How Much Does Lawn Aeration Cost?

Lawn aeration costs between $75 and $170 per service. Lawn aeration revitalizes your lawn’s turf by creating holes in the soil, allowing nutrients and water to reach the roots. It’s especially beneficial for compacted lawns, improving drainage and encouraging a healthier ecosystem. Our team did the research to help you find the best lawn care companies that offer standout aeration services.

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What Is Lawn Aeration?

Lawn aeration is the process of perforating your lawn with holes to break up your soil and let it breathe. Aeration is especially ideal for sandy soil and clay soils. The treatment allows water, air, and nutrients to seep in, which can revitalize your lawn.

There are two approaches to lawn aeration. Core aeration removes cores that form in compacted soil and reaches deeper into your lawn. Spike aeration punctures smaller holes throughout your lawn to help airflow.

Lawn aeration helps control your lawn thatch. Thatch is a loose layer of dead grass and organic material in your lawn. This includes shoots, stems, and grass roots. A thin layer of thatch in lawns provides insulation against extreme temperatures and fluctuations in soil moisture. However, more than an inch of thatch can hold excess water. This issue leads to reduced oxygen for your grass, as well as an increase in pest issues.

How Much Does Lawn Aeration Cost?

You may aerate your lawn by yourself using rental equipment, or you can hire a professional lawn care company.

How Much Does DIY Lawn Aeration Cost?

According to Home Depot’s pricing, if you decide to take the DIY approach to lawn aeration, you might pay $63 to rent the proper equipment for four hours or $90 for a whole day. Depending on your lawn’s size and how compacted your soil is, this job may be more than you are willing to handle.

How Much Does Professional Lawn Aeration Cost?

Many professional lawn aeration services cost between $15–$17 per thousand square feet according to cost data from HomeServe, though core aerators are typically more expensive than spike aerators. Therefore, a 5,000-square-foot lawn would cost around $75–$85 or $150–$170 for a 10,000-square–foot lawn. Unlike handling this project on your own, which may take an entire weekend, a professional lawn care service could have aeration done in a matter of hours.

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How Does Lawn Aeration Help Your Lawn?

If your lawn’s soil has become compacted, you should aerate it. Dense and compacted soil inhibits root growth by cutting off access to nutrients. This environment encourages weed growth. Weeds make your lawn even more prone to stress and vulnerable to drought. Below are some of the ways lawn aeration helps your yard transform into a healthy lawn:

• Relieves soil compaction: Compacted soil prevents air, water, and fertilizer from reaching your lawn’s root system. This leads to dead spots, patches, and thinning. Aeration removes cores, so soil density decreases.
• Increases nutrients: Soil aeration helps nutrients penetrate deeper into the root zone. This process improves the effectiveness of fertilization and watering.
• Builds a thicker lawn: Aeration stimulates root development and growth. Therefore, when you overseed the lawn, you create an optimal environment for growth. This benefit occurs because aeration improves seed to soil contact, improving germination and creating a more moist lawn.
• Reduces puddling and runoff: Aeration helps reduce puddling or water runoff occurrences as the water seeps into the loosened soil.

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What Factors Influence the Cost of Lawn Aeration?

Multiple factors influence the average cost of lawn care services, including aeration. Learn the details about some of the most significant factors below:

• Lawn size: The larger the size of the lawn, the higher the price you receive. Most lawn care services charge based on the square footage of a lawn.
• Aeration type: Overall, spike aeration is less expensive than core aeration as it is typically less intensive of a process.
• Location: In general, if you reside in a rural community, the cost of lawn-care services is lower than in busy urban areas. In addition, local taxes and business fees influence the cost of lawn aeration and other lawn maintenance services.
• Prep work: Soil aeration requires a clear yard to conduct. If a lawn care provider has to rake dry leaves or clear other debris, additional charges may cover this work.
• Obstacles: If there are many trees or boulders in your lawn, this may cause a higher price. The same goes for fences or a sprinkler system, as lawn care technicians will have to navigate around sprinkler heads and other landscaping features.
• Packages and plans: The cost of aeration might decrease if you opt for a lawn care plan. You might sign up for a plan that includes fertilizing services, overseeding, and weed control. The exact amount you might save taking this approach will vary according to the company and its promotions and packages.

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When Is the Best Time To Aerate Your Lawn?

The ideal time to aerate your lawn depends on your grass type and regional climate. Cool-season grasses, such as Kentucky bluegrass and fescue, respond best to aeration in early fall when temperatures begin to cool and the grass enters its peak growing phase. Spring can also work, but fall provides optimal conditions for recovery and root development. Warm-season grasses, including Bermuda and zoysia, benefit most from aeration in late spring through mid-summer, when they grow most vigorously and can quickly recover.

Soil conditions also play a role in timing. Lawns with heavy clay soils or areas that receive frequent foot traffic often become compacted and require more frequent aeration. Aerating these lawns from late spring through fall helps loosen the soil and allows air, water, and nutrients to reach the roots more efficiently. Timing aeration during active growth ensures that the lawn heals quickly and reaps the full benefits of the process.

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What Are the Signs Your Lawn Needs Aeration?

If your lawn feels spongy due to thatch buildup or the soil is too compact to allow water absorption, it likely needs aeration. Thatch, a thick layer of dead grass and organic matter, prevents air, water, and nutrients from reaching the roots. Lawns in high-traffic areas, such as playgrounds or walkways, often suffer from soil compaction, restricting root growth and leading to thinning grass.

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Recommended Lawn Care Service Provider

If you are interested in receiving professional lawn aeration treatment, we suggest looking into TruGreen. Not only can this company provide lawn aeration services, but it also offers comprehensive lawn care plans. TruGreen is one of the most popular lawn care services in the United States, servicing every state except for Alaska and Hawaii.

The provider offers five annual plans with different levels of lawn care. In addition, the company allows you to customize your lawn care with everything from fertilization to overseeding to high-quality pest control services and more. In addition to a plan, TruGreen’s aeration service costs around $259 for a 5,000-square-foot lawn, according to quotes we received while secret- shopping.

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Our Rating Methodology

We back up our lawn recommendations with a detailed rating methodology that we use to objectively score each provider. We review lawn care plans and packages, navigate the provider website, speak with customer service representatives, request quotes, and analyze customer reviews for each provider. We then score the provider against our review standards for plan options, additional benefits and customizability, availability, trustworthiness, and customer service to arrive at a final score out of 100.