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How much does it cost to sod a lawn?

Price a new lawn by the square foot, and see the number no other sod page will show you: what the farm that actually grew your grass gets paid for it. The answer is about 14 cents a square foot, and you will pay ten times that.

Sod is a crop, and the government counts crops. Every other page about sod prices talks about what you pay. None of them mention what the grass is actually worth, because that number is not in a home improvement survey, it is in the agricultural census. In 2022, America's 1,447 sod farms sold $2,219,964,557 of sod off 376,227 acres. That works out at $5,901 an acre, or about 13.5 cents a square foot at the farm gate. You will pay roughly $1 to $2 a square foot to have it laid. So on a typical 2,000 sq ft front lawn costing $3,000, the farm that spent more than a year growing that grass receives about $271. The other $2,729 is haulage (a single pallet of sod weighs about a tonne, and it has to be laid within a day or two of cutting or it dies), stripping the old lawn, grading, the crew, the machinery and the margin. Read that line carefully, because it is what the FARM receives, not what your landscaper pays. Sod reaches you through a distributor, so the delivered pallets on your driveway cost your contractor a good deal more than $271. The farm-gate figure is the floor of the chain, not the invoice. And none of it makes sod a rip-off. It is heavy, perishable and awkward: a pallet weighs about a tonne and dies within a day or two of being cut. The work around the grass is most of the job. What the numbers do tell you is which part of a quote is worth arguing about, and it is not the grass.

§ 01 Your numbers

The area you are actually covering. A typical American front lawn is around 2,000 sq ft; a full front and back can easily be 5,000 to 10,000. Measure it rather than guessing, because everything on this page scales directly off this number.
OUR MODEL. These rates are ours, not a statistic, and they are the only numbers here we cannot source: we could not find a free source for an INSTALLED sod price, and we name where we looked. We checked: DOE's measures database has no sod or turf entry (its RSMeans unit-cost tables cover only siding, roof insulation, duct insulation and pipe insulation), and USDA prices the crop at the farm but never the job in your garden. What we CAN source is the other end of the deal, which is what the grass is worth at the farm, and we show you that below.
Set by the scope above, and worth overriding with a real quote. This is the number carrying all of our assumptions, which is why it is a box rather than something buried in the arithmetic.
Leave at zero to skip. Enter a quote and we will show what it works out to per square foot, and where it sits among what households actually reported paying.
Estimated cost
$3,000

Typical range $2,400 – $4,050

  • The grass, at what the FARM was paid for it$271
  • Wages to the crew who lay it$969
  • Haulage, machinery, prep, overhead and margin$1,760
  • Total$3,000
See next steps →

§ 02 The return

What the farm that GREW your grass gets$271
Everything else you are paying for$2,729
Where this lands among real jobs (percentile)48
Your quote, per sq ftn/a

The estimate is our installed cost per square foot applied to your lawn. The farm-gate value beside it is what a square foot of sod is worth to the farm that grew it, from the USDA agricultural census, in 2022 dollars. The Census figures are what US households told the survey they actually paid, in 2025 dollars, for a category that fuses landscaping with irrigation.

Where the money goes

The grass, at what the FARM was paid for it$271
Wages to the crew who lay it$969
Haulage, machinery, prep, overhead and margin$1,760

Recommended next steps

Some links below are affiliate links. If you buy through them, Calcatrice may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. We only suggest tools that fit your result, and a company can't pay to show up here.

Where most real sodding jobs land. Three quotes, and ask each one specifically about stripping, grading and firming the ground, plus who is responsible if the sod fails in the first month.

By the numbers

  • USDA (2022 Census of Agriculture, table 39): 1,447 US sod operations had land in production, 1,440 of them reported sales, and between them they sold $2,219,964,557 of sod from 376,227 acres. That is $5,901 an acre, or about 13.5 cents a square foot at the farm gate. Treat it as a floor: 'acres in production' includes sod still growing, and sod takes 12 to 18 months to mature, so scaling for the rotation puts the true farm-gate value somewhere between 13.5 and 20 cents. Even at the ceiling, that is about 13% of a $1.50 a square foot bill.
  • So on a 2,000 sq ft lawn costing $3,000 to sod, the farm that grew the grass gets about $271 of it, which is 9% of what you pay. The rest is haulage, ground prep, labour, machinery and margin. That is not a scandal, it is a description: sod weighs about a tonne a pallet and dies if it is not laid within a day or two of being cut.
  • Census (American Housing Survey, 2023): the median household who hired a contractor to add or replace landscaping or a sprinkler system paid $3,153. This is the most precisely measured job in this batch, with 1,136 households behind it and a relative standard error of only 3.8%.
  • Census: but 43% of those jobs came in under $2,500, and a quarter under $1,413. That is not a landscape, it is a few shrubs and a weekend. The category fuses laying sod, planting borders and burying irrigation, so its median tells you about the size of a typical job rather than the price of any particular one.
  • Economic Census (2022): there are 116,787 landscaping ESTABLISHMENTS in the US (114,570 firms: an establishment is one location, a firm is one company, and they are not the same thing) employing 808,067 people and taking in $115.4bn. They take in $142,817 per employee and pay that employee $46,145, so 32.3% of every dollar you hand them reaches wages. That ratio is gross of the plants, the sod, the fuel and the mowers, because sector 56 does not break those out.
  • Combining Census receipts with BLS hours: a landscaping firm takes in $74.15 per employee-hour worked, and pays the person doing the work $22.67 an hour. That 3.27x is GROSS, meaning it still contains the sod, the fuel and the mowers, because the Economic Census does not break materials out for this sector. It is NOT the same quantity as the net-of-materials markups we publish for roofing (4.28x) or plumbing (3.09x), and lining them up next to each other would be a mistake. We know, because we first told you no such rate existed anywhere, and we were wrong: BLS has published hours for landscaping services monthly since 2006.
  • Census: households who did their own landscaping reported a median of $739, against $3,153 for hiring a contractor. Sod is one of the more genuinely DIY-able jobs, with one large caveat: it is perishable. Order it, and you have a day or two to get it down and watered before it starts to die on the pallet.

What is sourced, and what is ours. Three things here are real statistics and one is not. Sourced: the farm-gate value of sod, from the USDA 2022 Census of Agriculture, table 39. Sourced: what US households actually paid a contractor for landscaping or a sprinkler system, from the Census American Housing Survey, which is the most precisely measured job in this batch (1,136 households, a relative standard error of just 3.8%), along with the whole percentile ladder we use to place your job in that spread. Sourced: the shape of the industry, from the Economic Census. Ours is the installed cost per square foot, and it is the only number here we cannot source: no free source publishes an installed sod price. So we put it in a box you can overwrite, and we show you the other end of the transaction instead, which nobody else does. And a refusal we published, then had to withdraw. This page originally announced that no source anywhere measured a landscaper's hourly rate, and made a small show of refusing to invent one. The Economic Census part was true: sector 56 really does publish no hours. The leap to "nobody has this" was false. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has published hours for landscaping services, monthly, since 2006. We had checked one source, found it lacking, and generalised, which is a habit we have now been caught in three times. So here is the rate. Landscaping firms take in $74.15 per employee-hour worked and pay the person doing the work $22.67 an hour. But read what that is before you use it: it is a gross figure, still containing the sod, the fuel and the mowers, because sector 56 does not break materials out. The markups we publish for roofers and plumbers are a different animal, measured net of materials against a narrower denominator. Setting 3.27x beside roofing's 4.28x would be comparing two different quantities, and we would rather tell you that than let the tidy-looking numbers imply otherwise. And a caution on our own number. The 13.5 cents is a floor. USDA counts "acres in production", which includes sod still growing, and sod takes over a year to mature. So dividing a year's sales by it understates what a harvested acre is really worth. The true farm-gate value is somewhat higher than 13.5 cents. It is nowhere near $1.50.

Sources: USDA NASS, 2022 Census of Agriculture, Volume 1 Chapter 1, Table 39 (sod sales and acres, as published) · US Census Bureau, American Housing Survey 2023 National PUF (JOBTYPE 36, what households actually paid) · US Census Bureau, American Housing Survey (programme and documentation) · US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, EC2256BASIC, sector 56 (NAICS 561730, landscaping services)

How this estimate is calculated

  • The farm-gate price of sod comes from the USDA 2022 Census of Agriculture, table 39, TAKEN AS PUBLISHED. This matters: USDA's own bulk data file reports those sales as $2,219,964,557,000 while its published table reports $2,219,964,557, in a column headed 'Dollars'. The bulk file is a thousand times out. Had we trusted our own extraction over the published table we would have announced a $2.2 trillion sod industry, four times the size of the entire US agricultural sector. When your derivation disagrees with the source, your derivation is what is broken.
  • The 13.5 cents a square foot is a FLOOR, not a point estimate. USDA counts 'acres in production', which includes sod that is still growing, and sod takes more than a year to mature. Dividing one year of sales by all the acres currently under grass therefore understates what an acre actually harvested is worth. The true figure is somewhat higher. It is nowhere near what you pay.
  • That figure is in 2022 dollars, the census year, and we deliberately do not deflate it. The only plausible index is the producer price index for farm products, which is dominated by grain and livestock and is a poor fit for a nursery crop. Inventing a deflator would be worse than stating the year plainly.
  • The installed cost per square foot is OUR MODEL and the only unsourced number on this page. We could not find a free source for an installed sod price, and we say where we looked. We checked: DOE's measures database has no sod or turf entry (its RSMeans unit-cost tables cover only siding, roof insulation, duct insulation and pipe insulation), and USDA prices the crop at the farm but never the job in your garden. Our rates cover the sod, its delivery, the ground preparation implied by the scope you picked, and the labour to lay it. They are a box you can overwrite, and you should, if you have a real quote.
  • The split of your total into the grass, the wages and everything else mixes a sourced figure with a modelled one, and you should know which is which. The grass is sourced (13.5 cents a square foot times your area). The wage line applies the Economic Census finding that 32.3% of a landscaping firm's receipts go out as payroll, which is measured across the whole industry but applying it to YOUR job is our step. The remainder is what is left.
  • The hourly rate on this page comes from TWO surveys, and that is a real weakness worth stating. The Economic Census gives receipts for NAICS 561730 but publishes no hours for sector 56. BLS's Current Employment Statistics gives hours for that same NAICS (37.04 a week in 2022) and the wage ($22.67). Dividing one survey's dollars by another survey's hours is legitimate but weaker than the construction figures elsewhere here, which come from a single survey that publishes both sides. We publish it because it exists and it is informative. We flag it because it is not as solid as it looks.
  • That $74.15 is GROSS and PER EMPLOYEE-HOUR. It contains the sod, the plants, the fuel and the mowers, because sector 56 does not break materials out, and it is spread over every employee rather than only the crew in the field. The construction markups elsewhere on this site are net of materials and use construction worker hours only. Setting the 3.27x gross ratio here against roofing's 4.28x net markup would be a unit-of-analysis error of exactly the kind this site exists to avoid.
  • The 32.3% payroll share is GROSS. It is payroll divided by total receipts, and those receipts include the sod, the plants, the fuel and the machinery, none of which sector 56 breaks out. It is therefore NOT comparable to the markups we publish for roofing or plumbing, which are net of materials. Comparing the two would be a unit-of-analysis error, and it is exactly the kind of mistake this site exists to avoid.
  • AHS JOBTYPE 36 is 'added or replaced landscaping OR SPRINKLER SYSTEM'. Laying sod, planting a border and burying an irrigation system are different jobs filed in one row. Its median of $3,153 places the size of a typical job. It is not, and cannot be, a price for sod.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to sod a lawn?
On our model, a typical 2,000 sq ft front lawn runs about $3,000, or roughly $1.50 a square foot, covering stripping the old grass, grading, the sod itself and laying it. Sod onto ground that is already prepared is nearer $0.90, and adding irrigation takes it toward $3.00. That per-square-foot rate is our model rather than a published statistic, because we could not find one, having looked. We checked: DOE's measures database has no sod or turf entry (its RSMeans unit-cost tables cover only siding, roof insulation, duct insulation and pipe insulation), and USDA prices the crop at the farm but never the job in your garden. What we can tell you, and no one else does, is the other side of the transaction.
How much does sod actually cost the farmer?
About 13.5 cents a square foot. Sod is a crop, so the USDA counts it: in 2022, America's 1,447 sod farms sold $2,219,964,557 of sod from 376,227 acres in production, which is $5,901 an acre. Divide by the 43,560 square feet in an acre and you get 13.5 cents. So on a $3,000 lawn, roughly $271 goes to the farm that spent over a year growing the grass. Treat that as a floor, because 'acres in production' includes sod that is still growing, so the real farm-gate value is a bit higher. It is still nowhere near what you pay.
So am I being ripped off?
No, and the numbers actually explain why not. Sod is heavy, perishable and awkward: a pallet covering about 450 sq ft weighs roughly a tonne, and once cut it has a day or two before it starts dying. Getting it to your house and onto prepared ground within that window is most of the job, and stripping and grading the old lawn is the rest. What the figures do tell you is which part of a quote is worth arguing about, and it is not the grass. It is the ground preparation, the haulage and the labour, because that is where the money is.
What does the Census say people actually pay?
The median household who hired a contractor to add or replace landscaping or a sprinkler system paid $3,153, and that is the most precisely measured job in this batch, with 1,136 households behind it. But read it carefully: 43% of those jobs came in under $2,500 and a quarter under $1,413, which is a few shrubs rather than a new lawn. The survey lumps sodding, planting and irrigation into one category, so its median tells you the size of a typical job and not the price of yours.
What do landscapers charge per hour?
About $74.15 per employee-hour, against the $22.67 an hour they pay the person doing the work. Combine what the Economic Census says landscaping firms take in with the hours the Bureau of Labor Statistics says they work, and the rate falls straight out. Read it carefully though, because it is not the same number as the markups we publish for roofers and plumbers. Those are measured net of materials against construction worker hours only. This one is gross: it still has the sod, the fuel and the mowers inside it, and it is spread across all employees rather than just the crew. So a 3.27x gross ratio here and a 4.28x net markup for roofing are not comparable, and anyone who lines them up is comparing two different things. We should know: this page originally told you no such rate existed at all, which was wrong.
Should I lay the sod myself?
The Census shows a do-it-yourself median of $739 against $3,153 for hiring a contractor, and sod is one of the more approachable jobs: it is unskilled, it is outdoors, and mistakes are visible and fixable. Two real warnings. First, it is perishable, so once the pallets arrive you have a day or two to get it all down and watered, and that is genuinely hard work. Second, almost every failed sod job fails on the ground underneath rather than the grass on top: if you have not stripped, graded and firmed properly, you will have bought a very expensive brown rectangle.
Is sod better than seed?
Sod is an instant lawn and it costs many times more. Seed is cheap and slow, and it needs weeks of watering and protecting before it is a lawn at all. The honest way to decide is not cost per square foot: it is whether you can protect bare soil for a couple of months. If you have children, dogs, a slope that will wash out, or a deadline, sod is worth what it costs. If none of that applies, seed will get you to the same place for a fraction of the money and a good deal of patience.

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