A design-build sale is not a lawn-care route. A homeowner calls. Someone visits. A designer draws it. A salesperson sells it. A crew builds it, sometimes over weeks. And money moves at every step: deposits, draws, materials, crew hours, commissions.
Most landscaping software was built for the route: recurring visits, crews and invoices. It handles design-build the way a spreadsheet does, which is to say it doesn't. So the office ends up keeping the real picture in its head. Which designs are waiting. Which sales have closed. Who is owed what commission, and when. Which receipt belongs to which job. And the platform bill goes up every time you add a user.
Why we start with software
For a design-build company the costly problem is usually not getting enquiries. It is everything between the first call and the final payment: a sale that moves through several people, cash that has to stay ahead of the work, and commissions that have to be right without draining the bank before the job closes.
So we lead with software. The website comes second, and it should feed the same system: an estimate request on your site should arrive as a record in your software, not an email.
What we built for one design-build company
We built this for one landscape design-build company in North Alabama, White Shovel Landscapes. It is not an off-the-shelf product. It is what we built around how one business sells and builds, and it shows what we would build around yours.
In their software:
- Clients come in directly. Enquiries land in the system, not in someone's inbox.
- Designers hand off in-house through simple forms, so a design moves to the salesperson without being chased.
- Commissions are paid in two steps, part at sale and the rest at close. The program is built for cash flow, and it compiles the commissions automatically.
- Crews clock in on the job, so hours land where they belong.
- Expense cards route every transaction to its project, with a clean approval checkbox, so each receipt is tied to its job and approved there.
It runs on their own system, and nobody is billed per user.
We built their website too: designed it, then rebuilt it off Webflow, keeping every page and its address. Every estimate request on the site goes straight into the same software, and their Google Ads land on a free-estimate page on their own site. You can see it on White Shovel's built-by page.
What it looks like when it works
This is the sequence the system is built to run. It describes the mechanism, not a result.
- A homeowner asks for an estimate on your website. It arrives as a client record, not an email.
- The design is assigned and handed off through the system. Everyone can see where it stands.
- The job is sold. The first part of the salesperson's commission is recorded at the sale.
- The crew builds it, clocking in on that job. Every card purchase for materials lands on that job, waiting for approval.
- The job closes. The rest of the commission comes due, already calculated. The job's labour and expenses are already on it, so how the job went is a report, not a week of reconciling.
What your version would be
Your company sells differently from theirs. Maybe your designers are also your salespeople. Maybe you pay commission on margin rather than price, or take deposits in three stages rather than two. Your system would be built around how you actually sell and build, not bent to fit a template, and it would be yours.
What we will not do for you
- Build route software for maintenance. If most of your work is weekly mowing and recurring service, there are established tools for that. We have not built route scheduling, and we will not pretend we have.
- Move you off a tool that works. If your current software fits how you sell, keep it. We are for the companies whose process has outgrown the box.
- Charge you per user. What we build, you own. Adding a designer or a crew lead does not raise your bill.
- Set your commission plan for you. We build the plan you choose into the software. How much you pay, and on what, is your call.
- Sell you a website before the software, unless your problem really is getting found. If it is, we will say so.
- Race to the cheapest quote. We bid the job with one written estimate before any money moves.
Read before you call
If you want to set up your own commission plan first, with or without us, read how to structure landscaping sales commission. It covers what to pay on, when to pay it, and what happens when a job falls through.
Book an intro call
Tell us how a job moves through your company today, from the first call to the final payment, and where it gets stuck. We will tell you plainly whether we can help and what we would build first. If you would rather put it in writing, apply instead. We read every application and answer within three business days.