You don’t have to drive across town to pace off a yard before you can give a price. In ClippingCash you trace the lawn yourself on a satellite map, the server works out the square footage, and the quote is priced from the rates you set for each service. It is on every plan.
You do the tracing. The map does not outline the lawn for you: you click around the grass you will actually mow, which is also how you keep the house, driveway and beds out of the price.
1 Set up area pricing first
Measuring only prices services that have area pricing turned on. Go to Services, click the ruler icon on a service to open Area pricing, tick Offer this service in Instant Quote, and set the rate. How to set up services and pricing walks through the options: a rate per 1,000 sq ft or per square yard with a minimum charge, or size bands with a flat price per band.
If no service has area pricing yet, the measuring window says so and sends you to the Services page.
2 Start a new quote and open the map
Go to Quotes and start a new quote. Fill in the customer and, if you have it, the service address, then click Measure the lawn from satellite.
The Measure lawn from satellite window opens on the quote’s service address. To look somewhere else, edit the address box and press Find (or Enter).
3 Draw the lawn
- Click the polygon tool at the top right of the map.
- Click each corner around the grass.
- Click the first point again to close the shape.
Trace only what you will mow. Leave the house, driveway, beds and pool outside the outline. A front and a back yard can be two separate shapes, and both count toward the total. The trash icon deletes a shape so you can start over.
Measured area under the map updates as you draw, so you can see the number before you price anything.
4 Get prices
Tick the services you want to quote, then click Get prices. ClippingCash measures the shape again on the server and prices each service from its area pricing. The square footage that sets the price is the server’s, not the number the map showed while you drew, so nobody can nudge it by hand.
Each service comes back as a line with its price and how it was worked out.
5 One price, or Good, Better, Best
With two or more services priced, you can tick Combine as Good/Better/Best tiers (customer picks one). The services become one set of options sorted cheapest first, labelled Good, Better and Best, with one marked recommended (the middle one when there are three). The customer picks one when they approve. More on three price options.
Leave it unticked and every service goes on the quote as its own line.
6 Add to quote
Click Add to quote. The priced lines land on the quote, the measured square footage shows under the service address, and any address fields you left blank fill in from the map. An address you already typed is never overwritten. Need a different shape later? The button now reads Re-measure the lawn.
From here it is an ordinary quote: send it for approval the usual way.
On the Android owner app
The owner app for Android has the same thing. Open Quotes and tap the map icon at the top for Instant Quote. Find the address, tap to drop each corner of the lawn and drag a corner to adjust, use Undo or Clear to fix a mistake, tap the services you want, and tap Get instant price. Fill in who it is for and tap Create quote. On iPhone, use the web app in Safari.