The This Old House Reviews team is committed to providing comprehensive and unbiased reviews to our readers. This means earning your trust through transparency and having the data to back up our ratings and recommendations.
With that in mind, we spent time creating an objective rating system to score each lawn care company. Here’s what that review process looked like:
- We researched each lawn care provider and analyzed the information on each provider’s website. This allowed us to determine what plans and services are offered by each lawn care company.
- We spent hours researching lawn care companies by speaking with customer service representatives directly over the phone, via email, and through online chat to get the most up-to-date and useful information regarding plans and pricing.
- We update all of this information on a continuous basis, storing it in a proprietary database that allows us to compare dozens of lawn care companies against each other.
With this data, we created a rating system to score each lawn care company. Our rating system is a weighted, 100-point scale on the following factors:
- Plan options (30): Providing a variety of lawn care packages gives customers the ability to customize and select the right services for their lawn. We rated lawn care companies higher if they included essential lawn care services, like fertilization, aeration, weed control, and soil amendment, in their offerings.
- State availability (10): Where you live plays a role in the types of lawn services that are offered. Companies scored higher if they covered more states than their competitors.
- Trustworthiness (30): There are a few lawn care companies that aren’t reputable and don’t follow through on their services or agreements. We gauged trustworthiness based on Better Business Bureau (BBB) accreditation and service guarantees.
- Customer service (10): This factor is based on our own research from calling lawn care providers, as well as the company’s options for responding to claims and providing quotes, availability throughout the week, and helpful information found on the provider’s website.
- Additional benefits (20): Some lawn care companies offer special promotions or will provide coverage that’s usually considered optional for most companies. Lawn care companies that offer benefits like pest control or organic lawn care services were scored higher than competitors that didn’t.
In summary, the This Old House Review Team reviewed 40 companies to select the best lawn care providers in the industry. To keep our ratings and data current, we update our information on a continuous basis.