Learn · Guide · Pest Control
Ask any pest control operator what they charge per stop and the answer comes back instantly. Ask what the truck costs per stop and most have never run the number. Here is the formula, a worked example, and what happens to it the day a truck goes down.
The gap
Search for how pest control operators talk about their numbers and the conversation is entirely about pricing: what to charge for a quarterly treatment, how to price a re-service, what a route is worth. That is the right conversation to have about revenue.
It is also only half the picture. A stop that brings in $65 is not automatically a good stop. If the truck making that stop costs $5.20 to put there and the treatment itself costs another $18 in materials and labor, the real margin is $41.80, not $65. Nobody sets a price without knowing revenue per stop. Plenty of operators set prices without knowing cost per stop.
This guide is about the vehicle side only: what the truck itself costs to be on the route. It builds directly on the owning and operating model behind the equipment cost per hour calculator, converted from hours to stops.
The formula
| Step | What to do |
|---|---|
| 1. Owning cost per day | Annual depreciation, plus cost of capital on the truck's remaining value, plus insurance, permits and storage, divided by the days it actually works in a year. |
| 2. Operating cost per day | Fuel, routine maintenance and PM, and wear parts (tires, pump seals, hoses, nozzles), expressed as a daily rate. |
| 3. Total cost per day | Owning plus operating. This is what the truck costs whether it finishes five stops or twenty five. |
| 4. Cost per stop | Total cost per day divided by stops actually completed that day, not stops scheduled. |
Step 4 is where most operators trip. Scheduled and completed are not the same number once you account for callbacks, drive time and the occasional truck that does not go out at all, and the gap between them is exactly where cost per stop rises without anyone spending an extra dollar.
Worked example
A service truck with tank and spray equipment, purchased for $46,000, worth about $10,000 after six years of route work. It runs 230 working days a year and averages 17 completed stops a day.
| Owning cost, per year | |
|---|---|
| Depreciation, $46,000 to $10,000 across 6 years | $6,000.00 |
| Cost of capital at 8% on average value tied up ($28,000) | $2,240.00 |
| Insurance, permits and storage at 3% of $46,000 | $1,380.00 |
| Owning cost per year | $9,620.00 |
| Divided by 230 working days | $41.83 / day |
| Operating cost, per day | |
|---|---|
| Fuel, in-town route driving | $22.50 |
| Maintenance and PM, amortized (oil, brakes, spray system service) | $13.20 |
| Wear parts (tires, pump seals, hoses, nozzles) | $5.60 |
| Operating cost per day | $41.30 |
| Put together | |
|---|---|
| Owning cost per day | $41.83 |
| Operating cost per day | $41.30 |
| Total cost per day | $83.13 |
| Divided by 17 completed stops | $4.89 / stop |
$4.89 to put the truck at the door, before a technician does anything or a single ounce of material gets used. Compare that against what the stop actually bills and the real margin on the vehicle side becomes visible for the first time.
Why route density matters
Total cost per day barely moves week to week. Stops per day moves constantly, with traffic, callbacks, cancellations and how tightly a route is built. Since cost per stop is total cost divided by stops, route density drives the number as much as anything about the truck itself.
| Completed stops per day | Cost per stop |
|---|---|
| 12 | $6.93 |
| 14 | $5.94 |
| 17 (this example) | $4.89 |
| 20 | $4.16 |
| 22 | $3.78 |
A route that looks fine on the schedule but consistently finishes light, twelve or thirteen stops instead of seventeen, is carrying a materially higher cost per stop than the number used to price it. That gap tends to hide inside "the truck was slow today" rather than showing up as a number anyone tracks.
The day a truck goes down
Take a four-truck operation, each running the profile above: 17 completed stops a day, $83.13 in total cost, $4.89 a stop. On a normal day the fleet completes 68 stops for $332.52, which is the same $4.89 a stop.
Now one truck is in the shop for the day. Its owning cost, depreciation, insurance, cost of capital, keeps accruing at $41.83 whether it moves or not. The other three trucks can absorb some of its route without overtime, say three extra stops each, but the rest gets pushed to tomorrow.
| Normal day, 4 trucks | One truck down | |
|---|---|---|
| Stops completed | 68 | 60 |
| Fleet cost that day | $332.52 | $313.09 |
| Cost per stop | $4.89 | $5.22 |
| Stops pushed to tomorrow | 0 | 8 |
Total spending actually falls a little, since the down truck is not burning fuel. But cost per stop still rises about 7%, because the truck's fixed cost is now being carried by fewer completed stops. And the eight stops pushed to tomorrow do not disappear. They land on tomorrow's route on top of the normal load, which is exactly how a single day of downtime turns into a week of a fleet running behind.
This is the calculation the telematics vendors serving this industry do not run. They will tell you where the truck is and whether the tech is speeding. None of them will tell you what a day of downtime actually did to your cost per stop.
Keeping the two apart
Everything above is the truck: depreciation, capital, insurance, fuel, maintenance, wear. It deliberately excludes chemicals, materials and technician labor, which belong to the treatment rather than the vehicle.
Keeping them separate matters because they fail for different reasons. A route with strong revenue per stop and thin margin might be a chemical cost problem, a labor problem, or a truck problem, and the fix is different for each. Blending vehicle cost into a single all-in number for "what a stop costs" hides which lever actually needs pulling.
Common questions
Owning cost per day (depreciation, cost of capital, insurance, permits and storage) plus operating cost per day (fuel, maintenance, wear parts), divided by stops actually completed that day. Chemical and treatment cost are a separate line.
Revenue per stop is what the customer pays. Cost per stop, as defined here, is what the vehicle costs to be there. Most operators track the first closely and have never calculated the second, so the real vehicle margin per stop is usually a guess.
Depreciation and insurance keep accruing whether the truck moves or not. If its stops get absorbed by other trucks or pushed to tomorrow, the same fixed cost is spread across fewer completed stops that day, which raises the number even though spending did not go up.
No. Keep it to the vehicle: depreciation, capital, insurance, fuel, maintenance, wear. Materials and labor belong in the price of the treatment. Separating them shows whether a thin margin is a truck problem or a job problem.
Completed stops for the period you are measuring, not the scheduled count, recalculated periodically. Route density drifts as customers are added, dropped or reshuffled, and cost per stop moves with it.
Next
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