Stop Guessing. Start Benchmarking.
2025 Landscape Industry Benchmark Report
Welcome to The Herring Group’s 12th Annual Landscape Industry Benchmark Report. Compare your numbers to real industry peers to lead with confidence.
You’re pushing hard.
But are you pushing in the right places?
The Annual Landscape Industry Benchmark Report reveals where your landscape business is out of sync with industry leaders, helping you:
- Compare your performance to true peers and high-profitability companies, not generic averages
- Identify operational and financial misalignments
- Make smarter decisions backed by data
- Justify budgets and realign spending
- Focus on the areas that move the needle
Aligning your business with real industry data empowers you to lead with confidence and vision.
Want to learn more? Check out our Report FAQs
A MESSAGE FROM GREG
Meet Your Guide: The Annual Benchmark Report
This will be our 12th year compiling and building the Benchmark Report for the landscape industry. What I’ve learned in that time is that landscape business owners work hard. There are pressures to have all the answers in an industry that is seasonal, highly competitive, and margin-sensitive. That’s why we created the Annual Benchmark Report—to give you clarity and to show you what’s possible.
We want the Benchmark Report to be your guide. With this data in hand, you’ll be able to:
- Compare apples to apples—see how you stack up against companies of similar size and service mix
- Sift through real data to uncover where you’re outperforming and where you’re falling behind
- Spot trends in your own numbers and make smarter decisions when it’s time to push
- Support your budget with credible benchmarks that justify investments and highlight spending inefficiencies
- Focus your attention on the areas that move the needle
We are on a mission to help owners create real change within their organizations because we have seen other companies do it. And this report will show you what’s possible.
Let’s uncover the gaps that are holding your business back. Join us this year to start leading with clarity and focus.
If you’ve participated in past years, you know the more participants the better. Share this info with any landscape business owners who would benefit from more clarity and focus.
We look forward to you joining us this year!
Greg Herring
Founder & CEO, The Herring Group
Know Where You Stand. Know Where to Grow.
Take Action—Your Business Depends on It
Without benchmarking, you risk:
- Overspending in areas that don’t drive growth
- Missing early warning signs in your financials
- Justifying budgets with weak assumptions
- Falling behind competitors who are already optimizing with data
Whether you’re looking to sell soon or just want to maximize your profit margin, the Landscape Industry Benchmark Report is your roadmap to smarter decisions for sustainable growth.
Details
How The Report Works
Step 1: Purchase The Report
This step is completely risk-free. Purchase The Herring Group’s 12th Annual Peer Benchmark Report for $347 and receive a 60-day no-risk guarantee. If you don’t receive value greater than the cost, you can ask for a refund within 60-days. All the reward, none of the risk.
STEP 2: Submit Your Data
When you purchase, you will receive simple instructions to upload your income statement and balance sheet directly to a secure server. It will take fewer than 10 minutes. We ask that all data (12-months ending 9/30/25) be submitted no later than November 6, 2025.
Step 3: We do the Work
Our team of financial leaders reviews and codes the income statements and balance sheets of each company to ensure we get a true apples-to-apples comparison. The report is created so you can sort and compare to companies of similar size and revenue mix as your own.
STEP 4: Join the Webinars
You’ll receive an email invitation for two live webinars led by Greg Herring. The report review will take place in early December, where Greg will take you through the information and trends, teach you how to use the report for your own deeper analysis and answer any questions. The high-performer webinar will be in January 2026.
companies that
participated in 2024
163
total revenue of
2024 companies
$2.3B
Employees
Represented
20K+
Companies with
Net Profit Over 10%
31%
$347 for the Report and Webinar
60-Day No-Risk Guarantee
Frequently Asked Questions
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What data is measured in the report?
With The Herring Group’s Peer Benchmark Report, we turn each company’s raw data into percentages, allowing you to anonymously compare yourself to companies of all sizes. The data is also filterable, so you can get a clear comparison to companies like yours, in terms of size and revenue mix.
That’s one of the big advantages of our report.
Here are just a few things that we measure:
- Revenue growth
- Revenue mix
- Enhancements as a % of maintenance
- Net profit margin (net profit divided by revenue)
- EBITDA margin (EBITDA is used to value landscape companies in a sale process)
- Gross margin
- Repairs and maintenance as a percentage of revenue
- Fuel as a percentage of revenue
- Overhead as a percentage of revenue
- Days in Accounts Receivable
- Debt to Equity Ratio
Does my company need to be a certain size to benefit from participating in the report?
Companies with revenue of $1 million to $50 million will benefit from the Benchmark Report. One of the best things about the report is that the data can be filtered so that you can get clear comparisons with companies like yours (both in terms of size and revenue mix). Over the years, we have seen highly profitable companies of all sizes.
Why does The Herring Group charge for The Benchmark Report?
Some people are surprised that our report costs real dollars ($347 this year). At The Herring Group, we give away a lot of valuable information to help business owners increase their profit margin and life margin. Why? Because we value the industry and private business owners.
So why don’t we give away the Benchmark Report? Two reasons. First, we only want people who are serious about motivating their teams to improve performance to participate. Second, we spend dozens of hours reviewing and “coding” each company’s financial statements to make the data comparable between companies. Those two reasons make it a far more valuable product than any other benchmark report.
Do I need to be on Aspire in order to participate in the Benchmark Report?
No. The Benchmark Report only uses data from your accounting software (e.g. QuickBooks). We provide detailed instructions on how to generate these reports. It will take less than 10 minutes.
I want to purchase the report, but my team is still working on closing out the last month. Do I need to submit my financials immediately?
No. You can purchase the report now and you will have time to submit your financials. We ask that all data (12-months ending 9/30/23) be submitted no later than November 9, 2023. We can also use data for the 12 months ended August 31, 2023 if September 2023 data is not available.
We encourage all companies who did not participate in 2022 to include two years of data so we can do a comparison with the year prior with the dramatic inflation. This is included in the price of $347.
How will the report be delivered to me?
A link to a secure folder with your copy of the report will be provided to you by email on the day the report is released. You will get copies of the report as a PDF and as an Excel file, as well as a video recording of our two webinar presentations.
I am unable to attend the post-report webinars. Are they recorded?
The first post-report webinar is where Greg will explain both how to use the report and point out some of the interesting findings from the year’s report. The second webinar will be a panel discussion with owners from high-performing companies. Both webinars are recorded and will be available for you and your team to view after the live event.
I am currently a Herring Group client. Do I need to purchase the report?
No. All current clients of The Herring Group will receive the Benchmark Report and an invitation to the webinars as a part of our ongoing services. You do not need to register to participate.
Can you buy the report without participating?
No, the report is only available to participants. We work diligently to make sure each participating company’s numbers are comparable to the other companies. If you are in the landscape industry but not a business owner, sponsorship opportunities may be available. Contact us at [email protected].
How secure are my numbers? Do you share them with anyone?
Your data is uploaded into a secure Dropbox folder. Dropbox uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)/Transport Layer Security (TSL) to protect data in transit between Dropbox apps and their servers.
From there, your company’s dollars are converted to a % of revenue. Your company is assigned an ID number and your percentages are displayed in a single column in Excel, labeled only by the ID number. Your specific ID will be emailed only to the email address on file when signing up.
We take this approach to make the data more comparable and to make it easier for people to participate. Participants and sponsors will see the report with anonymous data, only. We use overall statistics to help inform the industry.
Our Sponsors
Aspire solutions help field service companies of all sizes—from lawn care and landscaping to janitorial and beyond—overcome their day-to-day challenges, operate more efficiently, and free up time to focus on what matters most for their business: profitable growth. Business management software built for landscape, snow & ice removal, and janitorial contractors by industry professionals.
Industry leaders choose Team Engine to transform their workforce strategy from a growth constraint into a competitive advantage. With Team Engine, you can overcome the technology, language and operational challenges unique to the landscaping industry to outcompete and hire the best people first, then drive retention and engagement throughout the employee journey.
SmartLink technology has emerged as a powerful solution for industry leaders. Leveraging over 75 years of collaboration with the nation’s leading landscape maintenance companies, Weathermatic provides proprietary, cost-effective, and highly efficient technology that automates labor processes, increases profits, and preserves water. SmartLink offers industry leaders the tools they need for sustainable success.
Covelso, LLC provides accounting and bookkeeping services to landscape companies using Aspire with QuickBooks. By adding expertise with deep accounting knowledge – and how to make it align with Aspire – Covelso allows you to get the financial information you need to trust and rely on your books, enabling better decision-making.
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