Why Start a Robot Mowing Business?

The Labor Problem

Landscapers and lawn maintenance firms have been struggling to find labor, especially labor for mowing lawns. Today's youth is not excited about being on a noisy gas mower in the hot sun day-in and day-out. But give a young person a title of "Robot Mower Technician" and all of a sudden they are proud of their profession. Robots are the solution to this growing issue. Let's face it, robot mowing is cool! 

The Mowing Window

The mowing window is the time during daytime hours that lawn maintenance companies are allowed to run their machines, and it keeps getting shorter. Noise ordinances by municipalities and HOA restrictions coupled with the weather makes it more and more difficult for a company to stay afloat, considering rising labor costs and overtime when weather disrupts the crew schedule. Robot mowers are all-electric and extremely quiet. There are no clippings, so the task of blowing grass clippings off of sidewalks and its associated noise is eliminated. 

Cost of Doing Business

The cost of doing business is highest considering the size of the lawn maintenance company's workforce. Not only the hourly rate, consider the cost of Workman's Compensation Insurance and Employee Benefits. These costs are dramatically reduced while simultaneously increasing revenue by using robots to mow.

Happy Customers Spend More

Good businesses know that happy customers spend more money. Robot mowers make people happy. Even though you own the robot fleet, your customers will give them names, they will be excited to see them mowing, they will tell their friends and they will brag about how beautiful their lawn looks, every day. It's a lot better than the complaints you will get when the lawn is not mowed for the weekend party when it rains all day on Friday. Regular visits to the customer site by your technicians keeps your brand in mind and helps identify new projects to propose. 

Image used under license from Freestoock.com

The Bottom Line

The size of your business is limited by the size of the team you employ. Robot mowing is a virtually infinitely scalable business because the cost to run it is far lower than the cost to run a traditional lawn maintenance business. Landscapers who stopped doing maintenance may now consider adding it back in a profitable way with robots.

Why Use Ambrogio Robot Mowers?

Ambrogio robot mowers have been on the market in Europe since the year 2000. As one of the top manufacturers in the industry, Ambrogio has a strong reputation for being the most innovative and most durable brand. This is evident down to the type of plastic, flexible rubber wheels and the quality of the nuts and bolts. Next Line robots may have their warranties extended up to four years with dealer service.

Ambrogio's high-traction wheels and incredible maneuverability creates the possibility of eliminating all trimming. Ambrogio has a solid reputation of longevity; batteries have proven to last 10 years, typically, and, the manufacturer is concientious about ensuring parts are available long-term - to ensure repairs can be made over the entire lifetime. These features directly impact the bottom line.

Next Steps

The next step for any start-up or existing business considering expansion is to do an analysis of the financials to see if the business is viable. We have done a basic analysis to help prospective customers easily and quickly see that robot mowing has far more profit potential than traditional mowing. The work was done on a spreadsheet but has been translated to our Ambrogio Robot Mower Fleet Designer - Estimated Annual Net Revenue calculator below.

We chose Ambrogio models most suitable for lawn maintenance companies, computed the expected revenue, including: robot installation, twice weekly visits for trimming, blade changes/sharpening and finance cost for leased units. Qualified landscape and lawn maintenance companies are eligible to take advantage of the Ambrogio Robot Fleet Program for up to 15% off the retail price, offered by participating dealers. Use our calculator as an easy tool to check the affect of different finance rates. Change the robot model to gain an understanding of how the capital cost affects the annual net revenue estimation. See the change in revenue when the bi-weekly trimming visits are reduced to monthly robot check-ups.

Once your fleet is designed, use our estimated annual net revenue numbers to compare to traditional mowing, including its labor costs, workmans comp./benefits cost, equipment maintenance/replacement, etc. to convince yourself that robot mowing is the more profitable way forward.