Pool Service Quote Template: Weekly Service With and Without Chemicals, Worked Out

Why pool quotes need more lines than most

A pool service quote template looks simple until the first month a customer's pool turns green after a storm, or the first time the filter needs a $90 cartridge. Then the question is what the monthly price covered. Weekly pool service is a subscription with a physical asset attached, and the quote is the only place to settle what the subscription includes before anything goes wrong.

The fill-in template

1. Customer and pool. Address, gate code, pets, pool gallons, plaster, vinyl or fiberglass, spa attached or not, salt or chlorine.
2. Frequency and day. Weekly on a set day, and what happens on holidays.
3. Each visit includes. Skim, brush walls and steps, vacuum as needed, empty baskets, test and balance water, check equipment.
4. Chemicals. Included up to a stated amount, or billed at cost plus a stated markup. Name which chemicals are covered (chlorine, acid) and which are not (phosphate remover, algaecide for a bloom).
5. Filter cleaning. How often (for example every 3 months for cartridges) and the price if not included.
6. Repairs and parts. Anything that needs a part is quoted separately and approved before work, with your diagnostic fee.
7. Green pool exclusion. A pool that turns green from a storm, power outage or equipment failure is a separate green-to-clean job at a stated starting price.
8. Water readings. Readings and photos sent after each visit.
9. Price and billing. Monthly price, billed on the 1st, card on file, late fee.
10. Changes and cancellation. 30 days' notice either way, and how price changes are announced.

Worked example: one pool, priced two ways

These are assumptions for illustration, not market rates. The pool is 20,000 gallons, plaster, chlorine, no spa, serviced weekly (4.33 visits a month on average).

The worked price ($252) may be higher than your area pays, which is the point of doing it: if the market pays $185, this pool loses money until the route gets tighter (less drive time) or the visit gets shorter. Drive time is 25% of the labor line here. Adding two more pools on the same street cuts it to a few minutes each, and that, not the price, is where most route profit comes from. Use the free pool service pricing calculator to run your own pools.

Quoting the one-off jobs: openings and green pools

Two one-off jobs bring in most new weekly customers, and both deserve their own quote line rather than a vague "call for price". A spring opening covers removing and cleaning the cover, reinstalling ladders and rails, starting and checking equipment, and the startup chemicals. With assumed figures of 2 hours on site at $45 an hour, $40 of startup chemicals and a 25% margin, that is ($90 + $40) ÷ 0.75 = about $175. A green-to-clean depends on how green: a light green pool may take one visit, a black-green swamp three or more plus a filter clean and extra shock. Quote it as a starting price per visit, say how many visits you expect, and state that the price is confirmed after the first visit. Both jobs are the moment to offer weekly service, because the customer has just seen what the pool looks like without it.

Which version to offer

Chemicals-included pricing is easier to sell and easier to bill, but a pool that eats chlorine in July can wipe out the month's margin. Chemicals-billed pricing protects you, but customers dislike surprise lines. A common middle path is chemicals included up to a cap ("up to 4 gallons of chlorine a week"), with anything above billed at cost plus a markup, written in line 4 of the template.

Quotes that arrive while you are on the route

Pool owners call in spring opening season and right after a storm, which is exactly when you are busiest. Unmanually is a 24/7 AI Office Manager for pool service companies that you run by voice. It answers the call, asks the gallons, the surface, salt or chlorine and the gate code, checks which route day has room on that street, sends the quote from your template, sets up the monthly billing when they say yes, and texts the readings after each visit if you dictate them. For more on routes and seasons, see pool cleaning business software.