Methodology
This page explains where our numbers come from, how we calculate the ones we derive ourselves, and what we will not publish. It is the page we expect to be checked against.
The rule
Every figure on this site is traceable to a named public dataset with a year and a link. If we cannot source a number to a primary dataset, we do not publish the number. We do not estimate market sizes, we do not launder vendor marketing into statistics, and we do not repeat a figure because other publications repeat it.
Our primary sources
| Source | What we use it for | Known lag |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns (NAICS 561710) | Establishment counts, industry employment and payroll, by state and firm size | Roughly two and a half years. The 2023 file is current as of August 2026. |
| U.S. Census Bureau, population estimates | Denominators for per capita measures | Vintage year, released the following spring |
| Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (SOC 37-2021) | Technician employment and wage percentiles, national and by state | Roughly one year. May 2025 estimates are current. |
| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | Pesticide registration, restricted use classification, applicator certification rules under 40 CFR Part 171 | Continuous |
| State pesticide regulatory agencies | Licensing categories, exam and fee schedules, continuing education requirements | Varies by state |
The distinction we never blur
Census and BLS count different populations, and conflating them is the most common error in pest control industry writing.
- Census County Business Patterns counts the industry. Everyone on the payroll of a pest control establishment, including office, sales and management staff. That was 139,150 people in 2023.
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics counts the occupation. People whose job is pest control work, wherever they are employed. That was 102,620 people in May 2025.
These are not two estimates of the same thing. We label which one we are using every time, and we never divide one by the other.
How we handle derived figures
Where we calculate something, we state the arithmetic. Our density measure is establishments divided by resident population, multiplied by 100,000. Payroll per employee is annual payroll divided by mid-March employment, which we flag as not being a wage. Correlations are Pearson coefficients on unweighted state-level observations, and we say which jurisdictions were excluded and why.
Any figure we produce should be reproducible by anyone who downloads the same public file. We name the file, not just the agency.
What we do not do
- We do not sell leads. No contact details collected on this site are passed to contractors.
- We do not rank companies for payment. No placement on this site is purchasable.
- We do not publish proprietary survey numbers as fact. Where we cite an industry survey we say who ran it, who was surveyed and what the sample was. If those are not disclosed, we say that too.
- We do not give property-specific advice. We publish reference data. Treatment decisions for a specific building belong to a licensed applicator who has inspected it.
Corrections
We correct errors in place, with a dated note on the affected page. If you believe a figure here is wrong, tell us which figure and which source contradicts it, and we will check it against the primary file. See our corrections policy.
Reuse
Our derived datasets and indexes are published under a Creative Commons Attribution licence. You may reproduce them, including commercially, with attribution to The Pest Control Brief and a link to the page the data came from. The underlying federal data is in the public domain.