Question
We recently moved into a new home and am in the process of getting bids from Landscapers.  We receivd one bid that was divided into three sections: material costs, labor costs, and commission for the landscaper in the amount of 25%.  Is this % acceptable?  What is an average comission for landscapers?  Is there an acceptable range for this cost?

Answer
Landscapers usually don't work on commissions. A sales person works on a commission. A landscape designer may work on a commission too. In that case the typical would be a small% of the gross sale price of the job, that is unless they are the ones managing and paying for the labor and materials for the construction up front, in which case they would probably want something like 20-25% as the general contractor. This would also mean that they would or should also carry the proper insurances, etc.

Most landscapers work on profit margins. Their profit margin would be typical between 10 and 35%. Anything over 20 -25% would be on the high side but not unheard of. Some I have worked on get a 35% margin. But that is very high end and not competitive.

If you have three bids though, you need to request they all be in the same format. We usually ask for line item bids with labor, materials, profit, warranty costs, admin costs, etc all lumped in to unit cost for each item in the bid. This way we can compare apples to apples.
Best of Luck.
Sean