The Landscaping & Outdoor playbook
Covers lawncare, tree service & arborists, hardscapes, synthetic turf
Scope-first quotes for installs and maintenance — measured, not guessed. A free starter setup: the intake questions Studio asks, structure-only starter quotes, and the nudges that make pricing learn from your own books.
Free to start · no credit card · structure only, never prices
What slows Landscaping & Outdoor quoting down
Lawncare, tree service and arborist work, hardscapes, synthetic turf — one crew, four different quote shapes, and most tools make you pick a single mold.
Recurring maintenance and one-time installs price differently — and quotes that never say per visit or per season out loud invite disputes later.
Scope creep starts at intake: no measurements, no photos, no grading or access questions — so the quote is wrong before it is even sent.
What the playbook sets up on day one
All structure, no numbers — the scaffold your quotes hang on.
- ✓Intake guidance for Studio across the whole outdoor cluster — lawncare, tree service and arborist work, hardscapes, and synthetic turf. It separates one-time installs from recurring maintenance, asks for measurements or photos of the areas involved, grading and drainage conditions, the softscape / hardscape split, irrigation presence, equipment access, and haul-away needs.
- ✓Tree work gets its own questions: height class, proximity to structures, and stump handling — the three answers that change a tree quote most.
- ✓Four starter quote structures, by name: Landscape Install (site prep, materials, labor, disposal), Lawn & Bed Maintenance (per visit), Tree Service (crew, rigging, stump grinding, haul-away), and Irrigation Repair (diagnostic-first). Recurring work is quoted per visit or per season — and says which explicitly. Structure only — every price field starts unset.
- ✓Shop-profile placeholder hints for outdoor equipment — skid steer, mini excavator, trencher, commercial mowers — plus integration nudges: inbound email so requests land as drafts, and QuickBooks so Setell learns your real material and labor costs.
What Setell learns from your own data
The playbook is the scaffold. The pricing comes from you.
- ✓Your real material and labor costs from QuickBooks history — pavers, mulch, sod, crew time — mined from your recent invoices before your first Setell quote goes out.
- ✓Your accepted quotes — every signed install and every maintenance agreement sharpens your per-customer baselines across lawncare, tree work, hardscapes, and turf.
- ✓Your revision patterns — what customers push back on in an install quote versus a per-visit quote, learned from your own history.
- ✓The receipts behind every number — suggested prices show their work on every line, so you can defend the quote at the kitchen table.
Structure on day one. Your prices, not ours.
A playbook never includes prices. Day one it gives you your trade’s structure; connect QuickBooks and Setell learns from what you actually paid and charged — and shows its work on every line.
See how the pricing engine learns →Landscaping & Outdoor playbook: FAQ
Does the playbook come with pricing?
No — structure only. It sets up intake questions, starter quote structures, and profile hints; every price field starts unset. Pricing comes from your own data: connect QuickBooks and Setell learns from what you actually paid and charged — and shows its work on every suggested line.
Is the playbook free?
Yes. Applying a playbook is free — it is the starting scaffold for your account, not a paid add-on.
Does it cover tree service and arborist work?
Yes — tree service is one of the four covered shapes, alongside lawncare, hardscapes, and synthetic turf. It ships a dedicated Tree Service starter structure (crew and equipment, removal and rigging, stump grinding, haul-away) and intake questions for height class, proximity to structures, and stump handling.
How does it handle recurring maintenance vs. one-time installs?
As different shapes with different structures. Maintenance is quoted per visit with the cadence stated explicitly; installs get a site-prep / materials / labor / disposal structure. The intake guidance asks which kind of work it is before anything else.
How do I apply it?
Three ways: pick it during onboarding, ask Studio in the app (“set me up with the landscaping playbook”), or call the setell_apply_playbook MCP tool from your own agent.
What happens if I apply it again later?
Re-applying is safe. Setell returns a report of what it applied and what it skipped — and it never overwrites structures or settings you have edited.
Start with the structure
Apply the Landscaping & Outdoor playbook during onboarding and send a structured quote today — the pricing gets smarter with every job you close.