Landscaping contracts and quotes, signed before you break ground

What a landscaping contract template should cover

Landscaping jobs are bigger than lawn care and the money moves in stages, so the contract has to say more. The homeowner is paying for materials you buy before they see anything built, and they will judge the finished garden against a picture in their head. The contract is where you replace that picture with a drawing, a materials list and a price.

• The design: drawing reference, revision number, and the plant list with sizes (9cm pots or 2 litre)
• Materials by name: "Indian sandstone, buff, 22mm calibrated" rather than "stone patio"
• What the price excludes: skip hire, removal of buried rubble, utilities found during digging
• Payment stages tied to visible milestones
• Plant guarantee terms, and what voids it (no watering in a dry spell)
• Access for machinery, where spoil is stored, and who repairs lawn damage from the digger

Deposits and staged payments

A common split is a deposit on signing to cover materials, a stage payment when the hard landscaping is finished, and the balance on handover. Put the stages in the contract and have both homeowners sign it. Where a house is jointly owned, getting both names on the contract avoids the conversation where one partner says they never agreed to the cost.

Sign PDF can send to both owners at the same time, or one after the other. You can also sign the contract yourself as the contractor, after the clients, so the sealed copy carries every signature. We do not collect the deposit for you; send your invoice the way you normally do once the contract comes back signed.

Change orders when the design changes on site

Halfway through, the client sees the patio pegged out and wants it a metre wider, or switches from gravel to porcelain. That is a variation, and it should be signed before you order the extra stone. A change order needs the original contract reference, what is changing, the extra cost or saving, and any change to the finish date.

Write it on your phone in the van, upload it, and send it to the homeowner while you are still on site. They sign on their phone in a couple of minutes. Each change order is a separate document, so if you expect several on one job, the Full plan at $10 a month with unlimited documents is the sensible choice.

Initials on the terms pages

If your terms run to three or four pages, ask for initials at the foot of each one. In the Sign PDF editor you can type "homeowner initials every page" and the boxes are added. It is a small thing, but it removes the argument that a client never saw the clause about buried obstructions.

What we do and do not handle

Sign PDF gets contracts, proposals and change orders signed and sealed, with a certificate showing each signer's email, IP address, device and the time they signed. We do not do estimating, design drawings, scheduling or payments. Most landscapers keep their quoting tool and use us for the signature step.