Commercial landscaping and grounds rates in New York.

What affects the rate

• Emergency vs scheduled: same-day or after-hours emergency calls run well above scheduled maintenance visits.
• After-hours and weekend work: typically carries a premium over standard business-hours rates.
• Contract vs ad-hoc: vendors on a standing contract usually price lower per hour than one-off, ad-hoc jobs.
• Code and certification requirements: trades with stricter local licensing (electrical, HVAC/gas) typically carry a premium tied to certification cost.

What's different in New York

• Labour market: New York City has some of the strongest and highest-paid building-trades union locals in North America (e.g. IBEW Local 3, Plumbers Local 1), a primary driver of the elevated wage and billed-rate levels seen here.
• Climate and seasonality: Four-season climate with freeze-thaw winters and humid summers drives year-round plumbing and HVAC demand; a large stock of older commercial buildings adds electrical and roofing work.
• Code and licensing: New York City administers its own Building and Electrical Code through the Department of Buildings, separate from and generally stricter than New York State's code, with notoriously involved permitting.

Frequently asked questions

Is this a real measured rate, or an estimate?

This figure is an estimate, not a measured billed rate: it's New York's own hourly wage for landscaping and grounds work (O*NET OnLine (U.S. Dept. of Labor/ETA), from BLS OEWS metropolitan area wage estimates, 2025), multiplied by a documented 2.5-3x service multiplier that converts an employee wage into a billed commercial rate. That multiplier covers labour burden (payroll tax, workers' comp, benefits, PTO), overhead (vehicle, dispatch, insurance, licensing), utilisation (not every hour is billable), and margin. It is not drawn from actual invoices or job records. Evalystar is building toward measured, job-derived rates for this same page as real vendor data accumulates. Shown below, not hidden, so you can check the arithmetic.

Wagex Multiplier= Estimate

Low$17.93/hrx 2.5$45/hr

Median$21.89/hrx 2.75$60/hr

High$23.26/hrx 3$70/hr

Why a range instead of a single number?

A single average hides the real spread in the underlying wage data and in the multiplier itself. We show the low, median, and high ends of the estimate so the range reflects that uncertainty honestly, rather than implying more precision than a modelled figure can support.

Is this a residential or commercial rate?

Commercial. This figure tracks facility-side landscaping and grounds work for businesses, property managers, and multi-site operators in New York. Commercial rates typically run above residential rates for the same trade, reflecting insurance, code compliance, and scheduling requirements that residential work doesn't carry.

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