Landscape Bidding Systems

Accurate estimating and bidding is the most important part of your business. Done right, your business will thrive. Done poorly, your business will fade away.

Too many landscaping owners and operators DON’T know that they have estimating/bidding issues until it’s too late. And even when they DO know they have estimating/bidding issues, they are not sure how to solve it. Why? Because it’s hard to tell what’s causing them to miss out on jobs or lose money.

Without accurate bidding, you’re going to lose one way or another. If you bid too high, you’ll never win the job. If you bid too low, you’ll end up bleeding cash on every job until you’re out of business.

The 3 Most Common Bidding Systems (and Why They Suck)

Let’s walk through three common job costing systems:

• SORS (Single Overhead Recovery System)

• DORS (Dual Overhead Recovery System)

• MORS (Multiple Overhead Recovery System, aka Activity-Based Costing)

We’ll explain what each one is, how it works, and where it fails. Then we’ll show you what actually works—without needing to play accountant every night.

SORS is the most basic way to estimate jobs. It uses a single predetermined rate to recover overhead across all services. Every direct cost gets marked up by the same percentage.

SORS in Action

1. Calculate Total Overhead: Add up everything—rent, insurance, admin costs, fuel, indirect labor, etc.

2. Pick a Cost Driver: This could be labor hours, machine usage, or materials.

3. Set the Overhead Rate: Say your overhead is $100K and you plan for 10,000 labor hours. That’s $10/hour in overhead.

4. Apply to Jobs: A 5-hour job = $50 in overhead, plus your direct costs.

5. Evaluate Profitability: The idea is that this total includes both direct and indirect costs, giving you your “real” cost of doing the job.

Why SORS Feels Simple (And Fails Often)

Lots of landscapers use a “tier” pricing system that mimics SORS:

• 0–999 sq ft = one rate

• 1,000–4,999 sq ft = higher rate

• 5,000+ = yet another rate

But here’s the catch: you might crush it on the 1,000 sq ft jobs and lose money on the 4,999 ones in the same tier.

Flaw #1 – Garbage In, Garbage Out

SORS leans hard on manual input. Estimates. Flawed memory. Gut feeling. “I’ve been doing this a while” energy. Unfortunately, none of those make you profitable.

Flaw #2 – One Size Doesn’t Fit All

SORS treats all cost drivers the same. Labor. Equipment. Material. Doesn’t matter. If your pricing model can’t tell the difference between a mower and a skid steer, you’ve got a problem.

DORS takes it a step further. Instead of one flat rate, it splits overhead into multiple categories—or “buckets”—and applies different markups based on different drivers.

DORS in Action

1. Identify Buckets: Think admin costs, equipment costs, shop overhead, etc.

2. Match Cost Drivers: Admin = labor hours. Equipment = machine time.

3. Set Rates Per Bucket: If your equipment costs $100K and sees 5,000 hours of use, your rate = $20/hour.

4. Apply Per Job: A job with 3 labor hours and 4 equipment hours gets its own custom markup.

5. Add It All Up: Direct costs + each overhead allocation = your total.

DORS is better than SORS because it reflects the actual complexity of the work. But it still falls short.

Flaw #1 – Markups Still Require Mental Gymnastics

DORS still asks you to calculate the markups and you to understand the true burden of each machine, truck, and trailer. Lifespan. Maintenance. Utilization. Try pulling that off while running a crew and quoting jobs.

Flaw #2 – Equipment Gets Muddied

In DORS, every piece of equipment is thrown into the same bucket. So your compact mower and your $90K skid steer get treated the same. That means you underbid heavy equipment jobs and overbid light ones. Bad news either way.

Momentum automatically tracks the real cost of every vehicle, trailer, and piece of equipment. No guesswork. No spreadsheets.

MORS goes even further and uses industry average markups to estimate costs—especially for equipment and materials. It shares structure with DORS but assumes average rates instead of your actual financials.

MORS in Action:

In a MORS system, the steps involved are similar to those in the DORS system.

1. Create cost buckets

2. Assign drivers

3. Set rates

4. Allocate

5. Total it all up

But instead of using your own data, it leans on what’s “typical” for the industry.

Sounds Easy, Right? Here’s Where It Falls Apart.

Flaw #1 – You’re Not the Average

If your crew runs more efficiently than average—or you’ve got higher-than-average insurance, fuel, or labor costs—those “standard” markups will lose you money.

Flaw #2 – Manual Complexity

You still have to identify every driver and keep track of changes across fuel, insurance, wage rates, etc. You’re not running an accounting firm—you’re running a landscaping business.

Automate It

None of the three systems above are built for the way you actually work. They’re complicated. They’re outdated. And they leave too much room for error.

Why Momentum Automated Job Costing Beats Traditional Estimating Systems

If you’ve struggled with estimating using SORS, DORS, MORS—or any Frankenstein combo platter of the three—Momentum can help.

With Momentum, you get:

• Automatic job costing

• Real-world per-job profitability tracking

• Budget vs. actual comparisons

• Overhead and equipment costs baked in

And it’s all powered by Momentum GPS hardware  already tracking your fleet, trailers, and tools. So there’s no extra effort.

Momentum transforms raw GPS and usage data into dollars and cents. You’ll know how much you made—or lost—on every job. And you’ll make better bids next time. That’s why U.S. Lawns – Charlotte chose Momentum.

 

No More Guessing. No More Spreadsheets.

You’ll see:

• Where you’re leaking money

• Which jobs are worth your time

• What to bid next time to make it count

Even better? Momentum retroactively analyzes your past 12 months of jobs. No setup. No delay. You’ll see exactly which jobs were profitable—and which ones weren’t.

Job costing isn’t just about math. It’s about survival, growth, and making every bid count.

And now, with a system built on YOUR real-world GPS data, not abstract formulas, you can finally quote jobs with confidence—and crush your profit targets.

• No more flying blind.
• No more working for free.
• No more missed opportunities.

With Momentum, your data is working for you.