The honest answer is under $600 if you buy a used commercial mower and start with driveways and small residential yards in your own neighborhood.
Most lawn care business videos are made by guys with a $15,000 trailer rig trying to sell you a course. You don't need the trailer. You don't need a crew truck. Year one is a used 48-inch walk-behind, a trimmer, a blower, and three flyers on your block.
The equipment mistake that kills first-year margins: buying a riding mower before you have the yards to justify it. A used walk-behind commercial mower ($400 to $600 on Facebook Marketplace) handles everything up to half-acre residential lots — which is most of your first 20 clients. A riding mower costs $2,000 to $4,000 used and saves you maybe 10 minutes per small yard. That math doesn't work until you're doing volume.
Route density is the profit lever nobody talks about. If your six Tuesday yards are spread across town, you're burning $15 in gas and 90 minutes of driving for $300 in revenue. Cluster clients street by street. Two houses on the same block takes 20 extra minutes and doubles your revenue for that stop. Your first sales goal isn't "get 20 clients" — it's "get 5 clients on the same three streets."
The one upsell that pays immediately: edging. Customers who pay $35 for a basic mow will pay $50 if you edge the driveway and sidewalk too. It takes 8 minutes with a $30 blade attachment. That's the highest-margin 8 minutes in the business and most new operators skip it because they're racing to the next yard.
The full plan — exact equipment list, pricing by yard size and city, the door-knocking script that lands the first 10 clients, and the four job types to walk away from — is here:
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