Case study · 90-day engagement
A Charlotte lawn care company had a 6-truck crew that was busy from March through October and ghosts during November-February. The owner was making good money 8 months a year and losing money 4 months a year. He had been told to "build a snow business" or "diversify into landscaping." Both required new skills. The actual fix was already in his service mix — he just had not packaged it for recurring revenue.
The challenge
The owner came in through a Charlotte business association meetup. He had been running the company for 11 years. The bot scored the website at 69 — fine for one-time bookings but no subscription path. The funnel was built around individual mowing jobs. That was the entire problem.
We pulled his data:
The fix was to package what he was already capable of doing into a recurring subscription. His crew already mowed, fertilized, and aerated. They just did it one job at a time.
The plan
Built 3 bundles: Essential ($129/mo, mowing + 2× fertilization + spring pre-emergent), Premium ($189/mo, adds aeration + 4× fertilization + leaf cleanup), and Total ($249/mo, adds dethatching, overseeding, weed control program). All billed monthly via Stripe. /lawn-care-subscription page launched week 2.
Sent a personal email from the owner to his 1,400 prior one-time customers offering a "first month $99" trial of the Premium plan. 144 of them signed up in 14 days. That alone added $27k/mo in recurring revenue. Most of these customers had been calling once a year for years and were happy to never have to remember to call again.
Restructured ads around subscription intent: "lawn care subscription Charlotte," "monthly lawn service Charlotte," "year-round lawn maintenance NC." CPC was $2.40 vs $5.80 on one-time mowing terms. Same daily ad budget produced 4× more subscription leads.
The Premium and Total bundles included winter-season work (leaf cleanup, dormant fertilization, gutter cleaning add-on). Subscriptions did NOT pause in winter — customers kept paying because the crew kept showing up. 91% retention through winter vs. industry-standard 50% on quarterly billing.
AI tools we used
We do not pretend the work happens by hand. Three of our internal tools are the reason this engagement moved as fast as it did. Each of them replaces what used to be days of human time.
Custom AI we built that grades every search term on commercial intent, urgency, and local match in under a second. Replaces a half-day human audit.
Takes one bad search term and proposes the related variants we should also negate before they show up. Found 87 negatives nobody had thought of.
Crawls the site and fires every conversion event in a sandbox so you can see what is actually being recorded vs what should be. Caught the duplicate form fire in 4 minutes.
The execution
| Week | What we shipped | What moved |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | 3 subscription tiers designed, Stripe billing setup, /lawn-care-subscription wireframe | Owner approves pricing first revision |
| Week 2 | Subscription page live, existing-customer email campaign sends | 38 signups in week 2 alone |
| Week 4 | Subscription Google Ads campaigns live, $99 first-month trial promoted | $99 trial converts at 81% to ongoing subscription after first cycle |
| Week 6 | Recurring revenue hits $32k/mo, owner adds 1 more truck | Capacity kept ahead of demand |
| Week 9 | Recurring at $44k/mo, off-season retention plan rolled out | First winter-only customer signs (Total bundle) |
| Week 13 | Final review | Recurring revenue stable at $52k/mo, retainer continues |
The numbers
The subscription model changed the entire business:
The 90-day engagement at $799/mo cost $2,397. Monthly recurring revenue grew $38k/mo, producing $456k/yr in net new revenue. The owner now turns away seasonal one-time mowing requests because the subscription book pays better.
I had been mowing the same lawns for 8 years and calling each one a one-time job. Mark made me realize they were already my recurring customers — I just was not charging them like it. Within 90 days, I had a winter cash-flow business for the first time in 11 years.
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