Landscaping contractors run on diesel, nitrogen fertilizer, mulch, and plant material — every input priced against a commodity market your supplier watches in real time. SiteOne, Helena, and your regional suppliers reprice when those markets move. The Overcharge Ledger makes sure what hits your invoices is what you actually agreed to pay.
IBISWorld reports $188.8 billion in U.S. landscaping services industry revenue for 2025 (NAICS 561730), with 692,777 businesses and 1.47 million employees. Landscaping is one of the most operationally dense trades — diesel in the truck, fertilizer on every property, mulch and plant material sourced per job, and equipment maintenance running year-round. Every one of those input categories has a commodity market behind it, and every supplier in that chain prices against that market.
The distributor side is concentrated. SiteOne Landscape Supply's fiscal 2025 10-K confirms 670+ branch locations, approximately 180,000 SKUs from 6,000 suppliers, with 60% of net sales from the residential construction sector. Most landscaping contractors buy fertilizer, mulch, plant material, and hardscape products from SiteOne or a regional equivalent. That account relationship is exactly where the Ledger works.
Recurring service accounts billed weekly or bi-weekly. Fertilizer programs, herbicide applications, and seasonal treatments billed per application. High frequency and high volume means small per-application overcharges on fertilizer and chemical products compound across hundreds of accounts before they are visible.
Plant material, mulch, soil amendments, boulders, and hardscape priced at bid and installed over days or weeks. Material costs between quote and delivery can move — plant material especially, which is priced by the grower at the time of order, not at the time of your original estimate.
Large HOA, commercial campus, and municipal accounts with annual service contracts. Fertilizer, chemical, and mulch programs with agreed quantities — but supplier pricing on those quantities moves throughout the year. Unquoted material add-ons and product substitutions on large-volume accounts produce overcharges that no single invoice flags.
Removal, trimming, and treatment. Equipment-intensive work where diesel costs run high. Specialty chemicals and growth regulators priced per account without a formal quote structure. Unquoted chemical spend across a tree service operation's full account history is a significant not-in-quote category.
Ice melt, salt, and liquid de-icer priced at the start of winter and billed throughout the season. Salt and calcium chloride pricing moves with weather demand and regional supply. A per-ton price increase mid-season with no change order is one of the most common overcharge patterns in seasonal landscape operations.
SiteOne Landscape Supply is the largest and only national full-line wholesale distributor of landscape supplies in the U.S. — confirmed in their fiscal 2025 10-K. 670+ branches, 180,000 SKUs, sourced from approximately 6,000 suppliers. Fertilizer, chemicals, mulch, soil amendments, nursery goods, hardscape, and outdoor lighting all flow through SiteOne branches to landscaping contractors. SiteOne sets the price you see on the invoice. The manufacturer's price to SiteOne is separate. The commodity market behind the manufacturer is separate again. Three layers — and the Ledger reads what hits yours.
The fertilizer side runs through dedicated ag and turf distributors — Helena Agri-Enterprises (subsidiary of Nutrien), Simplot, and regional chemical supply houses. Mulch and plant material price through regional growers and wholesale nurseries. Each channel has its own pricing mechanics and its own gap between what you quoted and what you were charged.
The only national full-line wholesale landscape distributor. 670+ branches, 180,000 SKUs, 6,000 supplier relationships. Carries fertilizer, chemicals, mulch, soil amendments, nursery goods, hardscape, and irrigation. Fertilizer and control products are a major revenue line. siteone.com
Leading agricultural and turf fertilizer formulator and distributor. Supplies nitrogen, specialty nutrients, and crop protection products to landscaping and turf professionals nationwide. Fertilizer pricing tracks natural gas and nitrogen feedstock markets in real time. helenaagri.com
Major producer and distributor of turf and ornamental fertilizers under the Simplot subsidiary brands. Products distributed through regional landscape supply channels. Fertilizer pricing follows natural gas cost pass-through and seasonal availability. simplot.com
Plant material — trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals — is priced by the grower at time of order or delivery, not at time of your original bid. A quoted price per gallon on nursery stock at estimate time may not be the price on the delivery ticket weeks later. The Ledger captures that gap.
Mulch is a regional commodity priced by the yard or bag. Pricing at the yard or local supplier moves with diesel, wood chip availability, and seasonal demand. Bulk material deliveries billed per yard against a quoted price are a documented overcharge category — quantity short, price above quote, or both simultaneously.
Diesel is the operating cost that runs under every landscaping operation — every truck, every mow, every delivery. When diesel moves, fuel surcharges move. When fuel surcharges move, suppliers add them to invoice lines that had no surcharge on the original quote. The No. 2 diesel PPI (WPU05730302) reached 403.722 in February 2026, up 7.9% from October 2025.
Nitrogenous fertilizer — the nitrogen in every lawn program — is priced against natural gas, which is the feedstock for ammonia synthesis. The BLS PPI for nitrogenous fertilizer manufacturing (PCU325311325311) reached 501.671 in February 2026 — up 9.3% from October 2025 alone. That move gives every fertilizer supplier active justification to reprice. The question the Ledger answers is whether what hit your invoice tracks the index or exceeds it.
Mulch and plant material are regional pricing markets with no published index — which means your supplier sets the number and you have no external benchmark unless the Ledger maps your own invoice history against what you originally quoted. We record it. We measure it. We verify it. We do not provide financial advice.
Diesel, fertilizer, and plant material all moved in Q4 2025 through Q1 2026. Every one of those moves gives your supplier pricing justification. The Ledger documents whether your invoices reflect those moves accurately — or whether legitimate cost increases were used to expand margin beyond what the commodity market actually moved. That distinction is the proof package.
High transaction frequency, multiple supplier relationships, and commodity inputs with no published retail benchmark. These are the conditions where overcharge patterns are hardest to catch and easiest to sustain.
A specific NPK formulation quoted at a set price per bag. A different analysis — lower nitrogen percentage, cheaper filler ratio — delivered and billed at the quoted product's price. The bag looks identical on the pallet. Only the guaranteed analysis panel reveals the substitution, and the Ledger compares both.
Fuel surcharge added to delivery invoices during a diesel spike. Diesel stabilizes or drops. Surcharge remains as a permanent line item on every delivery — embedded into the per-unit price rather than tied to any actual fuel condition at the time of your order.
Mulch ordered and invoiced by the cubic yard. Actual delivered volume consistently short — truck loads running light, yard counts that don't match the invoice. On a large commercial account with multiple mulch deliveries per season, a half-yard short per truck accumulates into a real overcharge before the season closes.
Plant material — trees, shrubs, perennials — quoted by size and species at estimate. By install day, the grower or distributor has repriced. The delivery invoice reflects the new price with no change order and no notice. On a large landscape installation, plant material overcharges are the single largest per-job exposure.
Herbicide, fungicide, and insecticide products priced per unit at the start of the season. Each re-order carries a slightly higher price — 2%, 3%, 5% — with no supplier notification. Across a full season of chemical applications on dozens of accounts, compounding price creep on high-frequency products produces overcharges that no single order reflects.
Soil amendments, landscape fabric, edging, stakes, and seasonal color material added to jobs and billed without an agreed price. On a design-build job with multiple material categories, unquoted add-on spend is the largest single not-in-quote category — billed at the supplier's price with no benchmark on file.
The Ledger produces a complete proof package for your landscaping supplier relationships — SiteOne, fertilizer distributors, nursery accounts, and bulk material suppliers. Every discrepancy documented back to its source. Quote. Invoice. Line item. Dollar amount.
High-frequency transactions across multiple supplier relationships across a full season. The Ledger holds all of it simultaneously — the only way to see what no single invoice or supplier account ever shows.
Every overcharge sourced and documented. Hand it to your SiteOne rep, your fertilizer distributor, or your attorney — every number comes from their own invoices and your own quotes.
Every instance where what was delivered differed from what was quoted — by NPK analysis, active ingredient concentration, or product formulation. Documented and priced against the agreed specification.
Every soil amendment, every landscape accessory, every material add-on billed without an agreed price — exported as a spreadsheet. Send it to your supplier. They now have to respond with formal pricing.
Your invoice price history mapped against BLS PPI for diesel and nitrogenous fertilizer. See where your supplier's price increases track the market — and where they don't.
Full methodology documentation structured for your attorney — how every match was made, how every discrepancy was flagged, and how every source document was identified.
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