No time to mow? Lawn service booking app now in Tallahassee

The grass keeps growing, the shrubs need pruning and time keeps on ticking. A new service in Tallahassee has an app to solve all of that.

The owners of GreenPal, an on-demand lawn mowing app, says you can cross yard work off your to-do list with the help of your smartphone.

Founded in 2012, partners Gene Caballero, Bryan Clayton and Zach Hendrix have used their personal landscaping experiences and their observance of the demand for timely services like Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb to introduce an option for scheduling an appointment that keeps residents shielded from complaints from their neighbors.

The Nashville-based company says it serves over 250 markets and 1 million homeowners in 48 states. In March, they added the capital city.

A similar service, Lawnstarter, also is available locally.

“Every year we kind of take a look at our numbers and say, ‘where are homeowners signing up and where are vendors signing up?’ ” Caballero said, adding the launch in Tallahassee was simply a “numbers thing.”

“People were calling us and telling us to come, so here we are,” Caballero told the Tallahassee Democrat, adding that personal recommendations have contributed to the company’s success.

The “contactless” design of the app allows customers to describe what service is needed, view bids, lock in an appointment, and pay online without having to meet face-to-face with vendors. Clients get a time-stamped photo indicating the job is done.

If homeowners are not satisfied with their service, they can cancel with their vendor, dispute the charge, and move forward with a new appointment. GreenPal provides up to 75 providers in the Tallahassee area for lawn services.

Caballero, who is based in Nashville, Tennessee, explained the concept in an interview with the Democrat:

Q: When is GreenPal available in Tallahassee? 

A: “We are 100% operable in Tallahassee right now. Homeowners looking for lawn care can download the free app or go to our website, enter in the property address and the service date that they want it done. What that does is kind of alert all the pre-screened vendors in the area that there is a new lawn up for bid. The landscape professional can bid on that property based on the aerial view, Google Street View, and square footage. All of those bids go to the homeowner for review. “

Q: What is the average price of service? 

A: “It ranges, it’s about $32 to $38. That’s kind of the moving average we have in the Panhandle. It’s just for your regular mowing, edging, and blowing off all the hard surfaces. If homeowners do need extra services, they can also get that on our website as well.”

Q: How can someone set up reoccurring appointments? 

A: “Once the homeowner finds a professional they want to work with, they can literally click a button and schedule more appointments for the remainder of the year. So, there’s really no need to go back out to bid, they just click a button and continue service for the rest of the year with that vendor at that price. If the homeowner needs to cancel, they sell the house, or they decide to do it on their own, then they can cancel the service and there’s no subscription or anything like that.”

Q: How can local lawn businesses become vendors on the app? 

A: “They have to go through a vetting process. They have to be 18 years of age, they have to have a valid driver's license, they have to have a Social Security number, and they also have to have a valid bank account. They also have to send pictures of their commercial-grade equipment and previous work. We try our best to ensure that the vendors on GreenPal are who they say they are and can handle the work.”

Q: Who benefits from the GreenPal services? 

A: “I think consumers now have had this mind-shift change of we want everything instantly, you know. We don’t want to call a cab to pick us up. We don’t want to call a restaurant to bring us food. We don’t want to wait three to five days for shipping. The whole mindset of ‘I want it now, I want it cheap, and I want it you know- good.’  So, I think that the homeowner benefits from this just being another service that lends itself to be what homeowners expect nowadays in the consumer market.

(The one) who really benefits from this product is actually the landscaping professionals. We are a true operating system for these guys. Not only do we handle their demand creation, we handle their scheduling, we handle their brand optimization, we also handle the payment process. The things that I hated doing when I had my landscaping business are all automated on GreenPal now. We have thousands of landscaping professionals that are 100% GreenPal. They brought their non-GreenPal customers onto the platform just because we make it so easy for them to keep everything tidy and neat in the app.”

Q: What local companies do you work with?

A: “A lot of them are sole proprietors that have themselves or up to three to four workers with them, maybe two crews. That is kind of the sweet spot for a GreenPal vendor. This is for the sole proprietor that loves mowing lawns, and already has a business but is looking to make his business more efficient and to grow his business.”

The app is available for download on iPhone and Android.

Democrat writer Kyla Sanford can be reached at ksanford@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: GreenPal lawn service app now in Tallahassee, Florida