I am writing this in the first week of September on purpose. Christmas light installation is the one home service where the calendar does most of the selling, and the calendar is not patient. Installs cluster in late October and November. In the plan below they land on weekends, with the hour after dusk kept for switch-ons and service calls, because that is when a customer can see the result. Takedowns in January are a second billable visit. If you have a job and want a side business that fits around it, this is the most naturally weekend-shaped trade I know of, and it only works if the setup is done before the phone starts ringing.
The person I keep pointing people to is Steve Hunsaker, profiled by DollarSprout. He worked in tech sales, started with a ladder, gear ordered online, a Ford Fusion and YouTube tutorials, and made over $30,000 in his first season in 2020. He did just over $100,000 in his second season across about two months, and the profile says he now does more than $800,000 a season. I am quoting his numbers because they are published with his name on them. Most first seasons are smaller, and how much smaller is unknown, because nobody publishes the median.
The rest of this post is the plan I would follow to run a first season without quitting anything.
Why the calendar makes this a side hustle, and why booking starts in September
Jobber Academy's guide to starting a Christmas light business says to start marketing in late October. The seasonal demand index we use inside VibeAds for Christmas lighting runs 0.3 from January through June, then 0.5 in July, 0.8 in August, 1.2 in September, 1.8 in October, 2.0 in November and 1.5 in December. That index is what we use for budget planning, not a measurement of search volume, and it rises from 0.8 in August to a 2.0 peak in November before falling back to 0.3 in January.
That is good news for someone with a job. The install work happens on Saturdays and Sundays. The two hours after dusk on weekdays are for the reveal, timer checks and service calls, which is when a customer wants to see the lights anyway. It is bad news for anyone who starts thinking about it in November, because by then the installers with a supplier account and insurance are booked.
So the order is: September for setup and your first practice houses, October for booking and the first paid installs, November for the heavy weekends, December for service calls and takedown bookings, January for takedowns and storage.
What it costs to start: the Jobber Academy numbers, and what you already own
Jobber Academy puts the startup cost at $1,940 to $2,715 or more, broken down as:
| Item | Jobber's range |
|---|---|
| Business license and registration | $75 to $400 |
| Business insurance | $400 to $700+ |
| Home service software | $400 |
| Branded uniform and boots | $50 to $200 |
| Outdoor lighting equipment | $865+ |
| DIY website and business cards | $150 |
You can shave that. You probably already own a phone, a vehicle and a ladder, or can borrow one for the first weekend. Hunsaker started in a sedan. The software line can be a spreadsheet for one season. The two lines you should not shave are insurance and the lights themselves, because a cheap light set that fails in week three costs you a Saturday and a review.
Open an account with a commercial lighting supplier in September. Consumer lights from a big-box store are fine for practicing on your own house and are not fine for a customer's roofline you have to warranty through January.
Two models: sell-and-install versus lease-and-install
There are two ways to structure the job, and you should pick one before your first quote.
Sell-and-install: the customer buys the lights, you install them, and you charge separately for takedown in January. Lower cash outlay for you, and the customer owns a box of lights they will ask you to reinstall next year.
Lease-and-install: you own the lights, you install them, you take them down and store them, and the customer pays a package price each season. HomeAdvisor's holiday lighting cost guide puts rental packages that include install and takedown at $250 to $600. You carry the inventory cost and the storage problem. In exchange you have a customer who rebooks by default, which is the whole business by year three.
My honest read for a first season: sell-and-install for most customers, because it keeps your cash at risk near zero, plus lease-and-install for the two or three houses on your own street that you want as permanent accounts. You will know by January which model you want to be in.
Ladders, roofs, and the insurance conversation you have before the first quote
Get an insurance quote in September, before you have a customer. Jobber's range for business insurance is $400 to $700 and up, and the number for you depends on whether you work from ladders only or go on roofs. Tell the agent exactly what you plan to do. In the same week, check what your state and city require to do this work for pay. Registration is universal, some places want a permit or a license for exterior electrical work, and the rules are local. Jobber's $75 to $400 line covers registration, not a contractor license.
Then decide what you will say no to. Steep roofs, two-story rooflines with no safe ladder placement, and anything over a conservatory or a pool. HomeAdvisor notes that hard-to-reach roofs cost about 20 percent more, and the reason they cost more is that they hurt people. In a first season, a no is cheaper than a hospital.
I am not going to write a safety procedure here because I am not qualified to. Get ladder training from someone who is, and make the insurance quote part of the plan, not an afterthought.
Pricing by the foot and by the visit: published ranges, and why the takedown is a second job
Do not price from your gut. Price from published ranges and your own hours.
HomeAdvisor's 2026 guide says professional installation costs $220 to $684 with a typical project around $444. Pros charge $2.50 to $7 per linear foot, of which labor is $2 to $5 per foot, and lights bought separately add $0.50 to $2 per foot. Wrapping a small tree runs $75 to $200. Removal alone is $100 to $400, or roughly $0.50 per linear foot. Jobber quotes an installer whose minimum is $495 with an average job around $1,000.
Here is an illustrative quote for a single-story house with 150 feet of roofline and two small trees, using round numbers inside HomeAdvisor's labor ranges, since in sell-and-install the customer buys the lights:
Roofline install: 150 ft x $4.00 = $600
Two small trees: 2 x $120 = $240
Takedown (January): HomeAdvisor floor = $100
Season total: $940
The takedown is a second visit and a second invoice, and customers accept it when you say so in the first quote. The $495 minimum, like the installer Jobber quotes, is what it takes for an eight-hour Saturday to still pay after the driving between houses. If you want the full formula for setting your own hourly rate, I wrote it up in How to Price Tree Work by Man-Hours; the arithmetic is the same for lights.
The season calendar, September to January, for someone with a job
| Weeks | Do this | Hours that week |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 8 to 21 | Insurance quote, business registration, supplier account, practice install on your own house and photograph it | 6 to 8 |
| Sep 22 to Oct 5 | First five customers from people who already know you: friends, your street, your gym. Knock the four doors around each install (the four corners method) | 8 to 10, mostly Saturday |
| Oct 6 to 19 | Post the practice photos on Nextdoor and Facebook Marketplace. If October Saturdays still have holes after the first five customers: record the callback voicemail, trim the ad schedule to lunch, evenings and weekends, then turn on $10 a day with call ads. Ten reviews is the usual gate before ads; a single season does not allow it, so the practice-house photos and your first five reviews stand in | 8 to 10 |
| Oct 20 to Nov 23 | Install weekends, two to three houses a Saturday. Keep the after-dusk weeknight hour for switch-ons, timer checks and the walk-around, and do ladder work in daylight. Ask for the referral in the driveway | 12 to 16 |
| Nov 24 to Dec 20 | Service calls (a strand out, a timer), late bookings at a premium, book every takedown for January while you are on the phone | 4 to 6 |
| Jan 2 to 25 | Takedowns, storage, a text to every customer asking to rebook next year at the same price if they book before March | 8 to 10 |
The hours are my estimate for a one-person operation, not a measurement. They are heavy in November and near zero from February to August, which is either the appeal or the problem, depending on what you want.
What a lead is worth, and why ads run in October, not December
The benchmark table behind our budget calculator puts Christmas light installation at about $8 per click on Google Ads and a lead value of roughly $400 to the business. The calculator assumes 8 percent of clicks turn into a lead, which is an assumption, not a fact about your page.
Illustrative math for a $10-a-day campaign in October:
Spend: $300 for the month
Clicks: $300 / $8 = ~37
Leads (8%): 37 x 0.08 = ~3
Cost per lead: $300 / 3 = ~$100
Lead value: ~$400
Three leads for $300 is worth doing when a job is $900. Now look at the seasonal index again: 1.8 in October, 2.0 in November, 1.5 in December. The people searching in October are planning. The people searching on December 12 wanted lights yesterday and will call the first installer who answers. Run the ads in October and the first half of November, when the searchers still have open Saturdays on your calendar, and pause them when your November weekends are full.
Two Google Ads settings matter more here than anywhere else. Ad scheduling shows your ads only on the days and hours you choose, which for you is evenings and weekends. A click-to-call number in the ad, which Google calls a call asset, lets a searcher on a phone tap to call. Around a day job that only works with two other things in place: the schedule trimmed to hours you can pick up, and a voicemail that names the time you call back, so a 2 pm Tuesday call becomes a 6 pm callback instead of a lost job.
Because this campaign is paused about 42 weeks a year, it is a strange fit for an agency retainer and a natural fit for software. VibeAds builds the campaign with the negatives set and a default business-hours schedule, which you trim in Google Ads to evenings and weekends before it goes live. The free tier shows you the campaign for your city in September; switching it on in October is $20 a month, and you pay Google for the clicks. The Google Ads for Christmas Light Companies page has the sample campaign and the real cost numbers.
See what $300 of October ads returns for lights, using the same benchmark tableHow much do Christmas light installers charge?
Published cost guides put professional installation at $220 to $684 per house with a typical project around $444, or $2.50 to $7 per linear foot of roofline, with labor making up $2 to $5 of that. Takedown is usually a separate charge of $100 to $400, or about $0.50 per foot. Installers who lease the lights and include install and takedown charge $250 to $600 per package. Minimums matter: one installer Jobber profiles has a $495 minimum and averages about $1,000 per job.
When should you start advertising Christmas light installation?
Start in early October. Our seasonal demand index for the category rises from 1.2 in September to 2.0 in November, and Jobber's guide says to start marketing in late October, which is already late for someone who has to install on weekends only. Book your October and early November Saturdays first, then pause ads when the calendar is full. The setup work, insurance, supplier account and practice installs, belongs in September.
Can you run a Christmas light business on weekends only?
Yes, with two caveats. In the plan above the installs land on weekends, because that is when a customer is home and can see the result. I have no data on when the trade as a whole installs; the point is that a weekends-only installer is not obviously at a disadvantage on scheduling. The caveats are November evenings, when demand peaks and a two-hour after-work install on a nearby house is the difference between a good season and a great one, and January, when every customer wants the lights down in the same three weeks. Plan for eight to sixteen hours a week in November and near zero from February to August.
The rest of the weekend plan
This post is one trade. The five-day email plan below covers the part that is the same for every weekend business: which trades survive a day job, pricing for eight billable hours a week, first customers without ads, the callback system for the calls you miss at 2 pm, and the three numbers that say when to go full time.
Five emails, one a day. Free. No course at the end.
Every post for this audience lives in the Side Hustle section of the blog.