Where the money goes on a pest service
A general pest service is usually one technician, a fuel-efficient vehicle and a short visit — so fuel is a smaller share of the cost than many owners assume. The big movers are technician time (including drive time between stops) and products. Termite, mosquito and specialty services carry more material cost and more equipment.
Routes matter. A technician who runs eight to twelve stops in a cluster spends far less drive time per customer than one zig-zagging a county. Customers at the edge of your area cost noticeably more to serve, and that’s where per-customer pricing pays off.
A worked example
A quarterly customer is 20 miles round trip from the office in a vehicle that gets 18 mpg: 1.11 gallons. With gasoline up $1.25 a gallon, fuel adds about $1.39 per service. Drive time is 0.67 hours at 30 mph plus 0.5 hours on site — 1.17 technician hours. If loaded labor rose from $30.50 to $32.00 an hour, that’s $1.75 more. Products up from $7.20 to $8.00 per service adds $0.80.
That’s about $3.94 per service, or roughly $16 a year on a quarterly plan — small per customer, but across a few hundred accounts it is real money, and it compounds every year you don’t adjust.
Reprice at renewal
Most residential pest agreements renew annually. Renewal is the natural moment for a price change: the customer is already reviewing the service, and a letter that explains the change in plain numbers fits right in. For monthly-billed plans, announce the new monthly amount 30 days ahead.
Products: track them separately
Product costs can move independently of fuel and labor. Keep a simple “products per service today vs. a year ago” number for each service type. It makes the letter more credible (“the products we use cost about 11% more than last year”) and keeps you from guessing.
Initial services and one-time jobs
Initial cleanouts and one-time treatments are usually priced fresh each time, so the increase belongs in your price sheet rather than in a customer letter. Focus customer letters on recurring plans.
How to tell your customers
- Send it with or just before the renewal notice.
- Keep it to three short paragraphs: thanks, what changed, the new price and date.
- Cite technician wages, products and the EIA gasoline average.
- Offer a call for questions — most won’t.
Fuel figures are U.S. Energy Information Administration monthly averages (regular gasoline $3.06 → $4.31 and on-highway diesel $3.68 → $6.25 a gallon, October 2025 → October 2026). Inflation is BLS CPI-U, up about 4.0% over the same year. Worked examples use illustrative costs — use your own.