Best Lawn Care Apps for Business Growth in 2021

Lawn care app for iPhone, Android – Free or Subscription for select features

The PictureThis app helps lawn care and landscaping professionals identify plant, flower, tree, and weed species — 10,000+ of them! Take a photo of a plant you’d like to identify and the AI technology will quickly identify it for you. It also provides care advice and suggestions from horticulture experts. So, the next time a customer requests a plant you don’t know much about, you have everything you need to show-off your knowledge and educate them on how to care for their new plants.

PictureThis has a free version of the app but you may want to purchase the paid version to access all of the features. Prices range from $1.99 – $49.99.

Ideal for: New and established lawn care business.

Other free options include: Leafsnap

iOS, Android, and desktop – Free

Your business is weather-dependent––it’s just a fact of life in lawn care. You need constant access to local weather conditions hour by hour and day by day at your fingertips. Without it, your scheduling (and rescheduling) will be a challenge.

We like The Weather Channel app especially because it offers push notifications. If you don’t see a severe weather alert, or an unexpected chance of rain, then your crew will. Plus, you’ll get access to other important details to help you plan your schedules and dispatching such as sunrise and sunset, wind speeds, temperature, visibility, humidity, and more. This is a must-have free app for lawn care and landscaping professionals.

Ideal for: Every lawn care business

Mobile-friendly online desktop app – Free

No credit card is required to use Jobber’s free CRM, quote, and invoice tool, designed for small business owners. It lets you manage your leads, clients, and jobs better plus, there’s no limit to how long you can use it for.

More specifically, Jobber’s free CRM, quote, and invoice tool helps lawn care businesses:

• Create, send, and track professional quotes all from one place.
• Create and send invoices, and track invoices sent, paid, and past due.
• Organize your client list in our CRM.
• Impress your customers with an access client hub, a customer self-service portal where they can see your quotes and invoices.

Lawn care app for iOS and Android – Free

Whether you have multiple crews on the road at once or you’re a one-person operation, you spend a lot of money on gas. GasBuddy helps you get smart with your gas expenses and find the cheapest gas nearby. If you get one of their GasBuddy cards, you can earn free gas and save up to $0.25 per gallon. Your crews can even search for gas stations by price, location, and restrooms.

Ideal for: Every lawn care business

iOS and Android – Free with purchase of device

If you want to track each crew by coordinates by the minute, then check out the FleetSharp app, complimentary with the FleetSharp GPS tracking system. If you’re ready to get your mileage, gas-use, and travel margins down to a science then use FleetSharp to locate, monitor, and track your vehicles’ mileage. Another great feature is that it offers mobile alerts for unsafe driving behavior or excessive idling.

READ MORE: Learn about the benefits of fleet management.

Alternative options: Jobber GPS Tracking or MileIq

Ideal for: Lawn care businesses with multiple crews.

iOS – Free, offers in-app purchases

iScape is every lawn care and landscaper’s dream. It lets you build in augmented reality from a photo to help sell your services, impress customers, and help them communicate their vision. More simply, you can place images of shrubs, new grass, flowers, trees, and more into a photo of your client’s property and add them to quotes. iScape is used by customers and professional landscapers alike, so you can bet on it being user-friendly.

It’s free to download but you’ll probably find most features require payment to use. There are pro weekly or monthly versions for plans that range from $2.99 up to $199.99 if you want full access to all of the design features.

Ideal for: Lawn care businesses that also specialize in landscaping.

iOS, Android, and desktop – Plans starting at $13/month

Running an efficient and accountable lawn care business can’t be done without great accounting software. You need an option that can work in the field and the office, which is why we recommend QuickBooks. Using your desktop, mobile phone, or tablet, you can manage income and expenses, bookkeeping, financial reports, payroll, and invoices.

Plus, QuickBooks Online integrates with top lawn care apps like Jobber. It helps you streamline your processes so you can spend more time marketing, interacting with clients, and working on your business.

Ideal for: Every lawn care business

iOS, Android, and desktop – Starting at $29/month

Jobber lawn care business management software gives you everything you need to run and organize your operations, from scheduling, quoting, and online payments, making it easy for clients to pay you. All of this can be done from a phone, tablet, or computer.

From one single place Jobber’s lawn care mobile app lets you:

• Track client information with a CRM
• Make notes and attach photos regarding client properties to their accounts
• Share information with your team instantly on their mobile devices
• Schedule and notify your crews
• Keep track of employee hours with flexibility and make payroll a breeze
• Follow-up with clients before appointments, after quotes, and more
• Optimize routes and day sheets with GPS
• Quote clients and get their signed approval
• Invoice clients and track invoice status
• Get paid with online credit card processing and track unpaid invoices
• Look more professional than your competitors

It’s voted #1 most popular and affordable field-service software for a reason! You can try it for free to see for yourself.

Ideal for: New, established, and lawn care businesses looking to grow

iOS, Android, and Desktop – Free or upgrade to a paid plan to save all message history

The moment you hire your first employee is the minute you need to start thinking critically about team communication. Things can get complicated and lost in the shuffle when you have a growing team. We recommend using a communication app like Slack to help keep your team in the loop.

With Slack, you can share files and images with your team. You can communicate one-on-one, in groups, or to the entire team using channels and chats. It also offers voice and video call features along with instant message chatting. It’s the best group chatting app out there, as far as we’re concerned––we use it too!

Other options include: Google Hangouts, Facebook Messenger

Ideal for: Teams with more than 3 employees.

iOS and Android – Free with upgrade plans

If you’re eager to move from pen and paper operations and get 100% online, then you need to start using Google Workspace (formerly G Suite). Get all your documents on the cloud with Google Drive, and create files online that your entire team can access. Google Workspace offers spreadsheets, a word processor, video conferencing, team chat, slide presentations, custom forms for surveys, a calendar, and email.

You can buy a Google Workspace plan to get more cloud storage, an email domain, and mobile device management. The best part is that you can easily create, edit, and view files on mobile devices so your team can collaborate from anywhere.

Other options include: DropBox, Microsoft Office

Ideal for: Every lawn care business.

There are a ton of video conferencing apps on the market for lawn care businesses. To make it easier, we’ve narrowed it down to three options:

iOS and Android – Free

If you’ve set up your Google Workspace, it only makes sense to use Google Meet for your team meetings. Whether they’re in the office or out in the field, everyone from your team can safely come together on Google Meet. You can share your screen, present slides, and have groups of up to 250 people on the call. If you don’t have a Google business account, your team members can still join a meeting from their Gmail account or sign up for one for free.

Pro Tip: Use this remote work toolkit from Google to help onboard your team with Google Meet.

Ideal for: Lawn care businesses with a Google Workspace account or teams on a tighter budget.

iOS, Android – Free but limited minutes on the free plan

No video conferencing list is complete without Zoom. Connecting teams around the world, Zoom lets you meet from anywhere — all your team members have to do is download the app and join a meeting or start a meeting. You can share screens, add virtual backgrounds, or host webinars. Zoom also comes in handy for client video calls. While the app is free, group call minutes are limited to 40 minutes in the free version. If you think you’d need more minutes, you can sign up for a paid plan for small teams — that’ll cost $200/year/license.

Ideal for: Larger and more established lawn care business.

iOS, Android – Free

If you’re already using Slack for your team communication or you’re thinking about it, it makes sense to host meetings with their video conferencing feature. You can collaborate from anywhere, voice call or video call anyone from your team, host meetings with more than two people, and share your screen. The best part about Slack’s video feature is that it’s built into the chat tool, so you don’t have to leave the app to make a call.

Ideal for: Teams who already use Slack and those who are looking for an all-in-one team communication solution.

iOS, Android, and desktop – Free lawn care app

If you’re planting or maintaining flower beds, working with mulch or fertilizer, spreading grass seed, and all that other fun stuff, then you need to be precise with your measurements. Over-use materials, and you’ll be bleeding money in weeks.

You need an app that helps you measure lawn and flower bed sizes and helps you calculate the volume of those spaces. Area Volume Calculator is completely free and offers 170+ geometric shapes to calculate. You can choose what material you’d like to fill your shape with, from wood, to liquid, to almonds! There are 1500 materials to choose from. Plus, this app offers Metric and Imperial units.

Alternative options: Geometry Bundle for iOS

Ideal for: Every lawn care business owner.

iOS, Android – Free

Tape Measure uses AI technology to measure height and distance using your device’s lens. We’d recommend lawn care pros use this for quick distance estimates — an app really can’t beat the perfection of your trusty tape measure. It’s easy to use, free, and it can help you figure out distance in a pinch.

Ideal for: Every lawn care business owner.

iOS and Android – $7.99

Planimeter app for iPhone and Android measures distance and areas on maps. When you’re not on site or unable to get to a location, you can still get a sense of how big a piece of land is. Search for an address on your iPhone or iPad, or use location services on your device to find your location. Measure by dropping pins on the map and quickly understand how big a lawn a customer’s lawn area is. Highly rated in the app store, Planimeter also supports imperial and metric units.

Ideal for: Commercial lawn care business owners or lawn care businesses working with large areas.

iOS – Starting at $75 per month

Positive online reviews are the cheapest, most reliable, and most effective way to grow your lawn care and landscaping business. Why not use an app that can help you automate and collect reviews from happy customers?

Review automation software like NiceJob makes gathering reviews as simple as possible, while giving your clients a great experience while they do it. Most home service pros rely on positive reviews to grow their business, and consumers rely on client reviews to make confident buying decisions. Try an app that can help you grow your business and empower prospects to choose you over your competitors.

Other options include: Broadly

Ideal for: Businesses in need of more reviews.

Mobile-friendly software with a free basic plan

MailChimp is one of the most popular marketing automation solutions for small businesses. It helps you send highly targeted email marketing that allows you to remain top-of-mind with existing and potential customers. It helps you design beautiful branded emails and send targeted messages to prospects and clients.

MailChimp email marketing features include:

• Email automation – Send automated emails to a large group of customers instead of having to send them one by one.
• Newsletter automation – Create, schedule, and send your newsletter right from MailChimp.
• Email address segmentation – Organize your clients based on certain criteria and send different campaigns to different groups.

Make strategic marketing decisions based on specific event triggers such as recurring work, seasonal sales, special offers, or service agreement updates so you can grow your business. If you’re ready to try out email marketing, Mailchimp is a beginner-friendly option to dip your toes into.

Pro Tip: When you integrate Mailchimp and Jobber, you can sync your existing Jobber customer contacts into Mailchimp without adding them manually. You can then create your first campaign by accessing the ready-made library of templates.

Other options include: SendJim

Ideal for: Lawn care businesses that have the resources to experiment with email marketing.

iOS, Android, and Desktop – Free

Canva is a user-friendly design tool to help you create your own beautiful logos, flyers, business cards, and social media images. This is a must if you truly care about leveling up your marketing and growing your business on a budget.

Canva offers templates and blank slates to help you create your email, social media, or door-to-door campaigns. Announce new services, special offers, or just keep your clients up-to-date on your company with professional-looking marketing assets. Best of all, it’s free!

READ MORE: Looking for lawn care flyer templates? Try Tearaway – our easy to use, free flyer generator.

Ideal for: Lawn care businesses starting to build their brand or teams without graphic design resources.

iOS, Android, and Desktop – Free

You can use social media to show off your work, connect with your community, chat with prospects, and host client reviews. Each platform is good for a specific function, so do your research before you dive in. You don’t need to use all of these apps to market your business––one is usually enough to handle for one person. We recommend lawn care business owners start with a Facebook Business Page or an Instagram Business.

Ideal for: Every lawn care business.

There are a ton of lawn care apps you can invest your time and money into. Before you get overwhelmed, remember that each app can help your business in different ways — you don’t need to use them all at once.

Instead, prioritize apps that will be the most useful and relevant to your lawn care business right now.

For example, let’s say you’re a new lawn care business owner. Proper lawn care software to help you run scheduling, quoting, invoicing, etc., is probably more critical right now than using email marketing software. Once you have your client list going and you’re ready to nurture them, then you can invest in email marketing.

What lawn care apps are your favourite? If you think we should add any to the list, let us know on Facebook.

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on Jobber Academy in June 2019 and has been updated in January 2021 for accuracy, and to be up to industry standards.