen emissions and pet-friendly compounds.
The drawbacks of this lawn care service provider include a more limited range of care for your lawn, as its product range sticks to fertilization and weed and pest control. The company doesn’t offer seeding, aeration, or tree and shrub services. As a result, Lawnbright may not be the best choice if you’re looking for full-service lawn care.
Plans and Pricing
Lawnbright designs customized plans for your lawn based on the goals you express through its online quoting process, the size of your lawn, and the region in which you live. These factors will also determine the products sent in your subscription boxes.
When we secret-shopped for a quote on a one-acre yard in Nashville, the company recommended a plan that cost $335 per year. This price was for a subscription that sends three boxes of treatments throughout the spring, summer, and fall. This subscription included soil conditioner, natural fertilizer, a micronutrient pack, and a treatment to promote deep rooting before the winter season.
Other Offerings
If you want a more rounded lawn treatment plan, Lawnbright also offers the following products that customers can choose to add to their subscription:
- Organic preemergent weed control: Lawnbright offers an organic way to control weeds, delivered annually and timed to your region’s weed-growing season.
- Organic mosquito and tick control: Available as a one-time purchase or as part of your subscription, this pest repellent product uses organic oils to repel pests.
- Pet Spot Repair: For those whose pets are causing lawn damage, Pet Spot Repair is available as a one-time purchase to biodegrade urine and treat dog spots for a greener lawn.
It’s worth noting that Lawnbright products may arrive in separate packages, and there may be a few days between receiving your first and following boxes of treatments.
SavATree
Fast Facts:
- Frequency of Service: Quarterly
- State Availability: 25 and Washington D.C. (Available in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin)
- Get a Quick Quote: Visit SavATree site
Upsides and downsides: SavATree is a great fit for anyone looking for comprehensive lawn treatment plus additional care for trees. The company offers tree pruning, removal, disease treatment, and even mite and pest treatment as an add-on to any of its lawn care plans. It also offers a support network for tree-lovers via its mobile app, which quickly connects you with a local, professional arborist when you need assistance fast.
SavATree has similar shrub care services, including organic treatment. The company focuses on environmentally friendly lawn care, aiming to reduce waste and carbon emissions at all levels of its services. Notably, SavATree is a strategic partner for the Sustainable Urban Forests Coalition and a collaborator of the National Science Foundation’s Long-Term Ecological Research.
Plans and Pricing
SavATree’s pricing varies according to each customer. The company will conduct a detailed soli analysis of your property, then offer a choice between the plans below with a custom quote.
- Organic Lawn Care: This multi-pronged, 100% organic lawn care program aims to help your lawn thrive in the most environmentally responsible way.
- Integrated Lawn Care: This program combines fertilizing services with weed control treatments. It also includes surface insect control, if necessary.
- Hybrid Lawn Care: This plan balances your desire for a beautiful lawn with SavATree’s commitment to organic products. It offers premium organic fertilizers while controlling weeds with conservative spot-treating and high-quality synthetic materials.
- All-Nutrient Lawn Care: This program is excellent for lawn revitalization. It focuses on turf nutrition rather than ongoing maintenance.
Other Offerings
SavATree has a wide selection of tree and shrub services to add to your lawn care plan. See some of the company’s most popular offerings below.
- Tree/shrub pruning: SavATree will prune your trees and shrubs to ensure proper growth while maintaining your landscaping.
- Tree/shrub disease treatment: A SavATree arborist creates a plan to prevent the emergence and spread of fungi and bacteria that cause tree and shrub diseases.
- Tree/shrub fertilizing: Based on your soil analysis and a visual inspection, SavATree applies the proper fertilizer to help your trees and shrubs thrive.
- Tree removal: SavATree removes trees properly to maintain the health of your lawn and landscaping.
- Tree cabling and bracing: If your trees weren’t correctly pruned when they were young, they might grow in ways that threaten both their health and your property. With this service,a SavATree arborist will create support systems for trees with structural deficiencies and instability. This reduces the likelihood of limb failure, extends the life of an old tree, or provides added stability to newly transplanted trees.
- Insect and mite management: The company protects your landscape from the damaging effects of insect and mite infestation.
- Organic care for trees and shrubs: If you select this option, SavATree will use exclusive ingredients reviewed by the Organic Material Review Institute (OMRI) to maintain the integrity and health of your trees and shrubs.
- Boxwood care for shrubs: SavATree offers a specialized service for boxwoods. The company uses ArborBuxus Restore, a specialized fertilizer for boxwoods, to cure your boxwoods of any diseases. It then uses ArborBuxus Maintain to continually nourish the health of your shrubs.
Learn more: SavATree Review
How to Choose a Lawn Care Service
Your lawn is a significant factor in your home’s overall appeal and appearance. Poor lawn care service can lead to patchy, brown, and unsightly areas, so choosing the right provider for your needs is vital. Consider the following factors when choosing the best fit for your yard.
Service Programs
Lawn care companies differ from landscaping companies in many ways. Landscaping often involves mowing, planting new trees and shrubs, and designing beautified outdoor spaces.
On the other hand, lawn care services focus on the health and composition of your grass, trees, shrubs, and soil. Standard service programs include these:
- Overseeding: This service involves laying down new seed on an existing lawn to thicken grass, fill in bare spots, and combat weed growth.
- Pest control: Most lawn care companies offer add-on pest control for outdoor creatures such as grubs, mosquitos, and ants.
- Weed control: Weed control aims to eliminate unwanted growth in your yard, while preemergent applications strike at weeds before they take root, aiming to inhibit growth.
- Aeration: Lawn service companies use both spike and core aeration as methods to break up compacted soil, allowing grass to build a healthier root system.
- Lime soil amendment: In this service, granulated limestone is added to soil to balance its pH levels and create soil that fosters growth.
- Trees and shrubs: Typical services for trees and shrubs includes inspecting and treating any diseases or pests inhabiting the tree and fertilizing around the base for proper growth.
- Fertilization: Applying fertilizer during the growing season delivers additional nutrients to promote new root and leaf growth, encourages thicker grass, and supports healthy roots.
Frequency of Service
The frequency of service for lawn care will vary based on your needs and goals for your lawn.
- Monthly: Monthly lawn service is somewhat standard for full-service providers, who come to maintain soil health, prevent pests, and maintain a healthy yard every four to six weeks on average.
- Quarterly: For DIY subscription lawn care, boxes usually arrive in the spring, summer, and fall, allowing you to apply your products quarterly. Both traditional lawn care and DIY services suspend most offerings during the winter months.
- Annual: Both DIY and comprehensive lawn care companies offer options needed just once a year, such as overseeding.
- One-time: Some services, such as aeration or lime soil amendment, are only needed every few years. These can be performed on an as-needed basis rather than on a specific annual schedule.
Ingredients
Many lawn care providers focus on avoiding harmful traditional pesticides and fertilizers in favor of more natural ingredients. If you have small children or pets, you may benefit from looking for products certified as organic and from reading the labels and ingredients listed on company websites. All three providers in this review offer natural options, and both Sunday and Lawnbright have at least one fully organic product for sale.
Our Recommendation
For comprehensive service and convenience, we recommend that busy homeowners select TruGreen. This provider earns our top recommendation for its years of experience, hands-on approach, and offering the most comprehensive service list and customer support of the providers we reviewed. Additionally, the company’s user-friendly mobile app allows users to manage their lawn care on the go.
For environmentally conscious homeowners, Lawnbright provides DIY plans using all-natural ingredients and aimed at reducing nitrogen levels. In addition, Sunday offers easy-to-understand packaging, and its plans are great for lawn care beginners looking for a cost-efficient plan.
Professional Lawn Care FAQ
How We Chose the Top Lawn Care Services
We researched and analyzed widely available lawn care services, spoke with customer service representatives, and analyzed customer experiences based on hundreds of consumer reviews and call listening sessions to find common pain points and lawn care service requests.
We also secret-shopped for quotes from six providers to simulate the customer experience with each process and compare pricing for similar services. Although lawn care offerings can vary based on seasonality and location, we reviewed and compared each provider’s service programs, frequency of service, customer support, pest and weed control options, contact options, industry reputation, ingredients, and state availability.