How much should a landscaping company spend on marketing?

A company just starting to invest in marketing can begin with a single channel: either the $600 Google Ads floor with a modest spend behind your strongest project photos, or SearchPod's SEO program at its 10-page minimum around $500. A tight budget usually goes further funding one channel well than splitting it thinly.

A company chasing both design-build projects and recurring maintenance contracts typically lands in the $2,500 to $5,000 a month range, combining ad spend above the floor with SEO past 10 pages. That mix keeps the company visible for homeowners searching during the spring rush and fall cleanup season, while building the portfolio content that wins bigger install projects over time.

A multi-crew company covering several towns, or one pushing hard into high-ticket hardscape work, sits higher again. There, ad spend becomes the largest line, and a website rebuild with a real project gallery usually pays off quickly by winning bids against competitors with thinner online portfolios.

Google Ads management is 10% of your spend, floored at $600 CAD or $450 USD, with nothing marked up on the media itself. For a landscaper, this channel works hardest during the spring rush and fall cleanup windows, when homeowners are actively comparing a handful of local companies on availability and photos.

SEO is priced at $50 CAD or $38 USD per page starting at 10 pages a month. For a landscaping company, that fits naturally as a page per service, hardscape, lawn care, irrigation, and pages that showcase finished projects by neighborhood, all of which keeps producing leads without paying per click once those pages start ranking.

A website is a separate one-time cost, from $1,500 to $20,000 and up. The real question for a landscaper is whether the site needs a real photo-heavy portfolio that makes the decision easy, since buyers in this category are highly visual and often choose based on projects they can see, not just a services list.

LocaliQ and WordStream's 2026 Search Advertising Benchmarks report puts Home & Home Improvement at a $90.92 average cost per lead, a 6.47% click-through rate, and an 8.05% conversion rate on Google Ads. That figure blends every home improvement business in the report across every market, so treat it as a reference point rather than a guarantee for your city.

It's most useful for checking a proposal. If a campaign, once the management fee is removed, implies a cost per lead well above roughly $91, ask what's driving it, whether it's a crowded market for design-build work or a landing page that doesn't showcase projects convincingly enough. A company with a strong portfolio and reviews can often beat that number.

Seasonality shapes this budget more than almost any category on this list. Demand concentrates heavily in the spring rush and fall cleanup, so a company that ramps spend ahead of those windows, rather than reacting once they've already started, usually catches more of that demand for the same annual total.

Project mix is the other major lever. A company weighted toward high-ticket design-build work can often justify a bigger ad budget because a single won patio or retaining wall project can cover the cost of several unconverted leads, while a company focused on recurring lawn care needs to think more about steady, lower-cost volume.

The recurring maintenance base is worth protecting deliberately, since it's what smooths out the feast-and-famine swings of seasonal installs. A budget that only chases new install projects and ignores the maintenance contracts already on the books is leaving the steadier, more predictable revenue on the table. There's no setup fee, plans run month to month, and the first 30 days carry a guarantee: if you're not satisfied, you don't pay. A free proposal with real numbers for your company is available within one business day.