Profit-Based Commissions for Landscaping Sales Teams: When Revenue Pay Lets a Job Lose Money
By Alex Regueiro · October 25, 2026 · 5 min read
A sales commission paid on revenue can reward a job that loses money. A landscaping and hardscape company found that out when a job went out with a subcontractor cost that was higher than the price of the job itself.
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The owner was running the business across three disconnected places, with no view of profit per job. This is how we proposed to fix that, what we changed in the quoting tool, and what is still queued. If you run a trade business with commissioned estimators, our page for home service businesses covers the wider system.
The situation
The owner's job data was split across a spreadsheet, field-service software and a separate bill-pay and invoicing tool. Each one held part of the picture. None of them showed what a job actually earned after costs.
Sales commissions were calculated on revenue. That is simple to run, and it breaks the first time a job sells at a price the cost side cannot support. On one job, the subcontractor alone cost more than the job brought in. A commission tied to revenue does not register that. The owner halted revenue-based commissions after that job.
What was broken
Four separate problems showed up in the same conversation.
- No profit view. Job data was split across three tools, and none of them showed what a job earned.
- A pay plan that rewarded the sale and ignored the cost of delivering it.
- Reporting without context. A report from an outside marketing company flagged a decline in Facebook results that the owner already knew was intentional.
- A staffing gap. The business needed a crew lead.
What we built
These are the pieces proposed or configured on the call.
- A proposal to pull the three data sources into one dashboard with AI profitability tracking and a profit-based commission structure. We proposed building it in person, on the owner's own accounts and devices.
- Recorded training sessions, kept as onboarding assets.
- A standardized subcontractor contact list.
- The AI quoting assistant, updated with a profit-based commission formula and margin warnings, so a thin-margin quote gets flagged.
- A GoHighLevel reactivation campaign for lapsed customers, aimed to go out within 2 weeks. The email list was described as highly active, with many recurring local customers.
- A hiring video to attract a crew lead.
The audit that sets the real numbers
A later call took the work further. The owner agreed to switch field-service software instead of training the team on a system they expected to outgrow in about three months. The switch was recommended by the owner's outside advisory firm, and training for two staff members was put on the schedule.
We also planned a profitability audit of 10 completed jobs. The audit reverse-engineers real margins, then feeds the commission plan and a profit-based quoting model. Doing it on finished jobs means the formula starts from what the company actually earned and not from what the quotes said.
What changed
The records give no profit or margin result, so there is none to report. The change is in how money decisions get made. Before, commissions followed revenue and nobody could see profit by job. Now revenue-based commissions are halted, the quoting assistant carries a profit-based formula with margin warnings, and an audit is lined up to set the real numbers behind the plan.
Test your own commission plan
This section is advice for your own business, not a statement about the client. Take your last few sold jobs and work out profit after labor, materials and subcontractors. Then work out what each salesperson earned. If any job lost money and still paid full commission, your plan has the same flaw.
Next, check whether you can see revenue and cost for one job on one screen. If it takes three tools, you have the dashboard problem too.
Frequently asked questions
What is a profit-based commission for a landscaping sales team?
It ties sales pay to what a job earns after direct costs instead of to the sale price. A salesperson who closes a thin or losing job earns less on it, which pushes quotes toward healthy margins. The exact formula should come from audited job data, not guesses.
Why audit completed jobs before setting the commission formula?
Quoted numbers and real numbers drift apart. Auditing completed jobs shows the margins the business actually earned, which is the only sound base for a commission formula and a quoting model. In this case the audit covered 10 completed jobs.
How can an AI quoting assistant help protect margin?
It can carry the commission formula and warn when a quote's margin falls short. We updated the quoting assistant this way, so a weak quote gets flagged.
Why bring a reactivation campaign into a profitability project?
Past customers are already in your database. The owner described the email list as highly active, with many recurring local customers, so we planned a GoHighLevel campaign to lapsed customers to go out within 2 weeks.
If you cannot say what your last ten jobs actually earned, book a 30-minute AI follow-up and reporting audit. We map where your job data lives and show you how to get revenue, cost and commission into one view.