How to Quote Landscaping Jobs in NZ

Quoting landscaping jobs in NZ is where a lot of money gets left on the table — or lost entirely. You quote too low trying to win the job, then spend the next six weeks making up the difference with your own time. Or you quote off the top of your head, forget to include plant hire, and discover halfway through that the margin is gone.

Here's how to quote landscaping work properly so you're covering your costs, protecting your margin, and still winning the jobs you actually want.

Start with a proper site visit

Don't quote from photos or a description over the phone. Before you put anything in writing, get on site. You're looking for:

• Ground conditions — rocky, compacted, or waterlogged ground changes your labour significantly
• Access — can a digger or bobcat actually get in, or is it a manual job?
• Scope creep risks — what's the client actually expecting vs. what they've described?
• Existing features — retaining walls, trees, irrigation, drainage that affects the job

A 30-minute site visit can save you from quoting a three-day job that turns into a week.

What to include in a landscaping quote

A solid quote covers all your costs — not just the obvious ones. Here's what to build in.

Labour

Calculate the hours per task — excavation, planting, paving, fencing, irrigation — multiplied by your crew's labour rates. Include travel time if it's a site that's further out. A lot of landscapers underquote labour on planting because they don't account for how long large-scale planting actually takes.

Materials

Price everything from your supplier quotes — plants, soil, mulch, paving, timber, irrigation fittings, aggregate. Add a buffer for wastage, especially on soil and mulch. Don't forget delivery costs if you're not picking up yourself.

Plant hire and machinery

Diggers, bobcats, compactors, trucks — these costs disappear quickly if you don't price them properly. Know your hire rates and factor in the hours the machinery will be on site, not just the hours you're actively using it.

Subbies

If you're bringing in a concrete crew, irrigation specialist, or fencing subbie, get their price in writing before it goes into your quote. Add your coordination margin on top — don't just pass through the cost at zero.

Markup

Your markup covers your business overhead — insurance, vehicles, admin, tools, equipment maintenance. Get clear on what your number needs to be to keep the business profitable, and apply it consistently to materials and plant hire.

GST

Always add GST on top and make it clear in your quote. Show the GST amount as a line item — don't just bury it in a footnote.

Common quoting mistakes NZ landscapers make

Quoting from memory. You did a similar garden last year and it was $8,000, so this one should be about the same. But last year's job had better access, cheaper plants, and didn't need a retaining wall. Build each quote from scratch.

Not pricing variations up front. Scope changes happen on almost every landscaping job. The client adds a path, upgrades to stone paving, or wants the planting area extended. If you haven't set expectations about how variations get priced and approved, you'll end up doing extra work for nothing.

Forgetting the small stuff. Waste disposal fees, fixings and adhesives, trailer hire, or a second trip to the merchant — these come out of your margin if they're not in the quote. Build a miscellaneous line item into every quote as a catch-all.

Discounting to win. If you're cutting your price to get a job, you need to be cutting scope — not margin. Either the job gets cheaper because you're doing less, or it stays the same price because the work hasn't changed.

How to structure a professional landscaping quote

A clear, professional quote gives the client confidence and reduces back-and-forth. Structure it like this:

1. Scope summary — what you're doing, in plain English
2. Inclusions — what's specifically in the price
3. Exclusions — what's not included (this protects you from scope creep)
4. Itemised costs — labour, materials, plant hire, subbies
5. Variations clause — how additional work will be priced and approved
6. Total (ex GST and inc GST)
7. Payment terms — deposit, progress payments, final invoice
8. Quote validity — typically 30 days, given plant and material price movements

With NextMinute's quoting software, you can pull from your saved materials list and labour rates, build quotes from templates, and send them to clients for one-click approval — without the usual back-and-forth.

Winning more jobs without cutting your price

Clients aren't always choosing the cheapest quote — they're choosing the landscaper they trust most. A few things that help:

• Respond quickly. The first professional-looking quote to arrive often wins, regardless of price.
• Show your working. An itemised quote builds confidence. It tells the client you know what you're doing and you haven't just made up a number.
• Include photos or a sketch. Even a rough site plan or a reference photo of similar work you've done goes a long way.
• Follow up. A simple text or call three days after sending the quote is often the difference between winning and losing it.

Track actuals against your quotes

Quoting well is only half of it. You also need to track whether your quotes are accurate — and the only way to do that is to compare your estimated costs against what you actually spent on each job.

If your labour is consistently coming in 20% over estimate, you need to adjust your quoting, not keep absorbing the loss. Tracking actuals vs estimates in real time means you can catch a job going sideways before it's finished — not six weeks later when you're looking at the numbers.

Ready to quote faster and win more landscaping jobs?

NextMinute is job management software built for NZ landscapers. Fast quoting, cost tracking, crew scheduling, and invoicing — all in one place. Book a 15-minute intro with the team →