Boost Your Pool Service Profit Margin

Boost Your Pool Service Profit Margin

With spring and summer quickly approaching, the phones of pool service businesses are guaranteed to start ringing off the hook. As more homeowners are eager to get their swimming pools in shape for the warm weather ahead, are you ready to rake in the profits?

Whether you're an industry veteran or just getting your pool service business off the ground, it's important to understand and maintain the financial basis of a pool service operation. With the right tips and tricks, you can quickly become an industry leader this upcoming warm season.

From understanding how profitable a pool company can be to calculating your pool service profit margins, continue reading below to start raking in more money.

How profitable is a pool company?

Determining how profitable a pool company can be depends on the sort of services being offered. For example, profitability will range significantly between pool contractors or installation experts and general pool maintenance service providers.

Beginning with a pool service business model, an average backyard pool cleaning business can earn approximately $50 to $60 per hour. If you decide to take your pool service business to the next level and begin offering simple maintenance and repair services as well as basic equipment installation services, you can expect upwards of roughly $150 to $200 as a business owner.

Bear in mind, pool services are only needed on a seasonal basis for many locations across the country, which can impact potential profit and annual net income as a business owner. However, if you are located in a local market like Florida or Southern California, you may not have to account for as much downtime and can maximize profits year-round.

How many pools do pool cleaners clean a day?

On average, the typical pool cleaning technician can clean approximately 15 to 25 pools a day depending on location, size, and general availability. However, the amount of jobs a pool cleaning company can accomplish as a whole in a single day relies on the number of swimming pool technicians the company has on hand.

If you have, let's say, roughly three technicians out in the field each day, you can expect upwards of possibly 45 to 75 pool cleaning jobs completed a day. If you have a smaller team, you cannot expect them to tackle as many pools while still maintaining satisfied customers.

How much does a pool cleaner make a year?

At approximately $50 to $60 per hour, a single swimming pool cleaner can earn a full-time pay of roughly $2,000 to $2,400 a week. When calculating how much you’ll make annually cleaning pools, the final answer depends on the seasonality of your local market.

For a pool cleaning service operating year-round in a market such as Florida, a single pool cleaner could earn upwards of $104,000 to $124,800 in annual income. In a market with heavy fall and winter seasonality, such as Michigan or Colorado, the annual income for your pool cleaning company could be sliced in half due to a lack of job availability throughout the cold weather.

How much can you make owning a pool cleaning business?

Determining how much you can make owning a pool cleaning business boils down to the manpower on your team. If you're a single-operator business, you can expect the estimated annual income amounts mentioned above, as it’s just you raking in profits.

On the other hand, if you decide to expand your pool service business and hire multiple pool technicians to enhance the services you provide to also include maintenance and repair, annual income amounts and profit margins can drastically increase.

Service companies with more employees will incur more expenses in the form of payroll and potential benefits; however, the earning power is higher for businesses with larger teams. Having more technicians means more swimming pools serviced daily and more clients on your pool route.

Calculating Pool Service Profit Margin

While the annual income amounts mentioned above might be pretty impressive for cleaning services, it's important to note that your actual profit amount will be less due to operational costs.

Material costs (chemicals and tools), labor costs (technician pay), overhead costs (office space and transportation), and even commercial costs (marketing and advertising) are critical factors you will need to consider when calculating your pool service profit margin.

To establish your pool service profit margin, use this net income calculation first:

Net Income = Total Revenue - Labor Costs - Overhead Costs - Labor Costs

With this calculation, you can either calculate daily, weekly, monthly, or year net income to then establish the accompanied profit margin using this formula:

Profit Margin = Net Income / Total Revenue

With a profit margin in hand, now you can establish your profit margin goals and more effectively adjust your pricing to reach them. While it's always great to be ambitious when establishing your profit goals, it's more important to be realistic — so, be sure to set achievable profit goals based on your current net income and total revenue.

What is the markup on pool chemicals?

One of the heaviest material cost pool service business owners will need to consider are the various pool chemicals needed to properly complete the job. With recent COVID-19 impacts to the global supply chain, it makes sense that the cost of chemicals is continuing to rise.

In fact, some retailers have seen increases of 10% to 20% in prices in recent years. If your business services mainly commercial clients with Olympic-sized pools, anticipate needing to spend more on pool chemicals to get the job done efficiently.

What is the markup on inground pools?

Is there a difference between inground pools and above-ground pools? Typically, inground pools cost similar to maintain as inground pools, since both share a similar structure. However, many homeowners' above-ground pools are smaller than inground swimming pools, so there can be a slight markup for inground options just for the point of size.

More Ways to Boost Pool Cleaning Business Profit

In conjunction with the general upcoming swimming pool season, pool service business owners and operators should expect quite the surge in service requests. To best prepare for the busy pool season ahead, check out these four steps to ensure your business is ready for increased demand.

Build a Qualified Team Of Pool and Spa Professionals

With pool service season approaching, your business may need a couple of extra hands to meet customer demand. To effortlessly streamline day-to-day operations while guaranteeing complete customer satisfaction, you’ll have to search for the top qualified pool service technicians. Online job boards such as Indeed and ZipRecruiter are excellent platforms to post job listings with your exact hiring requirements, expected hours, and anticipated pay.

Outside of the fieldwork necessities of your pool service company, you may want to bring on a customer service representative that can handle administrative tasks as well. Taking customer calls, scheduling technicians, managing your company’s online presence, and reaching out to new clients can all be completed by an in-office employee. After bringing these employees on board, be sure to establish simple protocol and expectations to further ensure smooth daily operations.

Stock Up on Swimming Pool Supplies and Tools

What's a pool service business without the right supplies and tools? With customers' needs and service requests varying from job to job, you’ll want to stock up on all the necessary supplies and tools technicians require to get their work done. First, check the status of the current supply stock, including chemical expiration dates and the condition of your tools. Note which supplies need replenishing and contact your manufacturers as soon as possible.

For swimming pool cleaning purposes, be sure to stock up on high-quality tools that will last through the season. Equipment including skimmers, algae brushes, manual vacuums, and filter cleaners should remain well-stocked in each company vehicle to ensure debris-free and visibly clean pools. For pool maintenance purposes, be sure to always have technicians equipped with water test kits as well. This allows for a more focused pool treatment service, using sanitizers (such as chlorine, bromine, or salt), shock, pH control, and algaecide, all of which should remain well-stocked.

Prepare Your Swimming Pool Business Fleet

To avoid missed service calls and frustrated customers, it's essential to make sure your vehicle fleet is ready to hit the road. Use this early season to implement a preventive maintenance schedule for your company vehicles. Simple actions such as oil changes, fluid top-offs, and brake, tire, or battery inspections are all quick tasks that can support the longevity of company vehicles.

As the busy pool season carries on, consider adopting tactics to boost vehicle efficiency and ongoing vehicle health as well. Ask technicians who operate company vehicles to inspect and report on vehicle concerns weekly. This helps mitigate possible vehicle concerns early on, and may potentially help you save on vehicle costs in the long run. For efficiency purposes, consider swapping to eco-friendly vehicle options complete with GPS technology to track driver performance.

Adopt a Pool Service Business Management System

With a wave of service requests on the horizon and no management system insight, scheduling hiccups and lost customer contacts can deter your pool service business this season. Fortunately, field service management software solutions offer numerous tools to better streamline your daily pool and spa service business operations. For instance, scheduling features allow owners or operators to quickly dispatch jobs to technicians and communicate effectively with customers on anticipated arrival times. Managers can then monitor job completion and map the next pool route to ensure the following service calls are reached as quickly and efficiently as possible.

For the financial management corner of your pool business, field service management software is also the way to go. Easily accessible platforms allow technicians to collect customer payment while out in the field or have an invoice forwarded directly to the customer’s email address. These financial details are quickly recorded and synced with accounting software platforms, such as QuickBooks, where managers can easily record all income and expenses.

Pool Service Management Software That Does it All

It’s anticipated that pool service companies have a busy season ahead. Why waste time manually tracking pool accounts, dispatching technicians, or tracking down materials? Instead, adopt a field service management system designed with pool service businesses in mind. With FieldPulse’s pool service management software , you can guarantee your business will be prepared with all the bells and whistles, but without all the hassle.

Through FieldPulse pool service management software, you can organize employee information and schedule job updates to build a robust team capable of any work order. Easily create sub-tasks in the system to track supply orders and incoming product shipments. So, what are you waiting for? Schedule a demo today to learn how FieldPulse can streamline your busy pool season.