← Landscape lighting bid calculator
Landscape lighting contractors get shopped on a published $150 a light installed Facebook special. Those numbers cannot see the trench or the transformer. Six path lights on an existing transformer is a different job from an 18-fixture architectural install with well lights, a new 300W transformer, irrigated-turf trench, and a driveway saw-cut.
Open the free landscape lighting bid calculatorLandscape lighting is a fixture mix, then a scope, then how you get power there. Path lights are a stake. Uplights are aim and a spike. Well lights are a dig and a drain. Fixtures-only hangs lights on a transformer that is already there. A new system is trench, low-voltage wire, and a transformer. An add-on is a home-run back to what is already on the house.
The cheap special is almost always path lights on an existing transformer, no trench, no wells, no saw-cut. A new-system architectural job is a different crew day. Matching a per-light number on a new-system yard is how a sold lighting job becomes a loss when the home-run and the well lights eat the margin.
Holiday lights are a seasonal C9 hang and January take-down. An electrical panel is service amps. Irrigation install is water zones and a backflow. Exterior painting is a coat on elevations. This prices landscape lighting: fixtures, trench, transformer, and extras. The trench here is a low-voltage home-run, not those other jobs.
Load the wage with payroll burden. Add overhead as a share of direct cost. Then take margin as a share of the customer’s price, not a markup on cost. The walk-away number is total cost. A proposed price under that number loses money before you take anything out of it.
This page is a walkthrough of the arithmetic in the landscape lighting bid calculator. It is not an electrical design, a load calculation, a voltage-drop study, a permit determination, or a price you should copy onto a contract.
Charge from fixture mix, scope, trench, soil, and extras — not a published $150 / light special. Six path lights on an existing transformer is a different job from an 18-fixture architectural install with well lights, a new transformer, irrigated-turf trench, and a driveway saw-cut.
No. Fixtures-only hangs lights on a transformer and wire that are already there. A new system is a trench, low-voltage wire, and a transformer. An add-on is a home-run back to what is already on the house. Matching a per-light special on a new-system job is how a sold lighting job becomes a loss when the trench eats the margin.
A path light is a stake. A well light is a dig and a drain. Trench lineal feet, irrigated turf repair, rocky soil, a photocell, a driveway saw-cut, and a second transformer do not live in a published per-light dump.
No. Holiday lights are a seasonal C9 hang and January take-down. An electrical panel is service amps. Irrigation install is water zones and a backflow. This prices landscape lighting: fixtures, trench, transformer, and extras.