Pool Service business guide
How to price weekly pool service
Price weekly pool service from your cost per stop, not from the cheapest flyer in the neighborhood. Add up drive time, minutes at the pool, chemicals and overhead, multiply by the stops in a month, then add margin. In many markets a standard residential pool lands somewhere around $120 to $220 a month with chemicals included, but your own math decides the floor.
Most new pool service owners set their weekly price by looking at door hangers from the other guys and knocking a little off. That's how you end up with a full route and an empty bank account. The honest way to price weekly service is to know what one stop costs you, then build the monthly rate on top of it.
What one stop really costs
Every pool on your route carries the same handful of costs. Some are obvious, some hide until tax time.
- Drive time to the stop. The minutes between the last pool and this one, at what your time or your tech's time is worth.
- Time at the pool. Skimming, brushing, vacuuming when needed, emptying baskets, testing, dosing, and checking the equipment pad. A clean screened pool might take 12 minutes; a pool under an oak can take 30.
- Chemicals. Chlorine, acid, and the occasional salt, stabilizer or algaecide. This swings with bather load, sun, rain and the season.
- Overhead. Truck, fuel, insurance, test reagents, poles and brushes, phone, software and license fees, spread across your billable stops.
Chemical cost is the line that bites. In a hot, rainy stretch, a busy pool can drink twice the chlorine it used in spring, and if your price includes chemicals, that comes out of your pocket.
Worked example: a one-truck route
Example numbers
An owner runs about 70 weekly pools, roughly 14 stops a day, five days a week. Yearly overhead (truck payment, fuel, insurance, tools, software, phone) comes to about $30,000, or roughly $36 per pool per month.
Average time per stop, drive included, is about 25 minutes. Over a month that's about 4.3 visits, or 1.8 hours per pool. At a labor value of $30 an hour, that's about $54.
Chemicals average about $35 per pool per month across the year, higher in summer, lower in winter.
Cost per pool: $36 overhead + $54 labor + $35 chemicals = about $125 a month before any profit.
A $130 rate barely breaks even once one pool goes green. A rate of $150 to $165 leaves room for a real margin and a bad chemical month.
Plug in your own numbers from last year. If you pay techs, use their loaded cost (wages plus payroll taxes and workers' comp), not the hourly rate on their check.
What moves a pool up a tier
A flat price for every pool on the route sounds simple, but it means the easy pools subsidize the hard ones. Most owners use two or three tiers and a few add-ons.
- Size and shape. Big freeform pools with steps, benches and a beach entry take longer to brush and more chemical to hold.
- Debris. Open yards, palms, oaks and pine needles versus a screened enclosure.
- Attached spa or water feature. More surface to brush and more equipment to check.
- Sanitizer type. Salt pools use less bought chlorine but need cell checks and salt now and then.
- Use. A pool that hosts kids every afternoon burns through chlorine faster than one nobody swims in.
Write the tiers down so you quote the same way every time. Whether chemicals sit inside the price or ride on top is its own decision, laid out in chemicals included or billed separately.
Price the year, not the month
Your costs are lopsided across the calendar. Summer brings heat, storms, heavy swimming and big chlorine bills. The cool months bring slow algae, light chemical use and quicker stops. If you only look at July, you'll overprice. If you only look at January, you'll lose money all summer.
That's why most owners charge the same monthly rate all year and let the easy winter stops carry part of the summer load. It only works if customers stay through the slow months, so the agreement should say the rate is annual and not a summer premium. Owners who let customers pause every winter usually charge more per month to make up for it.
Don't forget the route itself
Two pools that look identical are not worth the same if one sits four minutes from your Tuesday cluster and the other is a 20-minute detour. The detour pool eats the time of almost another stop. Either price it higher or pass on it. The math behind that is in building a denser route.
Rule of thumb: quote an out-of-the-way pool as if it were two stops, then decide whether you still want it.
What to do with your current prices
Run the example with your own books this week. Sort your route by what each account pays, then flag the bottom tenth. Those are usually the oldest customers, the far-flung ones, or pools that got a friends-and-family rate years ago. You don't need to fix them all at once. Start with new customers at the right price, and move the old ones up at your next annual increase. More pricing and route guides are on the Booked for pool service page.
Questions owners ask
Should I charge more for a pool with a spa attached?
Most operators do. A spillover spa adds brushing, more skimming, and often extra time on the valves and heater. Some price it as a flat monthly add-on, others move the whole account up a tier. Either works as long as the spa isn't serviced for free.
Is it better to price per visit or per month?
Monthly pricing is easier to bill and smooths out months with four or five service days. Per-visit pricing is clearer for seasonal or every-other-week accounts. Plenty of owners quote monthly for weekly customers and keep a per-visit rate only for one-time or fill-in work.
How do I price every-other-week service?
Carefully. A pool you see twice a month tends to need more chemicals and more time per visit, and it goes green faster between stops. Many owners price biweekly at well over half the weekly rate, and some decline it in the hot months when algae moves fast.
What should I do when a new customer says the last guy charged less?
Ask what the last guy included. Cheap routes often skip brushing, bill chemicals separately, or rush through in ten minutes. Explain what a stop looks like on your route, give your price once, and let the ones who only care about the number go.
Do I charge more for pools under trees?
Usually. Heavy leaf drop means longer skimming, more frequent basket and filter cleaning, and a higher chance of stains and algae. Note the trees when you quote, put the pool in a higher tier, and say why so the customer understands the price.