Guide for lawn-care and grounds contractors

How to get mowing and landscaping contracts from Florida cities and counties

Updated October 2026

Public mowing and grounds work goes to the firms that send a complete bid on time, and most firms that look at a bid never send one. This guide walks through a Florida grounds bid from the posting to the signature page.

1. Find the bids in your counties

   Parks, ball fields, school grounds, cemeteries, retention ponds and the lawns around public buildings are mowed under contract. Cities, counties, school districts and special districts each post those bids on their own website or on a bid platform.

   State agencies post theirs on MyFloridaMarketPlace and federal offices on SAM.gov, so one county can mean several sites to watch. Many grounds contracts run a year or longer with renewal years, and a bid you miss can mean years until the next one.

   Our Florida bid sites, county by county shows which buyers post where. Watching each one every morning is the slow part, which is why BidSignal sends one email instead.

2. Register as a vendor before you need to

   Most agencies want a vendor account before you can download the bid documents, see the addenda or upload a bid. Set up an account with each city, county and district near your crews, and with SAM.gov if you want federal grounds work.

   Keep a folder with your W-9, local business tax receipt, certificate of insurance and the certification cards your crew holds. A new registration then takes minutes instead of an afternoon spent hunting for papers.

   How to register as a Florida vendor

3. Read the whole bid, then every addendum

   Start with the site list, the maps and the service schedule. They tell you which properties are in the contract, how many acres each one has, and how often each is mowed, edged, string-trimmed, blown off and cleared of litter.

   Those quantities decide your crew hours, and crew hours are most of a grounds price. Then look for the extras the scope folds in: irrigation checks, hedge and palm trimming, mulch, weed control or pond banks.

   Addenda can add a site, change the acreage or move the due date after the bid is posted. Most bid forms ask you to acknowledge each addendum by number, and leaving one off can get a good price thrown out.

4. Go to the mandatory pre-bid or site visit

   When a bid calls its pre-bid meeting or site visit mandatory, missing it usually means your bid is rejected however good the price. Our email marks every mandatory pre-bid the posting lists, with its date and place.

   Walk or drive every property you can, even when the visit is optional. Mark slopes, ditches, pond edges, fences, playgrounds, signs and trees on the site list, because each one slows a mower and none of them shows on a bid sheet.

   Questions usually go to the purchasing office in writing by a set date. The answers come out as an addendum that every bidder sees, so ask about anything the scope leaves unclear.

5. Licenses Florida grounds bids ask for

   Anyone applying commercial fertilizer to an urban landscape in Florida must hold a limited certification (section 482.1562, Florida Statutes). You apply with a training certificate, and the certification lasts 4 years.

   Renewing it takes 4 classroom hours of continuing education, at least 2 of them on fertilizer best management practices. It covers fertilizer only: the statute says it does not let you apply pesticides to turf or ornamentals.

   Read the license section of every bid as well. It lists what that agency wants to see with your bid, and a city or county can ask for more than the state does.

6. The forms Florida agencies ask for

   • E-Verify: a public agency must make the contractor and every subcontractor register with E-Verify and use it for new employees (section 448.095). A subcontractor gives you an affidavit that it employs no unauthorized alien, and you keep it for the length of the contract.
   • Drug-free workplace: when bids are equal on price, quality and service, the business that certifies a drug-free workplace program gets the preference (section 287.087).
   • Public entity crimes: a firm on the state's convicted vendor list may not bid on most public contracts for 36 months (section 287.133). Most bid packets carry a notice or statement about it.
   • Insurance: usually general liability, auto and workers' compensation, with the agency named as additional insured. Check the limits before you price, since higher limits can raise your premium.
   • References and equipment: properties of a similar size you mow now and, when the bid asks, the mowers, trucks and trailers you plan to use.

7. Unit-price bid sheets

   Grounds bids rarely ask for one lump sum. The bid sheet usually wants a unit price, per mowing cycle for each property, per acre or per site per visit, and the agency multiplies it by its own quantities to rank the bids.

   Count the cycles the bid sets for a year, and check whether it mows more often in the summer growing season than in winter. A per-cycle price that looks small adds up fast over a full year of cycles.

   Price each line on its own, and fill in every one. A blank line can make the whole bid incomplete, and a line priced low to win the contract stays that low for every renewal year.

   Some bid sheets also ask for hourly rates or prices for work outside the schedule, such as an added mowing or debris pickup after a storm. Price those lines from your real crew costs too, because they are part of the contract you sign.

8. Price from past bid results

   Bid tabulations and award memos are public records, so you can see who bid last time and what the contract went for. Ask the purchasing office for the bid tab on the same contract before you price.

   In 2026 the City of Tampa awarded its South Parks grounds maintenance contract at $218,775 a year. The bid documents were downloaded 66 times and 13 bids came in.

   Work out crew hours per cycle, then add fuel, equipment wear, debris disposal and supervision, and check the yearly total against the last award. If you lose, the bid tab shows how far your price was from the winner, which sharpens the next one.

9. Send it early, complete and signed

   Late bids are usually rejected unopened. A missing signature, form or addendum acknowledgment can throw out even the lowest price.

   Before you send, check each unit price, the yearly total, the insurance certificate and every signature page against the bid's checklist. Upload or deliver it a day early and keep the confirmation.

   For a paper bid, label the sealed envelope exactly as the bid instructs, usually with the bid number, its title and the due date. Hand delivery lets you watch it get the time stamp.

Get the mowing bids, then get help with the forms

BidSignal sends the lawn-care, mowing and grounds bids for your counties in one email around 6 AM, with the due date and any mandatory pre-bid on each. See how many are open now, free.

Get the lawn-care bids for your counties

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