A field service company that sells one-off jobs has to find every dollar again next year. A company with recurring contracts starts January already knowing where 40 or 60 percent of the year is coming from. Same trucks, same crews, very different business.
Most contractors know this and still do not do it. They quote the job, do the job, and hope the customer calls back. Or they offer a “maintenance plan” that is a discount card with no schedule and no obligation, and wonder why nobody buys it.
This article covers the contract structures that actually work in the trades, how to price them, what goes in them, how to present them so people sign, how to renew them, and what they do to the value of your company when you eventually sell it.
Four structures that work
Different customers want different shapes. These four cover almost everything a trades company sells.
Annual service agreements
One customer, one property, one scope, one visit a year or more, one price, automatic renewal. This is the workhorse for residential and small commercial. Gutter cleaning twice a year. HVAC tune-ups spring and fall. Dryer vent cleaning every 12 months. Pressure washing the driveway and walkway each May.
The customer gets priority scheduling, a locked price, and no need to remember to call. You get a visit on the calendar before the season starts.
Per-door portfolio contracts
One management company, many properties, a price per unit per year, and a master agreement that each property gets added to. This is the multifamily structure and it is the one that changes a company. A regional manager with 12 properties at 150 doors each is 1,800 doors on one signature.
The agreement sets the per-door rate, the multipliers for building type, the minimum per building, the schedule window, and the report format. Each property gets a one-page schedule attached. New properties get added with a single email. We walk through the multifamily version of this in selling dryer vent cleaning to property managers.
Seasonal schedules
For trades with a hard season, the contract is a fixed set of dates rather than a general commitment. Snow, irrigation startup and blowout, holiday lighting, spring cleanup and fall cleanup. The customer buys the whole season up front or in two or three installments, and you fill the calendar before the season opens.
The key is that the season is sold in the off-season. Snow gets sold in September. Irrigation blowout gets sold at the spring startup. If you wait for the season, you are back to one-off jobs.
Maintenance plans
A membership with a monthly or annual fee that includes scheduled visits and a set of benefits: priority scheduling, a discount on repairs, no trip fee, a locked hourly rate. Common in HVAC, plumbing, and electrical, and increasingly in landscaping and pest.
Maintenance plans work when the scheduled visit is real and valuable. They fail when they are just a discount card. If the plan does not put a tech in the house on a date, it is not recurring revenue. It is a coupon.
| Structure | Best for | Billing | Main risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual service agreement | Residential, small commercial | Per visit or annual | Forgetting to schedule |
| Per-door portfolio | Multifamily, HOA, property managers | Per property, per visit | Losing the regional |
| Seasonal schedule | Snow, irrigation, lighting, cleanup | Up front or installments | Underpricing a bad season |
| Maintenance plan | HVAC, plumbing, electrical | Monthly or annual | Plan with no real visit |
How to price them
Start from the one-time price. A recurring contract is not a discount program. It is the same work with more certainty for both sides. Price it accordingly.
- Anchor to the one-time job. If a gutter cleaning is $225 as a one-off, the agreement is two visits at $205 each, billed per visit. That is a 9 percent break for the customer in exchange for the calendar commitment.
- Discount 5 to 10 percent, no more. The discount reflects the money you save by not reselling the job and by routing it efficiently. A deeper discount trains customers to see the agreement as a sale and sets up a fight at renewal.
- Per door for multifamily. Set the per-unit rate from your formula, apply the multipliers for the building, and set a minimum per building. Then commit to holding the rate for the first term. A good rule of thumb for dryer vent work is $14 to $20 per door; substitute your own numbers for your trade. The full method is in how to price multifamily work per door.
- Price the escalator in. Put a 3 to 5 percent annual adjustment in the agreement, or tie it to a cost index. Say it out loud when you present it. Nobody argues with it at signing, and everybody argues with it at renewal if it was not there.
- Bill on the visit for residential, per property for portfolio. Annual prepay sounds nice but most homeowners will not do it and most property managers cannot. Bill when the work is done, on terms they already have in their system.
What terms to include
Keep the agreement to two pages. The longer it is, the fewer sign it. These are the terms that matter.
- Scope. Exactly what is done on each visit, and what is not. “Clean all gutters and downspouts, flush downspouts, remove debris from roof valleys. Does not include repairs, guards, or fascia work.”
- Schedule. The visit windows, not exact dates. “Once between April 1 and May 15, once between October 15 and December 1.”
- Price and payment. The per-visit or per-door rate, the payment terms, and the accepted methods.
- Annual adjustment. The escalator percentage or the index.
- Term and renewal. Twelve months, auto-renewing, with a 30-day notice window before the renewal date.
- Cancellation. Either party with 30 days’ notice. Non-payment terminates on 15 days’ notice. Do not lock people in. A customer who wants out will leave anyway, and a locked contract only generates bad reviews.
- Access. Who provides keys, who notifies residents, what happens if the crew arrives and cannot get in. For multifamily, this section is the one that gets used.
- Exclusions and conditions. Weather, unsafe access, pre-existing damage.
- Insurance and indemnity. Your coverage, a certificate on request, and mutual hold harmless language. Property managers will ask for this anyway. The specifics are in vendor compliance checklist.
- Signature and date. Digital is fine. Jobber, DocuSign, or a PDF with a signature block.
How to present them
The agreement is presented at the moment the customer is happiest with you, which is the end of a job that went well. Not at the quote, when they are comparing you to three others.
For residential, the tech says it while handing over the invoice: “Most of our customers put this on an annual schedule so they do not have to think about it. It is $205 a visit instead of $225, we come out spring and fall, and you can cancel anytime with 30 days’ notice. Want me to set that up?” Then the office sends the agreement by text or email the same day.
For property managers, it is a separate conversation after the first job report goes out. “The first building went well. Here is what it looks like to put all twelve of your properties on the same schedule and price, with one report format and one invoice per property.” Send the master agreement with the per-property schedule attached, and offer to walk through it in 15 minutes.
Do not call it a contract. Call it an agreement or a plan. Do not lead with the discount. Lead with the schedule and the fact that they never have to call you again.
How to renew them
Renewal is where most recurring revenue quietly dies. The agreement auto-renews on paper, but the customer does not remember signing it, the price adjustment surprises them, and they cancel.
Set up a renewal process that runs 60 days before the anniversary:
- Day 60. A short email or text: “Your agreement renews on [date]. Here is what we did this year, here is next year’s schedule and price. Reply if you want to change anything.” Include the photos and reports from the year’s visits.
- Day 30. A phone call for accounts over a certain size. For property managers, always call. Ask what changed on their end and whether any properties are being added or sold.
- Day 0. Renewal confirmation, updated schedule, first visit booked.
If you run Jobber, the recurring job and the renewal reminders can be automated so the office does not have to remember. What cannot be automated is the phone call to the regional manager, and that call is worth more than any email.
Track renewal rate by segment. In our experience residential agreements renew at 70 to 85 percent when the work was good and the process ran. Portfolio agreements renew higher, but when they leave they take a dozen properties at once, so the regional relationship gets a human touch every quarter, not just at renewal.
What recurring contracts do to the value of your company
A buyer looking at a field service company is buying future cash flow. One-off jobs have to be resold every year by a sales effort that might leave with the owner. Contracted revenue does not.
That shows up in the multiple. A company doing $2M with everything from one-off jobs and a strong owner-operator gets valued like a job. The same company with $900,000 under written agreements with 80 percent renewal gets valued like a stream. In our experience that difference is worth a full turn or more of earnings, which on a company that size is real money.
It also changes how you run the company before any sale. You can hire a crew for the spring knowing the calendar is full. You can buy a truck against booked work. You can take a week off. Recurring revenue is the difference between owning a company and owning a job, and it starts with one two-page agreement handed over at the end of a job that went well.
Where Intrepid fits
We help field service companies build the agreement, price it, and sell it into the accounts that renew, especially property management portfolios where one signature covers a thousand doors. See how we run sales at /sales, or book a call and we will look at which of your customers should already be on an agreement.