Holiday lights as a December bridge for a landscape crew

Here is the short answer: holiday lights are a ten-week job that can carry a lawn crew from the last leaf cleanup to January, but only if you treat it as its own small business. Price by the linear foot with a trip minimum. Keep year one to single-story rooflines on streets you already drive. Book it in October, before the mower is parked, and put the January takedown on the contract the day they sign.

If you already decided you do not want to plow, lights are the one winter service on the no-plow winter list that can fill most of November and December by itself. They also come with more risk and more inventory than gutters or pruning, so it is worth thinking it through before you buy a single strand.

1. Decide if lights fit your crew

Lights are not a lawn job with a different tool. The work happens on ladders and roof edges, in cold weather, often near the electrical panel. Turf Magazine’s write-up from a landscaper who runs a lights side business makes the point that a standard landscaping policy often does not cover ladder and roof work, so call your insurance agent before you quote anyone. Ask specifically about liability and workers’ comp for holiday lighting.

Three questions decide whether you should do it this year:

• Do you or one crew member already work comfortably on a 24- to 32-foot ladder?
• Do you have a dry place to store totes from January to October?
• Can you keep the first two weeks of January open for takedowns?

If any answer is no, sell gutters and dormant pruning this winter instead, and come back to lights next year.

2. Lease the lights or sell them

Lighting suppliers such as Thunder Lighting and Brite Supply describe two ways to run it. In the lease model you own the lights, and the customer pays one seasonal fee for design, install, service calls, takedown and storage. Year one costs you more, because you are buying inventory, but year two on the same house is mostly labor, and the customer has to call you to get their display back. In the sale model the customer buys the lights, pays you to hang them, and either stores them or pays you to.

For a small crew in year one, selling is usually the safer start: less cash tied up in inventory, less storage, and a clean exit if you hate the work. Whichever you pick, put one line at the top of the contract that says who owns the lights. Thunder Lighting’s contract guide calls that the line that prevents the most common January argument.

3. Price it by the foot, with a minimum

Public 2026 pricing guides line up fairly closely. ServicePro and QuoteIQ list about $2 to $5 per linear foot for labor only on lights the homeowner owns, about $5 to $8 per foot when you supply commercial-grade lights, and $7 to $12 for two-story or steep rooflines. Both list a minimum job fee in the $150 to $300 range. QuoteIQ prices extras separately: roughly $50 to $200 to wrap a tree, $25 to $75 per bush, and $20 to $50 per window outline. Those are other companies’ ranges, not BuyersRadar numbers, so use them to check your quote, not to set it.

QuoteIQ prices extras separately: roughly $50 to $200 to wrap a tree, $25 to $75 per bush, and $20 to $50 per window outline.

Build your own price the way you price a leaf job: minutes on the ladder, drive time, materials, and the return trip. The leaf pricing guide uses the same minutes-first method. A few rules keep the quote honest:

• Measure the roofline yourself. Do not quote from a photo the homeowner texted you.
• Quote install, takedown and storage as separate lines, even if you bundle them into one price. Thunder Lighting warns that bundling them loosely is how installers end up doing takedowns for free.
• Test every strand the customer owns before it goes up. Dead strands on their lights are your problem on install day.
• Take a deposit at booking, so a cancelled install does not leave you holding lights you bought for that house.

4. A worked example with made-up numbers

These numbers are made up and rounded to show the math. They are not a result. Say a customer on your Tuesday route has a single-story house with 120 feet of roofline and wants you to supply C9 LED lights. At $6 a foot that is $720. Add one small front tree at $100 and the job is $820. If the install takes two people about three hours, and takedown in January takes about an hour and a half, you can see roughly what that pays per crew hour after you subtract your lights, clips and timer.

Now do it for six houses on two streets you already drive. That is one or two install days in mid-November, one takedown day in early January, and no new drive time. That route density is why lights fit a lawn crew better than a crew that has to drive across town for every job.

5. Sell it in October, to the route you already have

Lighting suppliers and installers agree that the calendar fills in October and early November, because most people want lights up before Thanksgiving. Your best first customers are the ones you mow every week. They already trust you on their property, and you already know their roofline. One text is enough:

“Hi Maria, it’s Chris with the green trailer. I’m booking a few holiday light installs for houses on my route this year, single-story only. Want me to measure 218 Oak while I’m there Thursday? Install mid-November, takedown the first week of January.”

Send it once. Measure while you are already on site, and send a written quote the same day, the same way the estimate text that books handles a mowing quote. If a neighbor stops to ask while you are on the ladder, that is a real lead, so carry a quote card in the truck.

6. Plan the takedown before the install

The January takedown is where a first lights season goes wrong. Pick your takedown dates when you book the install, and put them on the contract. Photograph every display before you take it down. Label each strand and pack each house into its own tote with the address on the lid, so next October you can reinstall it without guessing. Turf Magazine’s contributor does exactly that: color-coded strands and a printed diagram for every house. If you sold the lights, offer storage as a paid line instead of a free favor.

What not to do

• Do not climb two-story or steep roofs in your first season. Refer those to a dedicated lighting company.
• Do not work near power lines, and do not overload one outdoor outlet with a whole display.
• Do not quote a roofline you have not measured.
• Do not buy a warehouse full of lights before you have signed contracts and deposits.
• Do not leave takedown dates open. “Sometime in January” turns into February in the snow.
• Do not cold-blast a whole ZIP with a holiday lights special. Start with your own route and their neighbors.

Lights work best as part of a winter plan, not the whole plan. Pair them with the leaf jobs still on the schedule and the rest of the winter work list. If you want a short list of new homeowners in one ZIP to approach once spring mowing starts, the free sample shows what a pack looks like, and the contact page is the fastest way to ask for one.