A healthy profit margin for a home-service business is well above break-even. In a benchmark study of 125 pest control operators, the top performers ran about 24.2% EBITDA. Everyone else averaged around 12.7%. On a $1 million book of business, that gap is worth roughly $115,000 a year.
That is not a small difference. It is the difference between an operator who can hire, invest, and take a real owner draw, and one who is working hard just to stay even.
EBITDA stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. In plain English, it is your profit before you subtract loan interest, taxes, and the wear-and-down value of your trucks and equipment. It is the clearest way to compare how well two businesses are actually run, regardless of how they are financed or what they drive.
The numbers above come from a benchmark study of 125 pest control operators. Top performers ran 24.2% EBITDA margins. The rest of the field averaged 12.7%. Median revenue growth across the group was about 15.4%.
That 11.5-point margin gap is not about revenue size. Plenty of the operators with thinner margins were doing solid revenue. The gap comes from how the business is run underneath the top line.
Here is the part that surprises most owners. The top-performing operators in the benchmark spent slightly more on materials, 10.2% of revenue versus 8.3% for everyone else. They were not cutting corners on product to protect margin.
Instead, they stayed lean everywhere else. Tighter routing, less overtime, disciplined overhead, and pricing that actually reflects the cost to deliver the job. The margin advantage came from operational discipline, not from skimping on the service itself.
The benchmark study itself is pest control data. But FRAXN works with operators across the home-service world, including HVAC, plumbing, landscaping, electrical, cleaning, pool service, and roofing, and the underlying pattern holds up: the operators with the cleanest books and the tightest cost discipline are the ones with room to grow. See how this plays out across the industries we work with.
None of this matters if your numbers are not accurate. Job-level cost tracking happens in your own field software, whether that is ServiceTitan, FieldRoutes, PestPac, or GorillaDesk. That is where it belongs.
Where FRAXN comes in is keeping the books behind that job data clean and reconciled, so the numbers coming out of your CRM actually match your financials. Once your books are accurate, margin problems stop being a mystery and start being a list of fixable line items. Learn more about how our bookkeeping works.
Clean books only help if they connect to your tax filings too. FRAXN handles personal tax prep and filing, business tax prep and filing, sales tax filing, and tax packages that include advising, all under the same roof as your bookkeeping. You are not stuck reconciling two vendors who do not talk to each other at tax time.
FRAXN has managed the books for 250+ service-business operators and over $450 million in revenue. Pricing starts at $309 a month and scales with the size of your business, and it is generally the right fit once you are past $200,000 in annual revenue.
Want to know where your margin actually sits against operators like you? Get your free personalized benchmark report and see the gap for yourself.
In the pest control benchmark, top performers ran about 24.2% EBITDA, while the broader group averaged 12.7%. Anything meaningfully above the 12-13% range signals a well-run operation.
They are not cutting product cost to protect margin. They spend a bit more on materials, 10.2% of revenue versus 8.3%, and make up the difference through tighter operations elsewhere.
No. Job-level cost tracking happens in your own CRM or field software, like ServiceTitan, FieldRoutes, PestPac, or GorillaDesk. FRAXN keeps the books behind that data clean and connects to your CRM so the numbers reconcile.
Yes. FRAXN handles personal tax prep and filing, business tax prep and filing, sales tax filing, and tax packages that include advising, alongside your monthly bookkeeping.
Pricing starts at $309 a month and scales with the size of your business. It is generally the right fit for operators above $200,000 in annual revenue.
FRAXN connects with FieldRoutes, PestPac, GorillaDesk, ServiceTitan, and QuickBooks Online.
