I see pest control companies making $200 per customer when they could be making $850.
Same amount of work. Same number of customers. Four times the revenue.
The difference? How they structure their offers and pricing.
After building Pest Badger to over $10 million a year, I can tell you exactly what separates companies doing $500,000 with struggle from companies doing multiple millions with profit. It all comes down to your service plans, your pricing strategy, and how you package everything together.
In this guide, I’m going to show you the exact framework for building pest control offers that customers can’t refuse, while keeping you highly profitable. This isn’t about discounting. It’s about creating so much value that premium pricing becomes a no-brainer.
Why Most Pest Control Companies Price Themselves Into Poverty
Let’s start with the uncomfortable truth: most pest control companies are broke because they price like technicians, not CEOs.
The Technician Mindset Trap
Here’s how most people get into this industry and immediately screw up their pricing:
They were technicians somewhere else. They ran their route and saw how much revenue they were doing per route per year. They thought, “I could do this on my own.”
So they start their company. They look at what their old company was charging and think, “I’m going to undercut them.”
They position themselves as “just a technician starting out.” They take competitor prices, calculate an average, and put themselves in the middle or at the bottom. Then they call themselves “Affordable Pest Control.”
They think like a technician, not like a CEO.
But here’s what they’re missing: they have so much value as a technician. They know the service like the back of their hand. They’re extremely knowledgeable. People should pay for that knowledge.
Why Low Pricing Kills Your Growth
When you’re just starting out and it’s only you, pricing yourself low seems fine.
You’re not really paying yourself. You don’t have to pay a technician. You don’t have to pay a CSR. You don’t really have a whole lot of overhead. You have a truck that’s your own, some equipment, and you do your services.
At that time you’re making decent money, so it seems fine.
But all of a sudden you have to grow. Now you’re getting more customers and you need to hire people. You’ve got to pay someone.
And you realize very quickly that you don’t have enough money at the end of each service to cover all the extra expenses. The second truck, the second set of equipment, more product, labor, taxes, overhead, CRM costs to keep track of employees.
It’s hard to grow a company if you can’t afford it. It’s hard to hire another technician if the math doesn’t work.
People Buy Value, Not Price
The more value you give customers, the easier it is to sign them up.
People buy on value, not on price these days. If you’re just competing on being the cheapest, you’re fighting a losing battle.
I don’t like giving discounts because as soon as you give someone a discount, that same customer is always going to want a discount. They see you as a discounted service. They have no emotional buy-in whatsoever.
I’ve found that the higher the price you charge out of the gate, the more emotionally attached they’re going to be. When it hurts a little bit, they think, “Ooh, they must be charging those prices for a reason.”
Whereas if you give them something super cheap or give them a discount, then you expect them to be a premium service? It doesn’t work. That’s psychology.
I like to charge more and be a premium service.
Service Plans: Why Recurring Revenue Changes Everything
Before we dive into pricing, we need to talk about service plans. Because your service plan structure is the foundation of everything.
The One-Time Service Problem
I don’t like doing one-time services.
I know a lot of people just starting out started that way. A lot of the older companies haven’t adopted the new model yet either, especially in the Midwest. They do one-time services or maybe even twice-a-year services.
Those aren’t necessarily terrible. When you go to get acquired, if customers have been there for three to five or ten years, they’re still considered recurring customers.
But what I’m looking for is to make my customer acquisition cost pay off. I want my lifetime value per client to be as high as possible.
The Math That Makes Recurring Essential
Let me give you a real example from a company I acquired.
They had 1,400 customers worth $650,000 in total value.
I had 4,500 customers worth $1.5 million.
They had more customers per dollar. But I had way more revenue with the same number of customers.
The difference? My customers were on recurring service plans with higher lifetime value.
Here’s how you should think about it: you have to go get customers anyway. If you’re going to get 1,000 customers, do you want them to be worth $600,000 or do you want them to be worth $60,000?
At the end of the day, it’s up to you. But you know what I would do.
What Recurring Actually Means
As long as it’s recurring, I don’t really care what you’re doing. Bi-monthly, monthly, or even quarterly. As long as you’re constantly servicing those customers and creating that lifetime value, raising it as high as possible, that’s what I like to see.
In pest control, that could be:
- Monthly service
- Bi-monthly service
- Quarterly service
The key is it’s automatic and ongoing.
Why Customers Want Recurring Too
At the end of the day, customers are hiring us to prevent issues before they even arise.
Most people think of pest control as reactive. “Crap, I have an issue now. Come take care of it for us.”
But the right messaging is: “You should just get pest control so you don’t have to deal with it.”
Whether it’s termites, annual inspections, foundation inspections, exclusions, whatever it may be. We’re going to come out and service to make sure you never have any issues going forward.
That’s why they hire us. They hire us for peace of mind. To keep their house safe. To keep their family safe.
Having that recurring model means we show up once every 30, 60, or 90 days to make sure they never have an issue to begin with.
The Industry Benchmark: What Should You Actually Charge?
The average pest control contract value in 2023 and 2024 was around $850 across the country.
If you’re above that, you’re doing pretty good. Below that, you need to rethink what you’re doing.
I’ve seen companies charging $300, $200, or even less per year. If this one section can change your business going forward, it’s worth it.
Monthly vs. Quarterly Billing: The Cash Flow Trade-Off
There are different strategies for how you bill recurring services. Let me break down both approaches.
Monthly Subscription Model:
It’s obviously easier to sell $67 a month or $70 a month pest control service than it is to sell a $240 quarterly service.
The benefits upfront are real. It’s prepaid before you get there. You’re billing on month one, month two, then you show up on month three and service the house. They pay the last monthly bill, and then they’re prepaid for that service.
However, I’ve been shown by companies doing billions of dollars in revenue that the highest cancellation rate is on monthly subscription billing.
Why? Because everyone has these subscription apps these days. People look at their subscriptions and think, “Oh, I don’t need this pest control thing. It’s middle of winter.” Cancel.
Quarterly Billing Model:
This is how I like to do it.
I like to do my initial service first. Let’s say I’m charging $240 initial for a bundle (pest control and mosquito). That initial is going to be $240. Then every time after that, they’re going to prepay $70 a month for the next service.
The Coke Machine Analogy
Think of it like a Coke machine. Every time you put in $100, it returns you $800 back.
Everyone asks about marketing budgets. What should I spend? Is it 3%? Is it 5%? Is it 6%? If we’re growing fast, should we go 8%?
My thing is this: if I could put $100 in and get $800 back that fast, I’m going to keep doing it over and over again. How much can I afford to keep doing it?
The problem is usually cash flow. You can’t get that money back fast enough.
If you’re doing monthly billing at $70 a month, you’ve got to wait till the third month to finally recover the money you paid out initially.
If you can recover that money as soon as possible, how can you do that?
In the lawn care space, this is normal. In pest control, it’s not as normal. But in mosquito control, it’s pretty common where everyone will give a discount for prepayment for the year.
It’s like putting $100 in the machine and getting $850 back that same day. That’s how you can get your customer acquisition cost back as fast as possible.
Why Prepayment Offers Work
People are willing to prepay for the year if you give them a reason.
Not a discount on the service itself. But maybe a value stack of free add-ons, or a simplified payment option, or a locked-in rate guarantee.
This gets you cash flow immediately and locks in the customer for the full year.
Structuring Your Service Packages: The A, B, C Framework
Don’t just wing it on pricing. You need structured packages that guide customers to the right choice.
Why You Need Three Options
I like to have three clear service packages: A, B, and C.
Customers usually go with B. That’s human psychology. They don’t want the cheapest, they don’t want the most expensive, they want the middle option.
Here’s what that looks like:
Package A (Basic): Just basic pest control. Servicing the exterior of the home, interior service as needed. Whether that’s bi-monthly, monthly, or quarterly.
Package B (Recommended): Pest control plus one additional service bundled together. Maybe it’s mosquito control. Maybe it’s flea and tick. This is where most customers land.
Package C (Premium): Everything. Pest control, mosquito, flea and tick, maybe even fertilization and weed control. All the services bundled.
What to Include in Each Package
Think about all the services you could bundle:
- Basic pest control
- Mosquito control
- Flea and tick treatment
- Fertilization and weed control
- Aeration and overseeding
- Termite inspections
- Termite bait stations
- Exclusion work
- Foundation inspections
How can you bundle these services together so homeowners get everything taken care of through you, while also increasing the lifetime value?
The $60,000 to $100,000 Hidden in Your Current Customers
I did a whole YouTube video on this: how you could grow $60,000 to $100,000 with the same amount of customers you have now without getting a single new customer.
It’s all about upselling your existing customers into higher-value packages.
The Life-Changing Pricing Realization
Let me share something that changed my entire business.
I helped a pest control owner who was only at $500 to $550 average per customer per year. I told him: “If you just doubled your prices and lost half of your customers, you’d still be at the same revenue with half the customers.”
Let’s make this easier with an example:
Say you’re doing a million dollars. You have 100 customers (for easy math). You’re charging them $100 each.
You double the rate to $200. You lose half the customers. So now you have 50 customers.
You doubled your revenue per customer and lost half the customers. You’re still doing the same amount of revenue with half the customers.
Same money, less work, fewer technicians.
Why This Works
Your profitability is going to go through the roof.
The first time I had to raise prices, I was so scared. I had to send out letters or emails saying we were raising prices. I thought, “Oh my God, are these people going to cancel?”
Maybe three or four people pushed back. We explained why we were raising prices, and that was it.
Every single year, you should be raising prices 3% to 5% anyway just because of inflation. Especially these days.
If customers have been working with a trusted brand for a long time, they expect to have a price raise every single year. Everything else is going up anyway.
The One-Time Service Pricing Strategy
If you do sell one-time services, here’s my strategy:
Let’s say your average annual contract value is $400. I think your one-time service should also be $400.
If you do a bi-annual service and your average annual ticket is typically $850, then I think your bi-annual should be $425 per visit.
Why?
I don’t want those one-time customers. Not to say I wouldn’t take them for that price, because I will. If they’re going to pay me $425 to do a one-time service, sure, I’ll go do that.
But you’re making it clear that the recurring option is the better value.
Think About Your Technicians Too
Let’s say you’re selling a bunch of one-time services or bi-annual services. You go out in the spring and then in the fall.
What are your technicians doing the rest of the summer?
You’re hoping calls are going to come in. April and May you’re super busy. Then June and July hit and you’re like, “Where’d the work go?”
You should have a recurring model so your technicians are busy not just through the summer, but year-round.
Creating an Irresistible Offer (Without Discounting)
You see pest control offers everywhere. And they’re all the same garbage.
“10% off!” “50% off your first service!” “$29 initial!” “$47 initial!”
I’m not the discount guy. I hate giving discounts.
Why Discounts Don’t Work Anymore
Everyone’s used discounts at this point. They mean almost nothing.
If I see a “10% off” offer, I don’t even look at it. It’s overused.
And here’s the problem: as soon as you give someone a discount, they’re always going to want a discount. They see you as a discounted service.
The Value Stack Strategy Instead
What I like to do is value stacking, not discounting.
This comes from Dan Kennedy and Russell Brunson. Basically, what things can you do on the property that will add so much value that the customer just can’t say no? It would be stupid to say no.
Here are some easy examples:
Lawn Care Example: Let’s say you offer fertilizing. You could offer them a free aeration, free overseeding, and free soil test after the first service.
They sign up with you and get all this stuff for free. Now you’re out there doing your normal service, and you’re adding on additional services that are super easy for you to do.
Pest Control Example: You sell them the initial service. Now they get a free flea and tick treatment and a free mosquito treatment.
You’re spraying the lawn with your fogger for mosquitoes at the same time you’re doing the general pest service. It’s not going to cost you too much extra time. You just gained this customer willing to pay full price, and you took a little bit of time and a little bit of product.
The Follow-Up Strategy
Here’s what happens next:
A month later, the customer has more mosquitoes. But you didn’t sell them mosquito service. You just did the first mosquito treatment for free.
They already experienced it. They know it worked really good. What do you think they’re going to do?
They’re going to call you back and say, “Hey, I want another mosquito treatment.”
Now you say, “Cool. This is the next package that we have for that.”
You’re not discounting services. You’re just value stacking the services you want to offer them in the future. You already put this in their head. “Oh, that service is really cool. I should get that again.”
But it fades off after 21 days or a month. They think, “I got that super cool mosquito thing I didn’t sign up for, but a month later I have a ton of mosquitoes. I need that.”
They call you back up and sign up for the next service.
The Email Follow-Up
In the meantime, you can send them an email or text campaign talking about that mosquito service.
They’re like, “Oh yeah, I do have mosquitoes. Cool, I need to get back on that thing. It worked really good.”
The 6 Components of a High-Converting Offer
I work closely with Alex Hormozi. I’ve read all his books multiple times. I’ve also read all the Dan Kennedy books, the old-school magnetic marketing, all the really good stuff.
The framework is basically the same, but I really like how Alex phrases it.
Component 1: The Customer’s Dream Outcome
For pest control, their dream outcome is they have zero issues with any bugs.
In Alex’s framework, it’s about the likelihood of achievement over time delay times effort and sacrifice.
What are they going to have to do? Hopefully nothing. Hopefully they go to your website, book a call (or maybe they can schedule right through your website without talking to anyone), and you just show up.
How long is it going to take for them to have no bugs? In a perfect world, their dream outcome is: “We’re going to show up today and you’re never going to have bugs again.”
The likelihood of that ever happening is probably slim to none because there are always going to be bugs out there. But we can reduce them seeing any issues by 90% to 95%.
Component 2: A Great Headline
Dan Kennedy says that if you’re spending a dollar on marketing, 80 cents of that dollar is all in your headline.
That’s how important it is.
It’s the same thing with knocking doors. You get three seconds right away before someone kicks you out the door.
Having that really good opening line, the headline of what the customer’s having issues with and how you can solve it, is critical.
Component 3: Social Proof
Reviews. The best reviews tie to that specific area.
Let’s say it’s “XYZ Pest Control did our service. It’s amazing.” Then her name and then “Chicago, Illinois.”
I love that part of it. You have to have a lot of social proof to get people to buy in.
Follow the crowd. If Mrs. Jones is doing it and you have 1,000 five-star reviews, people think, “Dang, this company is pretty good.”
Component 4: Urgency and Scarcity
Urgency is a reason to buy now. There’s always, always, always a reason to buy now. If there’s not, make one.
Scarcity is pretty easy. Maybe there are only two slots available today. Maybe you’ve already taken seven people on their block. Maybe you’re only taking the next three customers in their area. Maybe it’s the first 50 homes in their neighborhood.
Make it so there’s a reason to call and there’s scarcity. They think, “I want to get on this list. This is a really good offer. I know my neighbors already did it. I need to get on this now.”
Component 5: Clear Call to Action
This is one of the most important parts.
Customers, people in general, are trained to follow directions.
Having a clear, concise way for them to do what we want them to do to move to the next part of the sale is critical. Whether that’s “text this number,” “click this button,” or “watch this video.”
Always have a call to action because we’re not big enough companies to spend brand awareness dollars. We’re just not.
All of our marketing has to have a very high return. We need to track all of it. So having a call to action that’s easily trackable is essential.
Component 6: The Offer Itself
Obviously, you need the actual offer. What are they getting? What does it cost? What’s included?
This should be crystal clear.
Guarantees That Actually Work (Without Saying "Guarantee")
Guarantees have kind of been played out.
Making it so you have a unique selling proposition, a USP, that basically tells them you’re going to guarantee something but in a different format.
There’s no risk to sign up.
The Old Way vs. The New Way
Old way: “100% satisfaction guarantee.”
Okay, cool.
New way: “You’ll have no weeds in the next 30 days or I’m going to come back and do the service for free.”
Which sounds better?
Or: “If you have any more chinch bugs, we’ll come back out. It’s our fault. We’ll service your entire property for free.”
You’re guaranteeing it without actually saying “100% money-back guarantee” or “I’ll pay you double” or whatever. That stuff’s all played out.
How can you rephrase that to make sure the customer knows you’re going to stand behind your work without using those tired words?
Using AI to Build Your Offers (The Right Way)
ChatGPT has helped a lot of people write ads, but you still have to prompt it correctly.
The Problem with AI-Written Offers
What I see in the marketplace is people are getting better at using AI, but their ads look too AI.
You can tell when it’s AI. All of a sudden you see 6,000 emojis. You know ChatGPT wrote that.
I’m not saying not to use ChatGPT. But be very intentional about what you’re prompting it to do.
AI takes good prompting. If you’re not great at asking really good questions or telling it exactly what format you want, it’s not going to give you what you need.
How I Actually Use ChatGPT
You can tell ChatGPT the exact framework I just gave you, word for word, and it’s going to give you a pretty good response right away.
But even when it gives you a response, it just doesn’t quite hit home. You always have to keep prompting and keep prompting until it’s just right.
I talk to ChatGPT every day. It knows my voice, knows my tonality, knows what I’m looking for. When I talk about marketing, I have a whole folder just for the marketing side with the exact verbiage I want.
You can literally tell it, “I want this to sound like David Ogilvy” or “I want it to sound like Alex Hormozi” or Russell Brunson, whatever you want.
But you can also say, “I want it to sound like me. I don’t want it to be AI written.”
Ask questions like:
- “What am I missing on this?”
- “What can make it better?”
- “What can make it convert 1% more?”
I still like to write my own ads. I use ChatGPT to guide me, but I still actually write my own ads.
Tailoring Offers: New Customers vs. Existing Customers
Your offers should be different depending on where someone is in the pipeline.
For New Customers
These are people who don’t know you yet. You need to overcome skepticism and build trust.
Your offer needs all six components:
- Dream outcome clearly stated
- Strong headline
- Social proof
- Urgency and scarcity
- Clear call to action
- The actual offer with value stack
For Existing Customers
If they’re already your customer, they already trust you. You don’t have to give them discounts. Just tell them what they’re missing out on.
The structure is roughly the same, but the messaging is different.
Seasonal Upsells: The Real Story Strategy
The best time to market is when you know the pain point is going to be high.
If you’re thinking about what’s happening right now, you’re already behind the eight ball. You want to have a game plan. You want to have a marketing calendar laid out for the entire year that’s automated.
When it comes to upsells, I like to have stories.
One of my best upsell campaigns was a true story. I was doing an outdoor walk around my block, and I was literally getting attacked by mosquitoes. I was writing this email campaign on my phone about it.
I was in a hurry to get back because my daughter had wrestling at 9 a.m. that morning.
I wrote this email, finished it, sent it to my team. It absolutely crushed.
I tied it into an actual real story that was relatable. If I’m getting carried away by mosquitoes and I don’t even have mosquito control at my house, everyone else is too.
It hit those pain points. People thought, “Oh man, I’m dealing with that too.”
And it made me a real person. I mentioned my daughter going to wrestling. Within a minute, I had a response: “You’re going to your daughter’s wrestling this early?”
I was still on my email at the time, so I responded, “Yeah, actually we have to leave in the next 15 minutes.” It was middle of summer because she went to wrestling camp.
Use real stories that your customers have or that you personally have. We all have these stories we’ve been dealing with for years.
The Stink Bug Example
Here’s another real example from a pest control owner in Kansas City.
His Facebook ads were killing it for months. Then his offer died out. It just stopped working.
He looked at what people were searching for on Google and talking about in his area. A lot of people were talking about stink bugs.
So he made a stink bug offer. It absolutely killed it for another month or two.
If you’re thinking about what’s coming out this week or next week, you’re behind the eight ball. Think about every season you’re going to go through this year and every issue people are going to have that you’re going to solve.
Start creating campaigns now about that for next year.
Applying This Framework Everywhere
Every piece of marketing you create should follow this structure:
Whether it’s:
- Facebook ads
- Google ads
- Door hangers
- Direct mail postcards
- Flyers on bulletin boards
- Email campaigns
- Text campaigns
All of them follow the same structure.
Having that congruency across all your platforms is what makes this work.
We’re going to break down each marketing channel individually in other guides, but for now, this is the actual structure I like to see on every piece of marketing.
And every, every, every piece of marketing that goes out always has to have an offer.
The Widgets Concept (What Dan Kennedy Taught Me)
I had a brain fart in the middle of explaining this once, but then it came back to me.
Dan Kennedy calls them “widgets.” Alex Hormozi and other guys have their own terms for it. But it’s the same thing.
It’s magnetic marketing. It’s been done this way for a long time.
If you look really closely at any good marketing company, they’re going to know these things and this is what they’re going to do.
If you’re not doing an irresistible offer, you need to be. It’s going to get you a lot more clients coming through the door. You don’t have to discount your services. You can make a lot of profitability and get volume coming in too.
Final Thoughts: Stop Leaving Money on the Table
Most pest control companies are charging $200 to $300 per customer when they should be charging $850.
They’re doing one-time services when they should have recurring revenue.
They’re discounting when they should be value stacking.
They’re winging their pricing when they should have A, B, C packages.
Here’s what I want you to take away from this:
1. Structure your service plans for recurring revenue. Monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly. Just make it recurring.
2. Price for value, not for being the cheapest. You’re not going to grow a real business competing on price.
3. Use the A, B, C package framework. Guide customers to the middle option that has the best value and profitability for you.
4. Stop discounting and start value stacking. Give them free add-on services that cost you little but create massive perceived value.
5. Use all six components in every offer. Dream outcome, headline, social proof, urgency, scarcity, and clear call to action.
6. Tailor offers to new vs. existing customers. They need different messaging.
7. Plan your seasonal campaigns in advance. Don’t wait until the issue hits. Be ready with offers before the pain point arrives.
The average pest control contract is $850. If you’re below that, you’re leaving massive money on the table.
You have to go get customers anyway. Make sure those customers are worth as much as possible.
Want to learn more about building a profitable pest control business? Join over 2,000 other pest control business owners in our free Facebook group, Pest Control Millionaires. And grab a copy of Zip Code Kings for the complete marketing and sales playbook.
Now go fix your offers and start charging what you’re worth.
Related Articles
- Components of a Pest Control Offer: The Framework That Makes Customers Say Yes – Jonas Olson
- Pest Control Pricing Strategy: How to Price, Bundle, and Create Offers That Don’t Rely on Discounts – Jonas Olson
- Pest Control Service Plan: How to Structure Recurring Revenue That Builds Real Value – Jonas Olson
