Where Your Pest Control Money Goes
What this page is. Not another list of price ranges. This is where the money actually goes when you pay a pest control company, built from the Census Bureau’s Statistics of U.S. Businesses, which reports what the industry collects as well as what it spends on payroll. Knowing the cost structure is what lets you tell a fair quote from a bad one.
The industry in one line
In 2022, employer pest control firms in the United States collected $19.56 billion in receipts and paid $7.04 billion in payroll across 139,917 employees at 16,080 establishments.
That makes payroll 36% of revenue. Roughly 36 cents of every dollar you pay a pest control company goes to the people doing and supporting the work. The rest covers chemicals, vehicles, insurance, licensing, marketing, office costs and profit.
Key figures
| Measure | Value | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Industry receipts | $19.56B | Employer firms only, 2022 |
| Payroll as a share of receipts | 36.0% | The single biggest cost line |
| Revenue per employee | $139,825 | What one person has to generate |
| Revenue per establishment | $1,216,664 | Typical branch scale |
| Firms | 13,603 | Companies, not locations |
What this means for a quote
A technician has to generate around $139,825 of revenue a year for the business to work at industry-average productivity. Against a national median technician wage of $45,250, that is the arithmetic behind every price you are quoted.
Two practical consequences. First, a quote far below the market is usually not a better deal, it is a company running below the productivity it needs, and the common ways to close that gap are shorter visits, less experienced technicians and higher turnover. Second, recurring quarterly contracts are priced lower per visit than one-off calls for a real reason: the route is already going past your street, so the drive time is already paid for. If you are buying a single treatment, you are buying the drive as well.
Bigger companies are more productive, and it is not close
The clearest pattern in the data is scale. Revenue per employee rises substantially with company size.
| Company size | Firms | Employees | Receipts | Revenue per employee | Payroll share of revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 5 employees | 8,882 | 15,528 | $2.10B | $135,371 | 31.4% |
| 5 to 9 employees | 2,491 | 16,540 | $1.84B | $110,988 | 38.4% |
| 5,000 or more employees | 3 | 30,384 | $5.44B | $178,927 | 33.1% |
The three largest firms in the country generate $178,927 per employee, 61% more than firms with five to nine employees. Those three companies employ 22% of the industry’s workers and collect 28% of its revenue.
Payroll share follows a U shape. It is lowest at the very small end, at 31.4%, largely because an owner-operator’s income is profit rather than payroll. It peaks around 40 to 44% for firms in the 10 to 200 employee range. It falls again at the top, to 33.1%, on route density and buying power.
For a property owner, the useful reading is that a national brand and a two-person local firm are not running the same business. The national has route density and can price a quarterly plan keenly. The small firm carries less overhead and its owner is often the technician. The middle is where the cost pressure is worst, and where quotes tend to be least consistent.
What we will not tell you
We are not going to publish a table saying a roach treatment costs $217 and a rat treatment costs $379. Those numbers circulate widely, and as far as we can establish none of the sites publishing them disclose a sample, a method or a date range. They appear to be lead-generation estimates presented as statistics.
There is no federal price index for pest control services. We checked: the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes no Producer Price Index series for NAICS 561710, and there is no Consumer Price Index item covering pest control on its own. Anyone presenting a precise national average price for a pest control service is not sourcing it from federal data, because that data does not exist.
What we can tell you is the cost structure above, and that it holds regardless of which pest is involved.
How to use this when you get a quote
- Ask what is recurring and what is one-off. The per-visit price on a quarterly plan is not comparable to a single treatment price, because the route economics differ.
- Ask how long the visit is and who is doing it. Given that payroll is 36% of revenue, labour time is the main thing you are buying.
- Get the licence number and check it. Every state maintains a searchable register. Our licensing page explains the tiers, including the difference between a technician working under supervision and a certified applicator.
- Compare against local market density, not the national average. Our Market Density Index shows how many companies operate per 100,000 residents in your state. In a dense market you have real negotiating leverage. In a thin one you have less, and pushing hard on price gets you a worse technician rather than a better deal.
Methodology
Receipts, payroll, employment, firm and establishment counts come from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Statistics of U.S. Businesses, 2022, NAICS 561710 Exterminating and Pest Control Services, from the file us_state_naics_detailedsizes_2022.xlsx. Payroll share of revenue is annual payroll divided by receipts. Revenue per employee is receipts divided by employment. Enterprise size classes are as Census defines them, by total employment across the enterprise rather than the establishment.
Wage comparisons use Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, SOC 37-2021, detailed on our technician pay page.
Data limitations
- Employer firms only. SUSB excludes businesses with no paid employees. A large number of sole operators fall outside it, so the true industry is larger than $19.56B. Commercial market-research estimates putting the US market near $30 billion are measuring a different, broader thing, generally including non-employers and a later year. We are not disputing those figures, only noting they are not comparable to this one.
- 2022 is the reference year for receipts. Payroll and employment for 2023 are available through County Business Patterns and are used elsewhere on this site, but receipts are not published there.
- Receipts are not profit. Nothing on this page tells you what a pest control company earns. It tells you what it collects and what it pays out in wages.
- Enterprise size is not branch size. A local branch of a national company sits in the largest size class, because the class is set by the whole enterprise.
- Census noise flags apply. The figures used here carry Census noise flag G, meaning noise infusion was applied for disclosure protection. They are reliable at this level of aggregation but are not exact accounting totals.
Frequently asked questions
How much of what I pay for pest control goes to labour?
About 36 cents in the dollar. Employer pest control firms collected $19.56 billion in 2022 and paid $7.04 billion in payroll, so payroll was 36.0% of receipts.
What is the average price of a pest control visit?
There is no authoritative federal figure. BLS publishes no producer price index for the industry and no consumer price index item for it. The widely circulated national averages come from lead-generation sites that do not publish a sample or method. What can be verified is the cost structure: revenue per employee of about $139,825 a year against a median technician wage of $45,250.
Why is a quarterly plan cheaper per visit than a one-off treatment?
Route density. On a recurring plan the technician is already travelling to your area for other customers, so the drive time is spread across several stops. A single call carries the whole journey.
Are large pest control companies cheaper than small ones?
They operate differently rather than being straightforwardly cheaper. The three largest firms generate $178,927 of revenue per employee against $110,988 at firms with five to nine employees, so they have more room on recurring contract pricing. Very small firms carry less overhead and the owner is often the technician.
Cite this analysis
The Pest Control Brief, “Where your pest control money goes,” August 2026. Analysis of U.S. Census Bureau Statistics of U.S. Businesses 2022, NAICS 561710.
Sources
- U.S. Census Bureau, Statistics of U.S. Businesses 2022, US and state, NAICS detailed enterprise sizes. www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/susb/tables/2022/
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, SOC 37-2021.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Index programme. Confirmed no published series for NAICS 561710.