One gardener gets to be
Shear Power in Cardiff East.
Right now it's nobody.
The brand, the local web page, the customer sign-up, the scheduling app and the price calculator are already built — and already running a real round in Swansea. £197 puts all of it in your name for one area, with no monthly licence fee, and locks everybody else out of it.
Two minutes. No payment today, and no salesman rings you.
- No van. No £10,000 franchise fee. No training academy.
- One operator per area — 1 taken, 648 available · 9 founding places left
- No monthly licence fee — and your £197 never rises
Great businesses run on systems.
Building the system is the hard part.
Ask anyone whether it is faster to open a McDonald's or to build a burger shop from nothing. Nobody thinks the burgers are the hard bit. The hard bit is everything around them — the name people already trust, the way the day is organised, the till that just works.
Gardening is the same. You already know how to cut grass and trim a hedge. What takes the year off your life is the rest of it: a website nobody visits, quoting in the evenings, chasing money, a diary in your head, and being completely unknown to the street you are working on.
That is the part we have already built and already tested on a real round. You bring the graft and the local knowledge. You are not buying a job — you are skipping the year that most people never get through.
You could build all of this yourself.
Here is what that year looks like.
That road is walkable. Plenty of people walk it. It just takes a year, costs more than £197, and most give up somewhere in the middle of it — usually in the first wet winter.
This isn't a plan. It's already running.
This is the software the Swansea round is run on today. Not a mock-up. Not a roadmap. The diary, the crews, the prices, and the page a customer uses to book themselves while you are already out.
Your whole round on one screen
Three crews. Drag a job onto Tuesday at 8. It rains, you slide it — they get told, you do not ring anyone. Pale blocks have not paid yet. They go solid when the money lands. That is the whole system.
Name the van. Pick a colour.
The Limes. The Blue Dolphins. Add who is in it. The schedule already knows which jobs belong to which crew. You are not explaining the round twice.
They can see what they have got left
Priya wants Thursday. She has 28 days, John is already on the Friday, you tap Approve. Nobody is in the kitchen asking how much leave they have got.
Your prices. Their calculator.
Untick weed control — the knapsack is in pieces — and it vanishes from Get My Price before you pocket the phone. Fortnightly minimum, hedge by the foot, windows each. You set it once.
Write it once. Google keeps sending people.
“Why we stopped scarifying in August.” HQ tidies it, it goes on the site, someone searching that exact thing lands on your page. You were on a lawn at the time.
They book themselves. You were already out.
They draw the lawn on a map. The price is your price. The days they can pick are days a crew is actually free — because the rates, the hours and the diary are the same system. Then they pay. The evening you used to spend quoting just is not a thing any more.
“I'm early, and I'd rather have the map full of people who are good at this than have £10,000 off ten of them. That is the whole reason today's price is £197 to join — no monthly licence fee instead of £997 to join, then £67 a month. And to be clear, because I would want to know myself before handing anyone money: if you join at £197, you stay there. I am not coming back for the difference later. The higher price is for the people who turn up after this rate closes.”Ben Gillott Founder, Shear Power — still cutting grass in Swansea
What it costs to start a branded gardening business
| Route | Up front | Ongoing | Van | Exclusive area |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lawnscience franchise | ~£24,000 +VAT | Ongoing fees | Yes | Yes |
| Greensleeves franchise | ~£10,000 +VAT | Ongoing fees | Yes | Yes |
| On your own | £0 | Website, software and paid leads — plus a year of being invisible | No | No |
| Shear Power | £197 | Nothing | No | Yes |
Franchise figures are the fees those companies publish themselves. Check them — we would rather you did. They include equipment, formal training and a support department, and we do not pretend to match that. What we are is the version without the £24,000.
Everything in the box
- Exclusive rights to the Shear Power name in your area one operator, no exceptions
- Your own branded area page on an established site built & hosted
- The business app — schedule, customers, inbox, team, holidays included
- Customer sign-up and payments, running on your rates included
- The public price calculator for your area included
- Automated review capture included
- The printed Operations Manual, posted to you not published online
- Two branded work t-shirts posted with it
- Direct mentoring from Ben — not a call centre as needed
- Usual price for all of the above £997 to join, then £67 a month
- Founders offer £197 to join
- £1 per customer on each Stripe bill already automatic
The Operations Manual is posted, not emailed, and there is no digital copy. It is the part that took years to learn and it is not going out as a PDF anybody can forward.
Thirty days to get you running
Your area page live, your rates loaded, customer sign-up working and the app in your hands. If that has not happened within 30 days and the hold-up is at our end, ask and you get the whole £197 back.
What we will not guarantee is that you will make money — that depends on you turning up in the rain. We are selling sophisticated business management software and intellectual property, not leads.
- 1 gardening business already listed on the area page — the demand is not theoretical.
This is not for everybody
It works if…
- You already cut grass, or you are seriously about to start
- You would rather have 30 regular customers than chase one-off jobs
- You want your evenings back more than you want to build a website
- You are happy being the face of a brand in your own town
- You can start with a car, a roof rack and battery kit
Don't bother if…
- You want a business that runs without you — this is graft, in the rain
- You want a van, a uniform and a training academy handed over — that is the £24,000 option
- You expect leads on day one; the page has to earn them and so do you
- You want to undercut everyone locally and race to the bottom
- You are not willing to answer a customer within a day
From this form to a live round
-
Today · 2 minutes
You tell us the area
We check it is genuinely free and a sensible size to run — some are too big for one person and we would rather say so now.
-
Within a couple of days
A straight conversation
Not a pitch. We are both deciding, and we turn people down. Ask everything, including the awkward questions about money.
-
Same week
Agreement, payment, login
The licence agreement in writing, £197 to join, and your login to the office app the same day.
-
Day one
Your area goes live
Your rates go in, your page goes up, your sign-up form starts working, and the manual and t-shirts are in the post.
-
From then on
You run the round
Customers land on your page instead of somebody else's, and you get on with the part you are actually good at.
Cardiff East is available today.
It is available until somebody takes it.
No payment now and nothing is committed. We check the area, and if it has gone in the meantime we will tell you straight and show you what is left nearby.
- £197 to join — no monthly licence fee, locked. It does not rise later — the usual £997 to join, then £67 a month applies to whoever joins after this rate closes.
- One operator per area. 1 taken, 648 available · 9 founding places left.
- £1 per customer on each Stripe bill (monthly rounds and one-off jobs). That covers maps and API costs. There is no monthly licence fee on this offer.
- 30 days to get you live or your money back.
Claim Cardiff East
Takes about two minutes.
Also unclaimed nearby, if you cover more than one area:
The questions worth asking
Will my £197 go up to £997 later?
No. Not ever. This is the question we would ask first too, so here it is in plain English: you join at £197, with no monthly licence fee, and that is the number on the licence for as long as you keep the area. Nobody comes back for the difference.
£997 to join, then £67 a month is what a territory costs once this rate closes. It applies to the person who enquires after that — not to anyone already holding one.
It is written into the licence agreement as a fixed fee, so it is not a promise resting on us being nice about it. Read that clause before you pay anything.
What's the catch at £197?
That we are early. There are 649 UK areas on this site and 1 of them has somebody running it — 1 taken, 648 available. A brand with one operator in it is worth very little, so today's price is set to fill the map rather than to make money on licences.
The real catch, if you want to call it one, is that you are early too. You get the pick of the areas and a price nobody after you gets — and in exchange you are joining a name that most of your customers will not have heard of yet.
Do you take a cut of what I earn?
Not a percentage. We take £1 on each customer Stripe bill — the monthly round and any one-off job. That is already automatic, and it is what covers Google Maps and the other APIs each area uses. We do not take a share of your jobs, your subscriptions or your customers.
There is no monthly licence fee on this offer. Later operators pay one, for Twilio numbers, WhatsApp Business and marketing; you do not get switched onto it.
Is it really exclusive?
One operator per territory. Nobody else gets your area at any price while you hold it, and your area page is yours.
What does still exist underneath you is the local directory — other gardeners can pay for a listing on the area page below your panel. That is deliberate and it is on the table from the start: it keeps the page substantial in search, which is what makes it worth being at the top of.
How much can I actually earn?
Ben earns roughly £200–£300 on a working day in Swansea on lawn cuts and hedge trimming. That is his figure, on his round, after years of building it — not a projection for you, and not a typical first year.
What you earn depends on your area, your rates, how many days you work and how bad the winter is. Gardening is seasonal and weather exposed, which is exactly why window cleaning is part of the model. Anyone showing you a guaranteed income figure for this trade is selling you something.
What happens if I want out?
You can sell the area — a licensee does not resign, they own the business. There is no multi-year tie-in and no exit fee. Your customers are your customers — you built those relationships and you keep them. What returns to us is the Shear Power name, the area page and the app.
The full terms are in the licence agreement, which you get in writing before you pay anything. Read it, and have somebody else read it too.
Do I need a van and £5,000 of kit?
No. A car or estate with a roof rack does it. The model runs on battery kit — quieter, no fuel to carry, fits in a boot, and no complaints from the neighbours at half eight in the morning. Petrol gear is for the occasional overgrown job, hired if needed.
You will need your own public liability insurance. That is on you, and it is not expensive.
What if Shear Power disappears?
Fair question and one most people are too polite to ask. You would keep your customers and your reputation — those are yours, not ours. What you would lose is the name, the page and the app. That is the honest risk of paying £197 instead of £24,000 for a business with a support department behind it.
Can you guarantee I'll succeed?
Of course not, and be wary of anyone who does. We guarantee our own end of it — live within 30 days or your money back. The rest is turning up, doing a tidy job and answering the phone. We turn down people we do not think will do that, which is the only quality control that actually protects the name.
No payment today. 1 taken, 648 available · 9 founding places left.