Hardscape calculators · For contractors
Should you outsource landscape design? Run your numbers.
Most landscape owners draw plans at night, or think about hiring a designer. Put in your own numbers and see what each plan really costs you three ways: drawing it yourself, a designer on payroll, or outsourcing per plan.
Your volume
Doing it yourself
Hiring a designer
Cost per year
Outsourced pricing uses Groundwork trade rates: $295 per single area and $750 per full yard paid per plan, or $279 and $715 on the monthly plan (at least one plan a month, 3-month minimum). The calculator uses the monthly rate when you need 12 or more plans a year. A designer’s salary is paid in slow months too.
What the numbers leave out
Your nights
Hours spent drawing are hours not spent selling, running crews or with your family. The calculator prices them at your rate, but you decide what they’re worth.
Seasonality
Design demand spikes in late winter and spring. A salaried designer sits idle in August; per-plan outsourcing only costs you when there’s a job to close.
Close rate
A scaled, dimensioned plan is easier to say yes to than a sketch on the back of a quote. If plans win you even one more job a season, that can cover the year.
When hiring makes more sense
If you’re drawing well over a hundred plans a year, want a designer who sells in person, or you need someone on site measuring every day, a hire can pay off. Below that, many small and mid-size crews come out ahead paying per plan. We cover the in-house side in detail in landscape designer cost for contractors.
Open a free contractor accountHow white-label plans workHow the calculator does the math
No hidden factors. Three formulas, all from the numbers you type in and the trade prices printed under the results.
Draw it yourself
Plans per year × hours per plan × your hourly rate. Every hour you draw is priced at what you said your time is worth.
In-house designer
Salary × (1 + your overhead %). That’s a fixed yearly cost. It doesn’t drop when plan volume does.
Outsourced plans
Single-area plans × the single rate, plus full yards × the full-yard rate. At 12 or more plans a year it uses monthly-plan rates ($279 / $715); under 12, per-plan rates ($295 / $750).
The three boxes under the bars come from the same inputs. Hours back is plans × hours per plan. Cost per plan is the outsourced total ÷ plans. Break-even for a hire is the designer’s loaded cost ÷ that cost per plan, rounded up: the volume where a salary starts to beat paying per plan.
A worked example
Different numbers from the defaults above, so you can check the math by hand. Say you need 24 plans a year, 6 of them full yards. You spend 8 hours per plan and value your time at $70 an hour. For the hire, use a $70,000 salary (the figure our designer cost article uses, close to Indeed’s posted average for landscape designers) with 25% on top.
24 × 8 hr × $70
$70,000 × 1.25
18 × $279 + 6 × $715
That works out to $388 a plan outsourced, 192 hours back, and a break-even of 226 plans a year before a $87,500 designer costs less per plan. Outsourcing wins here by $4,128 over drawing it yourself.
When outsourcing makes money, and when it loses
It loses when your hours are cheap and fast
Divide the plan price by your hourly rate. That’s how fast you’d have to draw to beat it. At $70 an hour, a $279 single area is about 4 hours, and a $715 full yard is about 10. If you really draw a clean single-area plan with a takeoff in 3 hours, doing it yourself is cheaper on paper. Be honest about the hours: count the takeoff and the revision round, not just the drawing.
It makes money when the hours go somewhere billable
The calculator counts your time at your rate, but that saving is only real if you use those hours. If the 192 hours in the example go to sales calls, site walks or running a crew, they earn. If they turn into nothing, the real cash comparison is $9,312 against $0 out of pocket.
Watch the 11-to-12 plan line
Monthly rates kick in at 12 plans. Eleven single areas at $295 is $3,245. Twelve at $279 is $3,348. The monthly plan also needs at least one plan a month for three months, so it fits steady volume, not one spring rush.
Recover the fee in the job
The tool treats plans as pure overhead. If you roll the plan cost into the job price or charge the client a design fee, your net cost per plan drops on every job that closes, and the comparison tilts further toward outsourcing.
Sources: Groundwork trade rates on landscape design for contractors and white-label landscape design · salary figure from landscape designer cost for contractors (cites Indeed and BLS). Example math is arithmetic on the inputs shown.
Questions
What does outsourcing landscape design actually get me?
A scaled plan from your photos and measurements, drawn under your logo, with a material list and quantity takeoff. You present it, price it and build it. We never contact your client.
How fast is it?
7 business days from complete site info, or 5 business days for +$150.
Is there a contract or retainer?
No retainer and no minimum when you pay per plan. The monthly plan saves 20% off retail and has a 3-month minimum, then runs month to month.
How does the calculator work out break-even for a hire?
It divides the designer’s loaded yearly cost (salary plus your overhead %) by the outsourced cost per plan and rounds up. Above that many plans a year, a salaried designer costs less per plan.
Why does the outsourced price change at 12 plans?
At 12 or more plans a year the calculator applies monthly-plan rates, $279 per single area and $715 per full yard, instead of per-plan rates of $295 and $750. The monthly plan needs at least one plan a month with a 3-month minimum.
Groundwork Design Co. is the design studio of Muthler Landscaping & Construction LLC, Lock Haven, PA · (570) 397-9800. Results are estimates from the numbers you enter.