Enter your lawn size and see the honest 2026 comparison: what each route costs, and how long until you can actually use the lawn.
Quick answer: Seed costs about a fifth as much as turf: £1–£2.50 per m² against £5–£10 per m² if you lay it yourself, at 2026 prices. Both need the same prepared soil underneath. The trade-off is time — turf is ready to use in 2–3 weeks, seed needs 8–12. For a 50m² lawn that's roughly £75 of seed against £350 of turf.
Prices checked July 2026 · how we check them
Rough size is fine — pace it out: one stride ≈ 0.9 m.
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Costs exclude the prepared topsoil bed, which both routes need equally — see our topsoil calculator for that part.
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Prices checked July 2026 · how we check them
These figures are planning estimates. Seed prices assume quality mixes (85%+ germination); turf figures match our turf calculator. Both routes fail on poor preparation far more often than on product choice.
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Turf is real grass that someone else has already grown. It arrives as rolls, like carpet. You unroll it onto prepared soil, and in two or three weeks you have a lawn.
Seed means growing the grass yourself. You scatter it on prepared soil, keep it watered, and wait. It costs far less, but the lawn takes two or three months to be ready to walk on.
Both need the same thing first: bare, level, raked soil. Getting the ground ready is most of the work whichever one you pick.
Seed costs about a fifth as much as turf, but takes about four times as long. That is the whole choice — everything else is detail. Good seed goes on at 35–50g per m² and costs £1–£2.50/m² with a pre-seed feed (a fertiliser you spread before sowing, to help the young grass get going). Turf costs £5–£10/m² and gives you an instant lawn — but it is living grass, so it must be laid the same day it arrives or it starts to die in the roll. Both go on top of the same prepared bed (bare soil, raked flat and firmed down), so the ground work — often the biggest cost of all — is the same either way and won't help you choose.
Pick turf if you want to use the garden this month, if you have kids or dogs who won't stay off the grass for weeks, or if the ground slopes — rain washes seed downhill, but turf stays put. Pick seed if you can leave the lawn alone for 8–12 weeks, if you want a particular type of grass (one that copes with shade, or heavy use, or gives a fine show lawn), or if the price matters more than the wait.
Prices checked July 2026 and consistent with our turf and topsoil calculators. Rounded ranges, not quotes.
| Seed | Turf | |
|---|---|---|
| Materials (per m²) | £1–£2.50 | £5–£10 |
| Usable lawn in | 8–12 weeks | 2–3 weeks |
| Best time of year to start | Sep–Oct, Apr | Sep–Nov, Mar–Apr |
| Slopes & awkward shapes | Rain washes it away | Fine |
| Choice of grass type | You pick exactly | Whatever the farm grew |
| Birds & weeds while it grows in | A real fight | Barely an issue |
| Goes off after delivery? | No — seed keeps | Yes — lay same day |
• The calendar — need the lawn ready by a set date (a party, a house sale, the summer holidays)? That's turf. No deadline? Then seed's saving is money for nothing.
• Size — on a big lawn, turf's extra cost per m² adds up to hundreds of pounds. Seed barely gets dearer as the lawn gets bigger.
• The waiting weeks — seed needs watering every day, plus netting to keep the birds off, for weeks on end. Turf needs one hard day of laying, then just watering.
• Repairs later — whichever you pick, keep a box of matching seed. Overseeding (scattering fresh seed over thin patches, at 15–25g/m²) is how every lawn stays looking good.
For materials, seed is about five times cheaper: good seed for a new lawn costs £1–£2.50 per m² (spread at 35–50g/m²), against £5–£10 per m² for turf you lay yourself. On a 50m² lawn that's roughly £75 of seed against £350 of turf. The prepared soil underneath costs the same either way.
Turf is ready to walk on in 2–3 weeks. Seed needs 8–12 weeks of being left alone first — ryegrass (the fast-growing grass in most seed mixes) sprouts in 5–10 days, but sprouting and being strong enough to walk on are different things. If you're seeding, count backwards from when you want the lawn: sow in April and you have a lawn for the summer; sow in September and you have one by next spring.
The same two windows for both: early autumn first, spring second. The soil is warm, the rain does the watering for you, and weeds grow more slowly. Mid-summer is the worst time for either — you would be watering non-stop. Seed also hates cold soil below ~8°C, so seed sown between November and February mostly ends up feeding the birds.
In the long run, seed can edge it: you choose the exact grass for your garden (shade, heavy use, or a fine show lawn), and grass grown from seed puts down deeper roots because it grows where it stands. Turf wins on instant cover, on keeping weeds out while it settles in, and on slopes, where rain washes seed away. After two years of decent care, honestly, nobody can tell the difference.
Yes — and preparation is where new lawns are won or lost. You need cleared ground with 100–150mm of decent topsoil (the dark, rich top layer of soil that grass roots into), firmed down and raked level. Use our topsoil calculator for that part, or the new lawn planner to cost the soil and turf together in one go.
Every price band on this page traces to a source we checked ourselves, with the date we checked it. Prices move — if one of these looks out of date, tell us and we'll recheck it.
We'll carry this over — your real lawn and the size you just worked out — and you can add anything else you're thinking about: clearance, paving, decking, fencing, lawn, driveways, planting. You end up with one brief to send to three landscapers, so they all price the same job and you can see which one has quietly left something out.
Doing it yourselves? It sizes your materials list too. Already holding a quote? It gives you the same numbers we'd check it against.
