Pest control is a recurring revenue business that happens to involve bugs, and it is less seasonal than most people outside it assume. BLS monthly employment at exterminating and pest control firms moved from 147,900 in January 2025 to a peak of 159,100 in August, a 7.6 percent swing, about a fifth of the swing in landscaping.1 The plan base carries the company through winter. A good company sells a plan, delivers it on time, handles re-services quickly and keeps customers for years.
This hub covers the market, labor costs, licensing and sales rules, how to price initial and recurring services, the numbers to watch and how to choose pest control software.
How a pest control business makes money
Most residential pest control revenue comes from recurring general pest plans, usually quarterly, sometimes bimonthly or monthly in warmer climates. The customer pays for an initial service and then a recurring fee. Each customer is worth years of visits if you keep them.
On top of that base sit add-on programs (mosquito, tick, rodent) and one-time or specialty work (bed bugs, wildlife, stinging insects, exclusion). These raise the value of each customer and fill the schedule in the busy season.
Termite work is its own line: inspections, including wood destroying insect reports for real estate sales, treatments and annual renewals of a termite warranty. The NPMA-33 form is the standard WDI report and is used for HUD and VA backed loans, though some states, such as California, require their own form.2
Commercial accounts (restaurants, food processing, warehouses, multifamily) pay monthly and value documentation and reliability. They often need service records detailed enough to satisfy health inspectors and third-party food safety audits.
The market in numbers
Pest control is the one trade on this list where the employer and nonemployer counts are almost even. Census counted 16,535 establishments with employees in 2023 and 16,137 businesses without, the latter averaging $53,739 in receipts.3 Employer establishments are also bigger than in most home service trades, averaging 8.4 employees:
| Pest control establishments by size (2023) | Establishments | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer than 5 employees | 9,415 | 56.9% |
| 5 to 9 | 2,854 | 17.3% |
| 10 to 19 | 2,354 | 14.2% |
| 20 to 49 | 1,643 | 9.9% |
| 50 or more | 269 | 1.6% |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023, NAICS 561710 (139,150 employees; $7.44 billion annual payroll, about $53,500 per employee).3
Read that as: a quarter of employer shops have 10 or more people, which is where routing, re-service tracking and cancellation follow-up stop fitting in the owner's head.
Peak to trough is 11,200 jobs. The December figure still sits 4,700 above January, so most of the spring hiring is carried through the year.
| Jan | 147,900 |
|---|---|
| Feb | 148,200 |
| Mar | 150,800 |
| Apr | 152,700 |
| May | 157,000 |
| Jun | 158,000 |
| Jul | 158,100 |
| Aug | 159,100 |
| Sep | 157,000 |
| Oct | 155,600 |
| Nov | 153,400 |
| Dec | 152,600 |
Source: BLS CES, series CEU6056171001
Labor and wages
BLS puts the May 2025 median for pest control workers at $45,250, with the 10th percentile at $34,680 and the 90th at $61,890.4 Location matters: Florida employs the most pest control workers by far (12,400, about one in eight nationally) at a median of $44,320, Texas pays a median of $37,660, New York $48,530 and Washington, the highest state median, $51,300.
BLS also notes that evening and weekend work is common and some techs work more than 40 hours a week.5 In the projections data only 5.4 percent of pest control workers are self-employed, and BLS expects about 13,700 openings a year.6 Most of those openings are replacements for people who leave, which is why tech retention shows up in customer retention: the customer who loved their tech cancels when the tech quits.
Licensing, records and selling rules
BLS is direct: state laws require pest control workers to be licensed.5 Under EPA's certification rule, anyone who applies or supervises the use of restricted use pesticides must be certified under an EPA-approved state, tribal or federal plan, certified applicators must be at least 18, and recertification can be no longer than every five years.7 Some states also license the business itself.
Set these up before you sell your first plan
- Applicator license categories your techs need, and each tech's renewal date
- Business license or registration with your state's pest control regulator, if required
- The application record fields your state requires (commonly product, EPA registration number, amount, target pest and location) and how long you keep them
- Any customer notice your state requires before or after treatment
- WDI form your state requires for real estate inspections (NPMA-33 or a state form)
- Cooling-off notice and cancellation forms if you sell door to door
Door-to-door selling. Many pest companies build density with summer door-to-door crews. The FTC Cooling-Off Rule covers sales of $25 or more made at the customer's home: the buyer can cancel until midnight of the third business day after the sale, the seller must tell them about that right at the time of sale, and must give them two copies of a cancellation form.8 States can add their own solicitation and permit rules. A signed plan that gets cancelled on day two because nobody gave the notice is worse than no sale.
Running the day
A pest tech's day is a route of recurring stops with initials and re-services mixed in. The office has to balance three things: keep recurring visits inside their window, fit new initials in fast (that's when the customer is most motivated), and respond to re-services before the customer starts shopping around.
On every stop, the tech inspects, treats, records the application and leaves a service notice explaining what was done and what to expect. States set the rules for what you must record and how long you keep it, so check your state's regulations rather than relying on a generic list.
Pricing your work
Pest pricing works best when each piece is built from its own costs.
Initial service = expected time (interior, exterior, cleanout, entry point sealing) × labor rate + materials + overhead share. It is priced higher than a recurring visit because it takes longer and uses more product.
Recurring service = time per visit × labor rate + materials + a stop charge for drive and setup. Here's an example using the BLS median wage and assumptions you should replace:
| Line (example) | Amount |
|---|---|
| Tech wage at the national median | $45,250 |
| Payroll taxes, workers' comp, benefits (example: 20%) | $9,050 |
| Vehicle, equipment, insurance share (example) | $20,000 |
| Billable hours (example: 1,500) | 1,500 |
| Cost per billable hour | $49.53 |
| Quarterly visit: 45 minutes including drive share, plus $12 materials | $49.15 cost |
| Price at a 50% gross margin | $98 |
Annual plan value
Customer lifetime value
Example: an initial of $175 plus four quarterly visits at $98 is $567 in year one. At a 50 percent margin and a three-year average stay, that customer is worth about $850 in gross profit, which is the most you could ever spend to win them and still break even. Use the membership revenue calculator to run it with your own retention, and the labor rate calculator to build the hourly cost.
Free calculatorLabor rate & flat-rate price calculatorFind the hourly rate you need to charge to hit your profit goal, then price any job.Termite liquid treatments are usually priced from linear feet of foundation treated × a rate per linear foot built from product and labor, and bait systems from station count plus ongoing monitoring. Price the annual renewal on its own so it pays for the inspection it includes.
Tiers by property size keep a 4,500 sq ft home from being serviced at the price of a 1,500 sq ft one. Write plans up on the pest control estimate template and bill on the pest control invoice template if you aren't on software yet.
Marketing that works for pest control
- Be found when the bugs show up. Most pest calls are urgent. Google Business Profile, local search ads and reviews catch people at the moment of need.
- Answer every call. A missed call during an ant invasion goes to the next company on the list. After-hours answering and missed-call text back matter more here than in most trades.
- Sell the plan on the first call. A one-time treatment is a transaction; a plan is a customer. Offer both, explain why the plan works better, and show the price per visit.
- Door-to-door in season, with the cooling-off paperwork done right, to build density around existing customers.
- Real estate agents and inspectors send WDI work if you turn reports around fast.
- Ask for reviews after re-services handled well. A fixed problem is a strong moment for a review.
Where TradesWork fits today, and where it doesn't
Pest control is a partial fit for TradesWork today. What works: recurring plans as service agreements with visits that come due on schedule and cards charged automatically with retries and a card-update link; a map-based schedule board and smart day planning that weighs drive time and arrival windows; good-better-best plan options signed on the tech's phone or from a text; commercial accounts with PO numbers, not-to-exceed limits and net terms, plus QuickBooks Online sync; custom forms and photos on every visit in a tech app (English and Spanish) that works with no signal; and an AI receptionist and missed-call text back for the spring rush.
What is not built: route-day scheduling with fixed routes by day and automatic sequencing, pesticide application logs built into each visit for state recordkeeping, and termite-specific workflows such as WDI report generation and bait station tracking. If your state requires application records and you want them in your field software, a pest-specific tool is the better fit right now.
Choosing pest control software
Pest control software needs to do the basics well (recurring scheduling, billing on file, a tech app) and the pest-specific parts that keep you compliant: application records, route-based scheduling, termite and WDI paperwork. Pest-specific tools include PestPac, FieldRoutes (owned by ServiceTitan since 2022), GorillaDesk and Briostack.
Ask every vendor to show a full day: an initial booked from a phone call, a recurring route, an application record, a re-service, and a failed card retry. Our buyer's guide has a scorecard to compare them on.
Free download · ExcelField Service KPI ScorecardTrack the 12 numbers that run a service business, week by week, with formulas already built in.Footnotes
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BLS Current Employment Statistics, all employees, exterminating and pest control services (CEU6056171001) and landscaping services (CEU6056173001), not seasonally adjusted, 2025. https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CEU6056171001 ↩
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National Pest Management Association, Suggested Guidelines for Completing the NPMA-33, https://www.npmapestworld.org/media/mxdpkryi/final-suggested-guideline-for-completing-the-npma-33-rev-2019_08_12.pdf, and California Structural Pest Control Board, NPMA-33 advisory. https://pestboard.ca.gov/forms/npma33_ia.pdf ↩
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U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023, NAICS 561710, https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/data/datasets.html, and Nonemployer Statistics 2023, NAICS 56171. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/nonemployer-statistics/data/datasets.html ↩ ↩2
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U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 national and state files, SOC 37-2021. https://www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm ↩
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BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Pest Control Workers. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/building-and-grounds-cleaning/pest-control-workers.htm ↩ ↩2
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BLS Employment Projections 2025-35, Table 1.2, SOC 37-2021 (108.7 thousand in 2025, 114.7 thousand in 2035; 13.7 thousand annual openings). https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/occupational-projections-and-characteristics.htm ↩
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EPA, Certification Standards for Pesticide Applicators. https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-worker-safety/certification-standards-pesticide-applicators ↩
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Federal Trade Commission, Buyer's Remorse: The FTC's Cooling-Off Rule May Help. https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/buyers-remorse-ftcs-cooling-rule-may-help ↩
