Landscape Designer Cost for Contractors: In-House Salary vs. Outsourced Plans

Every patio, wall and planting bed you sell needs a drawing before it can be priced, and in spring the requests pile up faster than anyone can draw them. If you’re the one drawing at night after the crews go home, you’ve probably asked whether to hire a designer or send the plans out. The answer depends on two things, the full landscape designer cost for contractors and the calendar.

How much does a landscape designer cost a contractor?

In our example, a full-time designer costs a contractor about $76,000 to $101,000 a year: a $70,000 salary near Indeed’s average, $5,355 in employer Social Security and Medicare tax, $939 in software, and up to about $30,000 in benefits at the BLS national average, which includes those taxes. Outsourced plans run $295 per area.

What a Landscape Designer Earns

Start with salary. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median pay for landscape architects at $79,870 in May 2025, with the lowest 10 percent under $54,770 and the top 10 percent over $130,190. In the landscaping services industry, their median was lower, at $65,150. BLS also notes that every state requires landscape architects to be licensed.

For landscape designers, we checked two salary sites. Indeed lists an average of $70,760 a year, from about 1,600 salaries in job postings over the past three years. ZipRecruiter puts the average at $65,423. Both draw on job postings, so read them as the going rate to hire someone in a typical market.

For the math below we’ll use a $70,000 base salary, close to Indeed’s average. Adjust it for your market before you decide anything.

Weighing a licensed landscape architect instead of a designer? Our comparison of a landscape architect vs. landscape designer covers the license, typical fees, and the grading and drainage work Pennsylvania law treats as landscape architecture.

Add Payroll Taxes and Benefits

Salary is only the start. As the employer you pay 6.2 percent Social Security tax and 1.45 percent Medicare tax on top of wages, according to the IRS, or 7.65 percent combined. State unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation come on top of that, and both vary by state.

Benefits add more. The BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation release for June 2026 found that private employers spent an average of $46.89 per hour worked on compensation. Wages were $32.82 of that, or 70 percent, and benefits were $14.07, or 30 percent. That works out to about 43 cents in benefits for every dollar of wages.

A small company may offer less than the national average, and some offer more. For a $70,000 designer, payroll taxes alone come to $5,355 a year. Benefits at the national average come to about $30,000, and BLS counts payroll taxes as a benefit, so that figure already includes the $5,355.

Software Subscriptions

A designer also needs drawing software, and the common tools are sold by subscription. SketchUp Pro is $33.25 a month per user, billed annually, or $399 a year. AutoCAD LT is $540 a year. DynaSCAPE Design, built for landscape plans, is $1,599 a year, and its Color add-on is another $600 a year, so the two come to $2,199 (DynaScape doesn’t sell them as a bundle).

So a designer working in SketchUp Pro and AutoCAD LT costs $939 a year in software. Swap AutoCAD LT for DynaScape Design and Color and the total is $2,598. Then add a computer that can run them and the hours it takes to learn them.

For a side-by-side look at the options, our guide to landscape design software for contractors compares PRO Landscape+, DynaScape, VizTerra, Realtime Landscaping, SketchUp, AutoCAD LT and Vectorworks Landmark on features, cost and fit.

Adding Up the Landscape Designer Cost for Contractors

Put the pieces together for a $70,000 designer working in SketchUp Pro and AutoCAD LT. With payroll taxes only, the year costs $76,294 ($70,000 + $5,355 + $939). With benefits at the national average, it’s $100,939 ($100,000 + $939).

Both totals are our math on the figures above. The lean one leaves out unemployment insurance and workers’ comp, and neither counts the computer or training time. Your own number lands wherever your benefits and your state put it.

The Seasonality Problem

The bigger issue is timing. Design work bunches up in late winter and spring, when homeowners are planning and you’re filling the crew calendar. Our crews build from mid-March through November, and the plans that fill that calendar have to be drawn before it starts and in its first weeks.

Salary runs all twelve months. A designer hired to keep up with March and April can be underused by August and short on work by December unless you plan other jobs for that person. If you can’t name what your designer will do in the slow months, the breakeven below gets harder to reach.

The calendar cuts the other way too. One designer can only finish so many plans in a week, so a single hire can still become the bottleneck in the spring rush, which is the problem you were hiring to fix.

Breakeven Math for an In-House Designer

Everything in this section is math, built from the totals above and published prices. None of it is survey data, so swap in your own numbers.

For the outsourced side we’ll use our own published prices, since we know them best. Our white-label plans for contractors cost $295 for one area and $750 for a full yard, or $279 and $715 on the monthly plan, which needs at least one plan a month for a three-month minimum. Turnaround is seven business days after complete site information, or five for $150 more. Accounts open through the contractor portal.

Every sheet carries your logo. Plans include a takeoff in square feet, tons, block count and linear feet, base and drainage details, and one revision round for a single area or two for a full yard. We never reach out to your customer. The plans are design drawings, not sealed or engineered, and walls over 4 feet or holding up a driveway are flagged for an engineer.

If you run the takeoff yourself, our guide to estimating a paver patio works one through on a 12×16 patio, from waste and base tons to haul-off and crew-days.

Taking on commercial work too? Our guide to bidding commercial landscaping jobs as a subcontractor covers bid lists, takeoffs from a GC’s bid set, prevailing wage, bonds and the scope letter.

Lean case. Divide $76,294 by $295 and you get about 259 single-area plans a year before the hire costs less than outsourcing. Divide it by $750 and it’s about 102 full-yard plans.

Average-benefits case. At $100,939 a year, the breakeven is about 342 single-area plans or 135 full-yard plans.

Now add the calendar. Spread evenly, 259 plans is about five a week, every week of the year. If those requests land in a 20-week stretch of late winter and spring, it’s about 13 a week during the rush and almost nothing the rest of the year.

Compare that with a company that needs, say, 40 single-area plans and 10 full-yard plans a year. Outsourced, that’s $19,300 (40 × $295 plus 10 × $750). In-house, it’s the same $76,294 to $100,939 whether the designer draws 50 plans or 300.

The math leaves two things out. It doesn’t count what a good designer adds beyond drawings, like sales calls, client meetings and estimating. It also doesn’t count your own time. If you’re drawing plans at night now, those hours cost you something, even if nobody sends you an invoice.

Whoever draws the plans, someone has to pay for them. Our guide to whether you should charge for landscape design runs the close-rate math, when to credit the fee back and how to protect the drawing.

What to Demand From Any Outsourced Designer

Whoever draws your plans, hold them to a standard your crew can build from. Get these in writing before you send the first job.

• A scaled plan with dimensions your crew can lay out from, with patios sized to the paver you’ll install and walls drawn in real block courses.
• A takeoff in the units you buy in, meaning square feet, tons, block count and linear feet. Spot-check it with a paver calculator or retaining wall calculator before you order.
• Base and drainage details on the sheet, including base depth and stone, drainage stone and pipe behind walls, and where the water goes. We cover both in our articles on retaining wall drainage and retaining wall base depth.
• A turnaround in business days, counted from the day you send complete site information, and a set price for rush work.
• Your logo and contact details on every sheet, and nothing that points your client to the designer.
• A written promise that the designer will never contact your client.
• A set number of revision rounds, and the price of any round after that.
• Engineering flags. A designer who isn’t an engineer should mark any wall over 4 feet, or any wall carrying a driveway, so you can price engineering before you bid.

A sample sheet tells you more than a sales page. Ask any service you’re considering for a real plan with the client’s details removed, and check it against this list.

When Hiring In-House Is the Right Move

Your volume clears the breakeven most of the year. If you already draw or buy enough plans to pass the numbers above, and the requests don’t stop in July, a designer on payroll can cost less per plan than outsourcing.

Design is how you sell. If you win jobs by putting a designer in front of the client, presenting in person and revising on the spot, that person is part of your sales team. Count the salary as a sales cost as well as a drafting cost.

You have real work for the slow months. A designer who also estimates, manages projects or helps run jobs from June on stays productive after the drawing slows down.

Your projects are large and custom. Multi-phase, high-end work with repeated site meetings and many rounds of revisions is hard to fit into a per-plan price from an outside service.

You can also do both, with one designer for the steady work and outsourced plans for the spring overflow. That keeps your designer busy all year and keeps spring from burying them.

Before you decide, pull last year’s numbers. Count the plans you drew or bought, note which months they came in, and price a designer with payroll and software for your state. Divide the cost by the plans, and you’ll see which side of the line you’re on.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a landscape designer make?

Indeed lists an average of $70,760 a year for landscape designers, from about 1,600 salaries in job postings, and ZipRecruiter puts the average at $65,423. Both draw on job postings, so treat them as the going rate to hire in a typical market and adjust for yours.

How much do landscape architects earn?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median pay for landscape architects at $79,870 in May 2025, with the lowest 10 percent under $54,770 and the top 10 percent over $130,190. In the landscaping services industry, the median was $65,150.

Does a landscape designer need a license?

Every state requires landscape architects to be licensed, according to BLS. A designer who isn’t licensed or an engineer draws design plans, not sealed ones, so a wall over 4 feet or one holding up a driveway still needs an engineer.

What payroll taxes does an employer pay on a designer’s salary?

The IRS sets the employer share at 6.2 percent for Social Security and 1.45 percent for Medicare, or 7.65 percent combined. On a $70,000 salary that is $5,355 a year, before state unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation, which vary by state.

How much do benefits add to the cost of an employee?

In June 2026, BLS found private employers spent $46.89 per hour worked on compensation: $32.82 in wages and $14.07 in benefits, a 70-30 split. That is about 43 cents in benefits for every dollar of wages, and BLS counts payroll taxes as a benefit.

What software does a landscape designer need, and what does it cost?

SketchUp Pro is $33.25 a month per user billed annually, or $399 a year, and AutoCAD LT is $540 a year, so the pair costs $939. DynaScape Design is $1,599 a year and its Color add-on another $600, for $2,199.

How many plans before an in-house designer pays off?

In our example, a $76,294 lean-cost designer breaks even at about 259 single-area plans or 102 full-yard plans a year against $295 and $750 outsourced plans. At $100,939 with average benefits, it takes about 342 single-area or 135 full-yard plans.

When does hiring an in-house designer make sense?

When your plan volume clears the breakeven most of the year, when design is how you sell, when the designer has estimating or project work for the slow months, or when your projects are large and custom. You can also do both and outsource the spring overflow.

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook: Landscape Architects; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (June 2026); IRS, Topic No. 751, Social Security and Medicare Withholding Rates; Indeed, Landscape Designer Salaries; ZipRecruiter, Landscape Designer Salary; Trimble, SketchUp Plans and Pricing; Autodesk, AutoCAD LT; DynaScape, Landscape Design Software Pricing

Written and reviewed by Thayne Muthler, owner of Muthler Landscaping & Construction (PA HIC #PA212584). How we check facts: editorial policy.