Comparison
YardLedger vs TruGreen
The largest lawn care service in the country: a trained specialist visits your property through the season and applies the treatments for you, on a plan quoted for your address, with an app for managing visits and billing. YardLedger is a lawn care record that turns your own history, your grass type, and NOAA, Open-Meteo, and USDA data into a schedule — and asks you to approve every task the AI proposes before it lands on it.
What using YardLedger actually looks like
YardLedger’s workflows do not change with who we are being compared against. Each one says the plan it runs on, and what a paid plan adds to it. For what each plan costs, see the pricing page.
Write down what you put on the lawn, while you are still standing in it
FreeMows, waterings, aerations, soil tests, notes and problem spots all go in against the yard they happened to, with the date and photos — and an application carries what it actually was: the product out of your Garage and the rate you put down. 16 record types, unlimited entries, on the free tier too. This is the part everything else reads from — there is no separate "data entry" step, because the log IS the product.
- Plus adds Multiple Properties: a second yard on Plus and up to 10 on Pro, each with its own history, zones and schedule.
- Plus adds photo storage: room for 100 photos on Plus and 500 on Pro, against 30 on the free tier.
Start with a plan on day one, before you have any history at all
FreeName a grass the engine models and setting the yard up puts a starter schedule on the calendar straight away — built by the same rules-based engine behind the free public schedule generator, from that grass, your USDA hardiness zone, the date you start and how hands-on you want to be. No AI wrote it, every item is visible, and you can move or delete any of them. A mixed or unidentified lawn skips the starter plan and starts from the assistant instead. Your soil and your weather come in after that, through the watering balance and anything you ask.
- Plus adds Calendar Sync: an iCal subscription, so the schedule shows up in Google Calendar, Outlook or whatever you already keep.
Ask about your own yard, then decide what lands on the calendar
FreeAsk the assistant a question or hand it a photo of a bad patch, and it answers against that yard's own history, weather and products — proposing tasks with the reasoning attached and safety notes on any plan it builds. It proposes; you add the tasks you want, one at a time or all at once, and anything you leave alone never reaches your calendar. The monthly credit allowance is what scales with the plan: 5 a month on the free tier (15 in your first), 150 on Plus, 600 on Pro.
Draw the yard into zones, and water off a running balance rather than a weekly habit
FreeTrace the lawn on an overhead view and each zone carries its own area, grass and exposure into one running balance for the yard: Open-Meteo evapotranspiration draws it down, rainfall credits it back — the modeled figure, raised to a NOAA gauge reading where one covers you — and the soil sets how deep and how often to refill — the USDA SSURGO estimate for your coordinates where the survey covers you, a loam default where it does not. What comes back out is per zone: how long to run each one. Free accounts get the whole engine, the automatic soil resolution and a property-level override of it.
- Plus adds Sprinkler Calibration: per-zone head type, a precipitation rate measured from your own catch-cup run, root depth and slope, so a run-time estimate starts from your system's settings rather than a standard rate.
- Plus adds Weather Stations: a personal weather station (Ambient Weather, Ecowitt, Tempest, WeatherLink or Netatmo) driving your yard's conditions from readings taken at the property, and its ET too on the days the station reports enough sun, wind and humidity to compute one.
- Plus adds Sprinkler & Utility Map: pinning the sprinkler heads, valves, supply lines, drains and the main shut-off on the same overhead view, with photos and notes.
Be told about the weather that is going to cost you something
FreeFree accounts get the seasonal safety alerts — frost, winterize-now, spring irrigation startup, and the spring and fall pre-emergent windows — alongside the ordinary care reminders, on push or email.
- Plus adds Proactive Care Alerts: day-to-day weather-aware alerts that ride along with your daily reminder: when to water, when to skip for rain, spray-weather checks, and a weekly summary..
Turn on a guided program and let it bring its own steps
FreeWinterization, spring irrigation startup and yard leveling are free programs on every plan. Enable one and its steps join this yard's plan, for you to review and complete like anything else on it.
- Plus adds Premium Care Programs: crabgrass pre-emergent on soil-temperature timing and PGR on accumulated growing degree days, plus fall pre-emergent for winter weeds and grub prevention.
Time a reapplication by the weather instead of by the calendar
PlusPer-yard accrual from your local weather, so the timing moves with the season rather than the calendar: PGR sums growing degree days and reminds you when the reapplication interval comes due, and crabgrass pre-emergent watches a rolling soil temperature climbing toward the germination threshold and opens its window as it approaches.
- Pro adds Custom PGR Target: tuning that interval to this lawn — an exact GDD target, or one dialled in from your height of cut — instead of the standard fixed cadence.
Cost
Which one is cheaper?
YardLedger and TruGreen are different purchases before they are different prices: YardLedger is DIY software for planning and recording the work, and TruGreen is a service that turns up and applies the treatments. On out-of-pocket cost YardLedger is much the lower of the two — its free tier costs nothing and its paid tiers are a software subscription — because the price of the labor is not in it. TruGreen quotes each property individually rather than publishing a rate card.
- What the money buys
- YardLedgerSoftware, and only software. YardLedger sells no fertilizer, seed or chemicals and earns nothing on what you apply, so the subscription is the whole of what it bills you — product you buy wherever it is cheapest.
- TruGreenVisits. A lawn assessment, a plan tailored to it, and the treatments applied for you by a specialist, priced per visit and by lawn size. Satisfaction is guaranteed on the full programs — TruBasic and partial programs are excluded.
- What it costs
- YardLedgerNothing at all on Keep Track: no card, no trial clock, 1 yard, and unlimited care logging. Stay Ahead and Every Yard are ordinary monthly-or-annual software subscriptions; the current figures are on the pricing page rather than frozen into this table.
- TruGreenQuote-based: TruGreen prices each property individually by lawn size, plan and location rather than publishing a price list, so the only figures available are third-party estimates of the category. HomeGuide estimated $65–$225 per application, or $450–$2,000 a year, for a 5,000–10,000 sq ft lawn on 7–9 treatments — an estimate of the category, not a TruGreen quote. The program continues from year to year with nothing required of you, and either side may cancel at any time without penalty, by written or spoken notice. Separately, TruGreen advertises 15% off for signing up online.
- Free path
- YardLedgerFive tools with no signup and no card, including a schedule generator that renders a real month-by-month plan from your grass type and ZIP.
- TruGreenNone. You request a quote for your address and the plan and the price come back through a sales conversation.
What you cannot compare from a table is the labor. TruGreen's price includes somebody else holding the spreader, storing the chemicals and standing behind the result; YardLedger's does not, and your own product bill sits on top of it and varies with the lawn. If your objection to TruGreen is the cost, DIY is a real saving. If your objection is the Saturday, YardLedger does not answer it.
Where these figures come from
- What the money buys is visits: a lawn assessment, a plan tailored to it, and the treatments applied for you by a specialist.their own page, read 2026-09-25
- TruGreen prices each property individually by lawn size, plan and location rather than publishing a price list: its own plans page routes you to a custom quote from your address and ZIP.their own page, read 2026-09-25
- HomeGuide estimated $65–$225 per application, or $450–$2,000 a year, for a 5,000–10,000 sq ft lawn on 7–9 treatments.third-party estimate, read 2026-08-23
- The program continues from year to year without any action on your part, and either side may cancel at any time without penalty, by written or oral notification.their own page, read 2026-09-11
- Satisfaction is guaranteed by revisits between scheduled ones, but for full-program customers only — TruBasic and partial programs are excluded.their own page, read 2026-09-11
- TruGreen advertises 15% off for signing up online.their own page, read 2026-09-11
- There is no free path: you request a quote for your address, and the plan and price come back through a sales conversation.their own page, read 2026-09-11
When TruGreen is the better choice
If the work is the problem, TruGreen is the answer and YardLedger is not a substitute for it. Nobody from YardLedger will ever come to your house, push a spreader, or spray anything — it is a record and a schedule, and you are the one doing the work. TruGreen stands behind its visits — its terms promise a revisit between scheduled ones whenever you are not satisfied, though that applies to full-program customers and excludes TruBasic and partial programs, so the entry-level plan is the one it does not cover. A trained applicator handles the products, which matters a great deal if you would rather not store, mix, or calibrate anything in your garage. Hire TruGreen if the labor is what you want to be rid of. DIY only makes sense if the cost is the objection, or if you actually enjoy doing it.
Side by side
| YardLedger | TruGreen | |
|---|---|---|
| What you're actually buying | Software, on a freemium plan. YardLedger sells no fertilizer, seed or chemicals and earns nothing on what you apply. Plans are built against the products already in your Garage, so a recommendation can name a store brand, a generic equivalent of a premium bag, or nothing at all when the lawn does not need feeding. | A done-for-you service. You are buying visits from a specialist who applies the treatments, on a cadence set by your plan and your lawn rather than a number TruGreen publishes. The app manages the account, the schedule, and the bill; it is not the product. |
| How a task gets scheduled | Every task arrives with the reason it is there, and nothing the assistant proposes is scheduled until you approve it. Follow the plan as it comes, or change it. | The specialist applies the plan on TruGreen's schedule. You get an ETA notification before the visit and a summary after, and you can reschedule or postpone, but what goes on the lawn is their call rather than a proposal you approve. |
| Where the data comes from | Named and linkable: NOAA National Weather Service, Open-Meteo, phzmapi.org for the USDA hardiness zone, and USDA SSURGO for soil. | On-staff agronomists and certified specialists stand behind the plan — the expertise is the product. The upstream weather and soil data behind the timing is not published. |
| Platforms | iOS, Android, and the web app — the same account on all three. | iOS and Android apps plus a web account, all for managing service, billing, and visit history rather than for planning the lawn yourself. |
| Care logging | Unlimited care events on every tier, including the free one, across 16 record types, with photos. | A record of what TruGreen did: service tickets, statements, and upcoming visits. It is a service history rather than a record of everything done to the yard, and it ends when the contract does. |
| Pricing | A free tier that does not expire and needs no card: 1 yard, unlimited care logging, the personalized seasonal schedule, three guided care programs, and frost and winterize alerts. Stay Ahead adds the premium care programs, day-to-day weather alerts, calendar sync, GDD, and a second yard. Current prices are on the pricing page. | Quote-based: TruGreen prices each property individually by lawn size, plan and location rather than publishing a price list, so the only figures available are third-party estimates of the category. HomeGuide estimated $65–$225 per application, or $450–$2,000 a year, for a 5,000–10,000 sq ft lawn on 7–9 treatments — an estimate of the category, not a TruGreen quote. The program continues from year to year with nothing required of you, and either side may cancel at any time without penalty, by written or spoken notice. Separately, TruGreen advertises 15% off for signing up online. |
| Try it before an account | Five free tools with no signup, including a schedule generator that renders a real month-by-month plan from your grass type and ZIP. | You request a quote for your address and the plan and price come back through a sales conversation; there is no tool that answers a lawn question for you first. |
TruGreen details last checked 2026-09-11. Products change — if something here is out of date, tell us and we'll correct it.
Common questions
Is YardLedger cheaper than TruGreen?
YardLedger and TruGreen buy different things, so start there: TruGreen's price includes labor, product and a guarantee with somebody else holding the spreader, and YardLedger's buys software you use to do it yourself. On out-of-pocket cost YardLedger is substantially lower. TruGreen quotes per property rather than publishing prices; for scale, HomeGuide estimates $450–$2,000 a year for a 5,000–10,000 sq ft lawn on 7–9 treatments, which is an estimate of the category rather than a quote you would be given. Against that you buy your own product and spend the weekends. If your objection to TruGreen is the bill, DIY closes most of that gap. If your objection is the work, it does not close any of it.
I want to cancel TruGreen and do it myself. Where do I start?
Start with the free schedule generator — enter your grass type and ZIP and it renders a real month-by-month plan, with no account and no card, so you can see what a year of doing it yourself actually involves before you cancel anything. Worth knowing that a TruGreen program continues from year to year on its own — but canceling is not the ordeal it is sometimes made out to be: its terms say either side may cancel at any time without penalty, and a phone call counts.
Can I use YardLedger while I still have TruGreen?
Using YardLedger while you still have TruGreen works, and it is a genuinely useful way to decide whether to keep TruGreen. Log each visit and what was applied, add your own mowing and watering alongside it, and after a season you have your own record of what the service actually put on your lawn and when — which is the information the decision needs, and which disappears along with the service history when the contract ends.
Does YardLedger treat my lawn?
YardLedger does not treat your lawn: it never applies anything and never sends anybody. It keeps the history of your yard, turns it into a schedule with the reasoning attached, and asks you to approve what the assistant proposes. The work stays yours.
Decide on your own lawn, not ours.
Generate a real month-by-month schedule for your grass type — free, no account, no card — and see whether the output is the kind you want.
