Reading Aspire's 2026 Contractor Survey Before You Spend

What Aspire's 2026 report says, in brief

Aspire Software, a ServiceTitan company, released its Commercial Landscape Industry Report under a 2026 title. The release carrying it is dated October 7, 2025, according to Barchart's syndicated copy of the press release, so that is the date to cite. Aspire describes the sample as more than 1,000 US commercial landscaping professionals, and the release counts 1,015 contractors across regions, revenue tiers and business maturity levels.

Coverage frames the findings around client retention, operational efficiency and technology investment, set against labor shortages and rising costs, according to Turf Magazine. Those are the report's themes. I could not confirm published percentages for client retention, wage increases or efficiency software spending, because the full report and its charts sit behind a download form.

The honest summary is short. The report tells you what contractors say they prioritize. It does not tell you what peers actually spent, or what those choices returned. Use it to frame questions for your team, not as a benchmark for your budget.

Why the dates need checking before you quote it

A survey's timing shapes its answers. One aggregator summary lists fieldwork from May 2 to May 23, 2025, which would place the data months before the October release. I did not confirm those dates against Aspire's methodology page, so treat them as a lead to verify.

Ask for both dates: when contractors answered, and when the report was published. A 2026 label can describe a forecast for the year ahead. That is a different claim from a record of what happened in the field.

Who ran the survey, and why it matters

Aspire says Thrive Analytics, which it describes as an independent research firm, conducted the survey. Aspire is itself a ServiceTitan company, so the report is vendor published regardless of who did the fieldwork. Neither fact makes the findings wrong. Both mean the design deserves a close read first.

A software maker benefits when contractors feel urgency about technology. Respondents who answer a software company's survey may also lean toward firms already comfortable with software tools. That is a question to put to the vendor, not a verdict on the data.

How do you read a vendor survey without overreaching?

Six checks take an afternoon, and they change how much weight a headline deserves.

• Sample frame: who was invited, and how respondents were recruited.
• Counts by region and revenue tier, so one large group does not set the average.
• Question format: ranked priorities, agree or disagree scales and open answers produce different headline numbers.
• Definitions: the report should spell out what counts as efficiency software, rather than folding it into general technology spending.
• Denominators: a share measured against all respondents differs from one measured only against those who answered that question.
• Disclosure: the report should state any weighting, margin of error and excluded groups.

What should contractors check against their books?

The report's themes map onto records most firms already keep. Client retention lives in renewal and cancellation history, by property. Wage pressure lives in payroll divided by crew hours. Efficiency tech lives in hours logged per visit on the same routes.

Pull those three lines for the last two seasons and test any survey claim against them. If peers report investing in software, your question is narrower: did crew hours per visit drop after your change, and by how much? Write that figure down before you compare anything.

Margin comes last, and it is the check a national survey cannot perform for you. Job level gross margin by service line shows if a new tool or a wage adjustment actually moved money through the business.

Labor shortage and cost claims: where to test them first

Labor shortage language is easy to repeat and hard to pin down. Test it against your own unfilled hours, overtime and turnover by crew. If those lines are flat, a sector wide shortage headline may matter far less to your operation than it does to the press cycle around it.

Rising costs deserve the same treatment. Compare input costs and labor cost per visit for your top three services, not an industry average. A cost trend that hits your fuel and labor lines differently from a peer's is a finding you can act on.

Where equipment fits the efficiency question

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A survey does not settle whether equipment earns its place on a site. A site assessment, a single defined task and a baseline drawn from logs you already keep do. Judge the answer on that record, with a review date set before the trial starts.

How do you run the first check this season?

Choose one repeatable task with clean records, such as a standing route or a recurring crew assignment. Record its hours, materials and callbacks for two full seasons before anything changes.

Write the change, the measurement window and the decision rule down before the work starts. A workable rule says the change must beat the baseline across the whole window, not during one good stretch of weather.

Share the result with the crew leads who logged the hours. Their notes often explain a gap that a spreadsheet hides, such as a route that changed after a fence line moved.