Buying and selling routes
Pool Routes for Sale
A pool route is a book of recurring service accounts, and it is bought and sold like a small business. This page covers how routes are priced, where they change hands, what to check before you buy one and what to prepare before you sell. The calculator below values a route the way specialist brokers do, as a multiple of what it bills each month.
Only customers who are paying and on a regular schedule.
Recurring service only. Leave out repairs, equipment sales and one-off cleans.
Typical range for a good route
$48,000–$72,000
8 to 12 times $6,000 of monthly recurring billing.
Where this route is likely to sit
$56,000–$64,000
Toward the middle of the range, about 9.3× to 10.7× monthly billing. This is an estimate from the factors above, not an appraisal.
- Price trucks and equipment separately at their used value, so they aren't multiplied along with the billing.
- Expect part of the price to be held back and paid against how many accounts are still on the route a few months after the sale.
- Every figure should trace to invoices and bank deposits for the last twelve months, not to a summary.
What you are buying
A Pool Route Is a List of Customers and the Habit of Paying
When you buy a route, you are buying a set of customers who pay a recurring fee for regular service, along with their service days, their rates and whatever records the seller has kept. Sometimes the sale includes equipment as well, such as a truck, poles, a vacuum and a test kit.
What you are really paying for is the likelihood that those customers keep paying after the owner changes. That is why the price depends so much on things that have nothing to do with the pools themselves: how far apart the stops are, how the customers pay, and whether the knowledge of each property lives in records or only in the seller's head.
Where routes change hands
Where Pool Routes Are Sold
Routes reach the market in three main ways. Specialist brokers value the route, find a buyer and manage the paperwork. National business-for-sale websites list routes alongside every other kind of small business, and the listings are easy to find, but they reach many buyers with no pool experience and the asking prices often reflect that. Owner-to-owner sales happen when an operator retires or wants out of an area and a neighbouring company buys the accounts.
The neighbouring operator is usually the buyer who can pay the most, because the drive time to those streets is already part of their day. If you are selling, the companies already servicing pools near yours are worth talking to before you list publicly. If you are buying, local pool association meetings and the counter at your supply house can be where you first hear that someone is ready to sell.
Pricing
How Pool Routes Are Priced
The convention is a multiple of monthly billing. Add up what the route invoices for recurring service in a normal month and multiply. Brokers that specialise in pool routes put a high-quality route at roughly eight to twelve times its monthly billing, and the valuation is built on recurring revenue rather than on profit.
Example: 40 accounts × $150 = $6,000 a month → about $48,000 to $72,000
Three adjustments keep that number honest. Count only recurring service, because repairs and one-off cleans would be multiplied by eight or more if they were included. Use a normal month, worked out from a full year of billing, rather than the seller's best one. Price trucks and equipment separately at their used value.
The gap between eight and twelve comes from specific, checkable things. Density matters most, because drive time is a cost that produces nothing: brokers point to stops five to eight minutes apart as ideal. A book where most customers are on autopay is worth more than one billed by paper invoice, because collections take time and bad debt is real. Having at least 75% of the route under written agreement can add a point or two to the multiple, and few residential routes are. A route billing well below local rates looks cheap and has room to grow, but some of its customers will leave when the price goes up.
Before you buy
Check the Book Before You Value It
The most common way a first route purchase goes wrong is valuing a spreadsheet rather than a business. Every number should trace back to a primary record, and twelve months of records show churn and seasonality that three months hide. Before you agree a price, ask for:
- Twelve months of billing by customer, matched to invoices and bank deposits.
- The account list with each address, service day, frequency and rate, so you can drive the route.
- Copies of any service agreements, and an ageing report of unpaid balances.
- The service history for each pool, including equipment and recent repairs.
- A summary of chemical and fuel costs, so you can see what each stop costs to service.
Most deals pay part of the price at closing and hold the rest back against how many accounts are still there a few months later. Our guide to buying a pool route works through diligence, deal structure and the first ninety days in more detail.
Before you sell
What Sellers Should Prepare
A buyer is not really pricing your revenue. They are pricing the chance that it survives a new owner, and the cost of servicing it once they have it. The records that answer those questions are the ones covering the twelve months before the sale, so start gathering them well before you list: monthly billing by customer, the account list with rates and frequencies, your service agreements, an ageing report, your chemical and fuel costs, and the service history for each property.
Two things are worth fixing ahead of time. Outlying accounts that add an hour of driving to a service day cost a buyer as much as they cost you, so releasing or trading them can raise the multiple on what remains. And if the knowledge of each pool lives only in your head, buyers read that as risk, so writing it down is worth more than it looks. Our guide to selling a pool route covers buyers, pricing and the handover.
Texas, Arizona, Florida and Las Vegas
Buying a Route in a Year-Round Market
In Texas, Arizona, Florida and the Las Vegas area, most pools stay open and on service all year, so a route bills more evenly across the months than one in a northern market where accounts pause for winter. That makes a normal month easier to agree on. Summer still costs more to service, because heat and storms push chemical use up, so judge a route on a full year of costs as well as billing, especially if chemicals are included in the rate.
Phoenix and Las Vegas also have very hard source water, so calcium scale and acid use are a bigger part of the work there than in most places. If a route you are looking at in either market includes chemicals in its rate, check its chemical costs per stop before you rely on the billing. Licensing for pool work differs between these states and depends on what the work includes, so check what your state requires before you buy a route that includes repairs.
After the sale
Move a New Route In Without Upsetting It
The first three months decide how much of a route you keep, so the customers shouldn't notice the change. Pool Runs lets you bring the seller's customer list in from a spreadsheet or QuickBooks Online and keep each route on the day it already runs, because the recurring stops are built from it.
- No texts, emails or portal invites reach the customers during the import
- White-glove onboarding comes with every plan
- Service history attached to each property from the first visit, ready for the day you sell
Try Pool Runs free
Set up the routes you already run and the one you are buying, with onboarding help included.
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