Are You Overpaying for Piecemeal Service Contracts?

When was the last time you looked closely at your exterior maintenance contracts?

If you're like many property and facility managers, you may have inherited a patchwork of vendor relationships—one for landscaping, another for snow removal, a third for pressure washing or lot sweeping. It might seem efficient to work with “specialists” in each area, but piecemeal service contracts often lead to higher overall costs, more administrative headaches, and gaps in accountability.

Here’s why a fragmented approach could be costing you more than you think—and what to consider instead.

1. Administrative Burden Adds Up

Each separate vendor means:

• A separate contract to manage

• Individual invoicing schedules

• Varying insurance requirements

• Different communication protocols

Multiply that by 10, 20, or 100 locations, and your team is spending more time tracking vendors than managing the property.

2. You Likely Don’t Know Your True Total Cost

When services are spread across multiple vendors, platforms, and billing methods, it becomes nearly impossible to understand your true total cost of exterior maintenance.

Costs may be buried in different GL codes, span multiple departments, or vary by location and vendor—making portfolio-wide budgeting and forecasting a challenge. Without full visibility, it’s hard to negotiate better pricing or justify budget increases, and easy to miss duplication or overspending.

3. Missed Opportunities for Volume Pricing

Vendors offering bundled services often provide pricing incentives for multi-service or multi-location agreements. If your landscaping provider doesn’t also handle snow removal or exterior cleaning, you’re likely missing out on significant savings by not consolidating.

4. Accountability Gets Fuzzy

When multiple vendors are involved, it’s easy for tasks to fall through the cracks—or for one vendor to blame another when something isn’t done right.

A consolidated provider is easier to hold accountable. There’s one point of contact, one service standard, and one clear line of communication.

5. Inconsistent Service Across Locations

With multiple vendors, quality and responsiveness can vary from site to site. That inconsistency reflects on your brand and can be especially problematic if you’re managing properties across regions or nationally.

Adding to the challenge, photo documentation and service verification are often scattered across emails, text threads, or separate vendor portals—making it difficult to confirm what was done, when, and where. At Strategic Grounds Management, our WatchDog™ Program changes that. We centralize site photos, time-stamped service logs, and property condition updates in one dashboard, so you always have real-time visibility across your entire portfolio.

Is It Time to Consolidate?

Here are a few signs that you may be overpaying or underperforming with your current model:

• You're juggling multiple vendor contacts for each property

• Your AP department is overwhelmed with exterior service invoices

• You don’t have visibility into your total exterior spend across locations

• You have little insight into real-time service status or performance

• You suspect you’re not getting the best value—but aren’t sure how to measure it

✅ Quick Self-Check: Consolidation Red Flags

Use this mini checklist to evaluate your current setup:

🧾 Contracts & Invoicing

• Separate vendors for each service

• Multiple invoices per month, per property

💸 Cost Visibility

• No clear view of total exterior spend

• Costs spread across codes, teams, or systems

📞 Communication & Accountability

• No single point of contact

• Unclear responsibilities between vendors

📍 Portfolio Consistency

• Varying quality across sites

• Service photos and updates not centralized

• No system-wide tracking of site conditions

📥 Want the full checklist?
Download our printable Exterior Services Consolidation Checklist to score your current setup and identify areas for savings and efficiency.

👉 Download the Full Checklist (PDF)