2026年园林绿化技术趋势报告：为何忙碌不等于盈利

Why Busy Isn’t Always Profitable Methodology To benchmark how software adoption correlates with business outcomes, Thrive Analytics surveyed510 commercial landscaping professionals, including 254 Aspire customers and 256 users ofcompeting platforms, from December 23, 2025, through January 19, 2026. All respondents generate more than 50% of revenue in the commercial landscaping segment. The study benchmarks operational practices, financial outcomes, and technology maturity, with aspecific focus on how platform integration relates to profitability, efficiency, scalability, and competitivepositioning. The following summarizes the results of the survey, with all stated metrics based solely onthose who responded. ExecutiveSummary The landscaping industry spent years chasing growth. More crews. More accounts. More revenue.And the logic made sense at the time: if you’re busy, you’re winning. But busy isn’t the same as profitable. Many contractors are figuring that out the hard way. Labor costs are up. Supply chains are volatile. And the margin you thought you had on that contract?It quietly disappeared somewhere between the estimate and the invoice. You didn’t find out until themonth-end close. That’s the moment this industry is in right now. 59% of contractors plan to grow revenue in 2026. But 47% say increasing margins is now a toppriority. Those two goals aren’t always in conflict, but they require different systems to pursuesimultaneously. Among contractors still relying on manual tools, none in our survey sample reported profit marginsabove 15%. More than 50% believe their current setup will restrict their growth over the next fiveyears. When reporting lags behind operations, you’re trapped making decisions based on lastmonth’s data. The contractors with a stronger outlook share a pattern: tighter system consolidation, shorterreporting cycles, and visibility into how a job is tracking before it closes. Enterprise platforms,including Aspire, which accounted for roughly half of our survey sample, show higher concentrationsof these characteristics. But how deeply your tools are embedded into daily operations matters justas much as which tools you choose. Just having technology doesn’t mean you’re improving operations. Almost half of contractors usingsoftware are still struggling with critical business functions such as scheduling and invoicing. Evenamong businesses with software, many have tools that live alongside their work rather than within it. This report looks at where the industry actually stands heading into 2026 across tool maturity,efficiency, margin performance, and growth confidence. KeyFindings •When Revenue Grows Faster than Margin 59% of contractors plan to grow revenue in 2026. But 47% say increasing margins is now a top priority. Those two goals requiredifferent systems to pursue simultaneously, and the data suggests most contractors aren’t there yet. •When Software Exists but Doesn’t Actually Work 46% of contractors still struggle with scheduling, and 43% still struggle with invoicing, even with software in place. Among non-Aspireenterprise users, 43% lack estimating tools and 35% lack job costing. There’s software, and then there’s software that’s embeddedinto every aspect of your operations. Guess which one makes an impact on your bottom line. •When the Reconciliation Never Ends Just saving time isn’t enough. Spreadsheet users save less than 5 hours a week, and 45% of them report being slightly or not at allsatisfied with their workflow. But contractors with optimized platforms are 5× more likely to save up to 20 hours, nearly half a full-timerole, per week. Time reclaimed without adding headcount. •When Your Toolkit Has Too Many Pieces Among contractors on competing platforms, 17% manage 7 or more separate tools, nearly 50% more than the 11% of Aspire users inthe same situation. Meanwhile, 65% of Aspire users rely on only 1–4 core systems. Fewer tools with deeper integration can correlatewith higher margins and lower administrative overhead. •When Scale Starts to Feel Manageable Over 50% of spreadsheet users believe their current system will restrict future growth, and 40% forecast a decline in profits this year.Among contractors on integrated platforms, 79% feel prepared to scale over the next five years, and 49% forecast profit growth. Chapter 1:When Growth Outruns Visibility For a long time, the math felt simple. Win more contracts, add more crews, grow the top line.Profitability was something you’d sort out once the business got big enough to hire someone to worryabout it. That math doesn’t work anymore. Revenue growth is a goal for over half of contractors this year. But almost the same number alsowant to increase their margins. These twin priorities signal that the industry isn’t abandoning growth.It’s getting more careful about what growth actually costs. And the data shows that costs are often invisible until it’s too late to fix them. Among contractors