For a few years, we had our yard mowed by Big T, who we hired through GreenPal. He did a pretty decent job, was almost always right on time (or within one day) unless weather was an issue, and let us know when he couldn’t make it. He did raise his prices a little over the course of several years but was still not what I’d call expensive.
Last year, he contacted me and said he was trying to get off of GreenPal because of their fee increases and some other issues, but he could keep cutting our grass at the same price. And I said yes. But without that service he wasn’t as well organized; sometimes he’d mow and not text me (which was my prompt to pay) and a couple of times he managed to lose us in the schedule entirely.
At the start of this mowing season I looked for other bids. I went with All Star Solutions in sort-of-nearby-ish-but-not-really Collinsville. He was cheap and seemed reliable and had good reviews; he had worked for another lawn company and was branching out on his own.
Well. He didn’t mow as well as Big T, but… good enough, I thought. Then a couple of times he had to reschedule, and I thought, well, growing pains of a new business, I’ll keep giving him a chance. And it started happening more — he’d reschedule on GreenPal without contacting me. He apologized and said he was hiring some extra help to make things go faster. But then it happened again, repeatedly. Once it was more than four weeks between mowings, instead of two. Then he had some equipment problems and more delays. Then when we got the new retaining wall, my instructions about what to mow and what to leave alone confused him. Then he had vehicle trouble. Then he injured himself. And now he’s cancelled with “I don’t have the equipment for the job” given as the reason, again four weeks after the last time he mowed here. GreenPal automatically started a new bid search and there’s one early hit but I’m not sure about those ratings, so I’m hoping for other options.
Looking at All Star’s profile on GreenPal — which I had to use a separate browser for because my logged-in one refuses to show me anything but the “Hire one of your bids now!” page, including any way to log out — he has a 5/5 star rating and a 92% reliability score — because instead of missing a scheduled mowing he’s always just reschedule it in their system! They don’t show how many times he’s done that to people. And the rating system always made me feel reluctant to give less than 5 stars even for a half-assed job.
My parents use another service, which I think they may have found through GreenPal, but they also have a website where you can hire them directly. We’ll see how the bid thing goes.