Yardbook alternative: stay free, pay for an upgrade, or build a CRM around your routes

What is Yardbook, and who is it built for?

Yardbook is cloud software for lawn care and landscaping companies. Its homepage groups the product into sales, business operations, and finance and records tools, covering leads and estimates through scheduling, routing, invoices and payments, and says over 20,000 companies are using it. It runs in a web browser, and the pricing page says every plan includes web and desktop access plus the Android mobile app.

The feature list runs long. Yardbook's features page lists a cut price set on each property, lot measurement from satellite images, recurring jobs with off-season periods, batch rescheduling, route optimization by shortest distance, reusable snow route templates, chemical application records that capture weather from your GPS location, cards on file, timesheets, job costing and job profitability reports, and a Zapier integration. Recurring invoice templates and batch invoicing are there too, so a route's finished jobs can be invoiced together instead of one at a time. The same page keeps a separate premium list (bulk texts and email, GPS tracking, automatic backup, automatic invoice reminders, multi-step chemical programs), which lines up with the paid Business plan below.

That covers the daily work of a mowing or small maintenance company: properties, routes, visits that repeat all season, invoices that go out in batches, and a log of which product was applied to which lawn.

What does Yardbook cost in October 2026?

As listed on Yardbook's pricing page in October 2026:

• Starter, free: customer management, jobs and scheduling, estimates, invoices, routing, expenses, reports, lot measurement, employee access, card payments, snow removal and a product catalog.
• Business, $34.99 a month: everything in Starter, plus bulk email, bulk text messages through a Twilio integration, GPS tracking, automatic backup, automatic invoice reminders, multi-step chemical programs, customized lead capture, and Yardbook's own processing fee waived.
• Enterprise, $49.99 a month: everything in Business, plus QuickBooks sync and a branded company portal. Its one-line summary on the pricing page reads "Quickbooks sync, no ads."

Yardbook's general FAQ says the company runs "a sponsored ad business model," which keeps the base software free, and offers optional premium features for larger companies. The pricing page shows monthly prices only. It says nothing about contracts or a trial for the paid plans, and the free plan needs no trial; the FAQ links a guest login for a look around before you sign up.

The fee worth watching is on card payments. Yardbook's credit card help page says it charges non-premium accounts a 1% processing fee on online payments, in addition to Stripe's fees, while Stripe's fee is the only one on Business and Enterprise. By our arithmetic, at $3,499 a month in online card payments, that 1% equals the $34.99 Business price. Above that volume, the free plan costs you more than Business does, before counting anything Business adds.

Who is Yardbook a good fit for?

• Solo mowers in their first seasons. When revenue is thin, software with no monthly bill keeps overhead down while you learn how you want to quote, schedule and bill.
• Route-based mowing companies. Cut prices stored on each property, routes you can copy from last week, and batch invoicing line up with how a weekly mowing route actually bills.
• Small fertilization and weed control programs. Yardbook lists chemical application records among its features, and Business adds multi-step chemical programs for rounds that repeat through the season.
• Lawn companies that plow in winter. Snow route templates and quick dispatch let the same customer list carry through the year.
• Owners who want cheap and simple. Even Enterprise lists below $50 a month for every feature on the pricing page.

If that describes your company and the software isn't getting in your way, Yardbook is a reasonable home. Most of the priced plans below cost more each month than Yardbook's top tier.

What should you ask before switching away from Yardbook?

• What exactly is wrong? Write the problem down in one sentence. If it is QuickBooks, Enterprise includes sync at $49.99 a month. If it is texting customers about a rain delay or chasing unpaid invoices, Business adds bulk texts and automatic invoice reminders. Moving up a plan is usually quicker than moving software.
• What can you take with you? Yardbook's export help page lists CSV downloads for customers, expenses, payments, chemical applications and invoices, and says more exports will be added over time. If you rely on job history, estimates, property measurements or photos, ask Yardbook support how to get those out before you commit to a date. Business can also take a daily automatic backup you can download, once you switch it on.
• What happens to cards on file? Card payments in Yardbook run through a Stripe account you connect yourself. Ask Stripe and your new vendor whether stored cards can move, or whether customers will need to enter them again. Autopay customers are the ones most likely to slip through.
• What happens to your texting number? Yardbook's bulk texting page says messages go out from a Yardbook number, with the option to register a dedicated SMS number. Ask which number your customers see today and whether it can move with you. If your new software texts from a regular 10-digit business number, U.S. carriers expect that sender to be registered first, and our guide to 10DLC registration explains the steps.
• When is your slow season? Rebuilding routes and recurring jobs in May means doing it at night after the crews are home. The weeks between final fall invoices and spring start-up are the window, unless you also plow.

What other lawn and landscape software is worth comparing?

These are packaged products sold to lawn and landscape companies, grouped by who they suit rather than ranked. Prices come from each company's own website, read in October 2026. Our lawn care software guide covers a longer list.

• Jobber, for crews that mix recurring mowing with quoted extras. For a single user, its pricing page lists Core, Connect and Grow at $29, $99 and $149 monthly when billed annually, or $49, $139 and $199 on a month-to-month plan, and gives 14 days of Grow free with no credit card. Its lawn care page says recurring jobs create their visits automatically, and that bulk scheduling can move several visits at once when weather throws off the schedule. QuickBooks Online sync starts on Connect and two-way texting on Grow.
• GorillaDesk, for small route businesses that want month to month. Its pricing page charges per route: Basic at $49 a month, Pro at $99 and Growth at $149 per route. Paid yearly, a route costs $539 on Basic, $1,089 on Pro or $1,639 on Growth. It lists lawn care, landscaping and fertilization among its industries, says its plans carry no contracts or setup fees, offers a free trial, and lets seasonal businesses on monthly billing freeze the account. Moving up to Pro brings a customer portal, online booking, automated subscription billing through Stripe or Square, and QuickBooks Online sync.
• Service Autopilot, for lawn and snow companies that want automated workflows. Its pricing page puts Startup at $49 monthly, Pro at $199 monthly and Pro Plus at $499 monthly, each plus a sign-up fee, with Elite priced on request. It says all pricing is based on annual subscription rates and that downgrades happen at the end of your contract period. Route optimization starts on Pro, Automations on Pro Plus, and a free trial is offered.
• LMN, for landscape companies that price work from a budget. Its pricing page lists Starter from $297 a month for companies with fewer than 10 employees, including six licenses (one for the office or a crew lead, five for crew members), and Professional from $648 a month for companies with 10 or more employees, which adds real-time job costing. Enterprise is quoted. Both listed prices are billed monthly and apply after a one-time onboarding fee.

Each of these replaces Yardbook with another company's software and roadmap. The last option replaces it with your own.

When does a custom CRM fit a lawn or landscape company?

Our own service companies ran on packaged field software until we built a custom CRM for them. Custom is worth pricing in these situations:

• You run several lines of work with different billing. Mowing billed per cut, fertilization sold as a season of rounds, snow billed per push or by the season, and landscape installs that take a deposit up front. Packaged software can handle each of these. Test how yours handles one customer who buys all four, on one account and one statement.
• Your selling has its own shape. Door hangers and door knocking on streets next to your routes, aeration and overseeding campaigns sold to past customers each fall, or commercial bids that go through several rounds.
• Your crew pay is specific. Pay by production, by property or by route, with rules your office now works out by hand from timesheets.
• You want the records in your own database. Customers, properties, measurements, chemical records and payment history in a database registered to your company, which you can query or export whenever you like.

What a build includes is on our custom CRM page, and our lawn care and landscaping pages describe what we build for each trade.

Custom has costs you should weigh first. It carries a build cost up front, where Yardbook's Starter plan costs nothing. It takes weeks before your crews use it. Someone has to maintain it as browsers, payment processors and phone carriers change, so get the upkeep terms in writing and make sure the code and hosting are registered to you. It also needs hours of your time to explain how a week of routes really runs.

When is staying on Yardbook the right call?

For a lot of lawn companies, staying is the smart move. Stay when:

• The thing you are missing sits on Business or Enterprise. A plan change takes minutes; a migration takes a season of attention.
• You are still small enough that a monthly software bill would eat into the margin on the routes you have.
• It is the middle of mowing season, and your crews already know the app.
• Your workaround list is short. If the office keeps one spreadsheet on the side, that is normal. If it keeps five, look again.
• Your real shortage is new customers. Routes fill from your website, your Google presence and how fast someone answers the phone, and switching field apps rarely fixes those.

How do you switch without losing a season of history?

1. Export early. Download every CSV Yardbook offers, open each file and check the row counts against what the app shows.
2. Ask for the rest. Get job history, estimates, measurements and photos out, or decide in writing that you can live without them.
3. Rebuild properties first. Cut prices, lot sizes and gate codes are what crews need on day one.
4. Run both for one billing cycle. Invoice from the new system and compare the totals against Yardbook before you retire the old account.
5. Keep the old account readable. Leave it open until the first full season in the new system has closed.

Each step is laid out in more detail in our guide to changing CRMs with your records intact. If you are not sure software is the real problem, ask for a free system quote. We look over your website, your Google Business Profile and how calls get answered, and point out where lawn customers are slipping away.

Frequently asked questions