Cash runway for landscaping and trades businesses: how many months do you really have?

Runway turns money stress into a plan. For landscaping and trades businesses there's one twist in the math.

Guide · FantasyLab ·

The worked example

GreenLine Yards, a landscaping crew, holds $31,500 in cash against a monthly burn of $5,700, with everything in it: rent, gear, software and the owner draw. That's 5.5 months of runway at the current burn. It's above the four-month line, so the owner can plan in seasons instead of weeks.

The method, plainly

Runway = cash on hand ÷ monthly burn, using your heaviest recent burn month rather than your cheapest. The main runway guide has the full reasoning and what to do at each level, and the calculator runs it on your numbers in your browser.

The twist for landscaping and trades businesses

Seasonal businesses should read runway at the season trough, not the annual average. June always survives. What matters is whether the cash on October 1 carries the crew to March.

Keep reading

  1. 01How many months of cash does your business actually have?
  2. 02Cash runway calculator with a thin-months warning
  3. 03How much should landscaping pay themselves?

Counsel

Counsel does this math on your real numbers.

Connect Stripe, Square, Shopify, Etsy, QuickBooks or a bank feed, or drop in a CSV. Every answer comes with a receipt that shows the method, the sample size and how confident it is. When the math isn't conclusive, the app says so.

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Every figure on this page is computed from Counsel's demo businesses or from the numbers you type in. None of them are made up. This is cash math, not tax or legal advice. Written and kept up to date by the founder.