To the original question of TurfCare vs Lesco and what the differences between the brands are.. I wasn't sure if you are referring to the general companies as a whole or to the products themselves. Since cost seems to be the cause of your inquiry we can address that.
Both are suppliers for the LCO market and that's their target audience. This reality that they cater to contractors also translates to their pricing, which is very typical of any industry where tiered contractor pricing is differs from list price. Sherwin Williams paints is a one that comes to mind. My 'contractor' account with them nets me about 20-25% discount. My painter gets 50% off that same product.. and Sherwin's margins are obviously still good at that price since painters are the bulk of their sales! So they probably price their product at 20% margin for their big contractors, and 100-200% margins for retail walk-ins... and varying tiers in-between. Same thing with these suppliers.. what I get for 30% off the next guy gets 50%. Your place in the tier ultimately determines your cost. If you have a large-enough lawn or buy other products (lighting, irrigation, etc) you can try & open a contractor account to get some pricing advantage (this varies according to tier, but better than nothing). Or if you have a relationship with the store manager you can just ask for a better price on whatever you're buying. It reduces their overall profit so they're not too willing to oblige but if you're not afraid to ask you may just get it. That's what I did before opening my account with SiteOne years ago, but that manager seemed amused by my interest in lawn care and that may have helped. The new guy is a stickler for numbers and won't budge. Ag suppliers are another option (we have some Southern States affiliated supply houses in my area). These guys seem to carry agricultural specialty products mostly (triple super-phosphate, 34-0-0, etc) and seem clueless about advanced fertilizer technologies. 🤷🏻‍♂️
As for the products themselves there's only so much variation in manufacturing technologies, and both these players seem to be doing the same thing. Neither seems to be a niche/boutique-type blender by any means. They're both NPK players that include the myriad nitrogen-controlling technologies available, essentially coatings & inhibitors. What one calls PolyPlus the other calls XCU, and so on. If you're particular about a certain technology (you need 3month release, for ex) then you can dig into the technologies to see which technology allows for that and under what circumstances. That's the only way to compare. Otherwise it's simply a pricing channel decision. I don't think you can go wrong with either one, from a product perspective.
