Pest Control Contracts: How to Make and Win Service Agreements
Creating detailed and professional pest control contracts can get you more long-term customers from one-off visits.
Other pest management businesses won’t show you their contracts—so how do you know what yours should look like?
We’ll show you how to build a service agreement that protects your business, sets customer expectations, and improves your chances at making the sale.
You’ll see every section you need to include, then learn how to get the work scheduled and paid for.
What is a pest control contract?
A pest control contract (also called a pest control service agreement) is an agreement between your business and a customer that describes the ongoing pest control services you’re offering.
Pest control contracts are for customers who need routine pest treatments, or who want a technician on-call whenever their pests come back.
Like other pest control businesses, you can use a contract to:
- Protect your business from customer disputes
- Set expectations for your customer
- Secure recurring revenue with regular services
This agreement tells your customers what to expect when they sign on to receive routine maintenance services from your field technicians.
What should you include in a pest control contract?
Your pest control contract should tell your customers what they can expect throughout the term of your service agreement.
Here’s what to include in every pest control contract:
Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice. Always consult with your legal expert and financial advisor to make the right choice for your business.
1. Business information
Include your pest control business information on the contract so your client knows how to get in touch. Your business details should include:
- Your pest control company name
- Contact person
- Email address
- Telephone number
2. Customer information
Include your customer’s contact details so they’re easy to find when you need to contact them about the service. You’ll also need them in case there’s a conflict to resolve with your customer.
Customer information should include:
- Customer name
- Email address
- Phone number
- Mailing address
For commercial properties, you’ll also want to include:
- Company name
- Business address
- Contact person name, email, and phone number
3. Property address
Provide the complete address for the service location, including:
- Street number
- Street name
- City/Town
- State
- Zip or postal code
Pro Tip: Create a pest control service agreement template to avoid the time consuming process of creating one from scratch every time.
Just make sure to leave blank lines that you can fill out with your customer’s contact information and property address.
4. Service schedule
If you have commercial clients that need regular inspections and treatments, write down a schedule for they’ll happen. This doesn’t have to include specific dates—just describe how frequent your visits will be.
To give you some examples, your visits could be:
- Every 30 days
- 30 days after the first appointment, then every 60 days after that
- Once every three months
Include the date of the first visit if that’s been scheduled already, and a date for the end of the contract.
You also need to include your terms for emergency service calls. Explain how your customer should book these emergency treatments, and whether you’ll come for free (which most companies do under service agreements).
5. Scope of services
Describe the pest treatment service you’re agreeing to provide. If you’re treating multiple pests, list them all.
Each of your recurring visits will include an inspection of the customer’s property. So, list the areas of the house or yard that you’ll inspect.
If you sell multiple tiers of pest control packages, include a line that lets you specify which package your customer has selected.
6. Pesticides and regulations
Include a detailed list of the pesticides you plan to use for the customer’s specific pest treatment.
State that you’re following pesticide regulations from your regional government authority (like the EPA). This tells your customers you’re using safe and compliant products.
Plus, some clients might have specific health concerns or preferences around pesticides. Listing your pesticides in the service agreement gives customers the chance to bring up concerns before you start your service.
Listing your pesticides might also protect you from legal liability—but consult a legal expert to be sure you’re doing it right.
7. Terms and conditions
Clarify any additional details about your service guarantees, your insurance policy, payments, and cancellation policy. You might also include instructions for the customer to prepare for their treatments.
Be sure to answer the following questions:
- What type of business insurance coverage do you have? (Include all required insurance such as workers compensation, liability insurance, etc.)
- What is your cancellation policy? How much notice do you require before terminating the pest control contract? Will you charge any termination fees?
- Are there any service blackout dates? (like Christmas day or New Year’s day)
- Do you have any service guarantees? (e.g., a full or partial refund if the customer isn’t satisfied with your service)
- What should the customer do to prepare for your pest treatment? (e.g., clear out kitchen cupboards, pull furniture away from the wall)
You should also include the length of time that the homeowner should stay out of the house (e.g. 4 hours) after your service is complete—based on the type of spray you’re using.
8. Invoice schedule and payment terms
An invoice schedule tells your customers how and when they should pay. Payment terms are a set of guidelines that reduce the chances of unpaid invoices or late payments.
Here’s what the invoice schedule and payment terms on your contract should include:
- Payment due dates
- Penalties or fees for late payments
- What payment methods you accept (cash, check, online card payments, or mobile credit card payments in person)
- How and when you’ll send invoices
9. Signature line
Leave a space at the end for both you and your customer to sign off on the contract, along with the date the contract was signed.
When you draft your agreement with a service like DocuSign, the document will already have a signature line that customers can sign online.
How to make a digital pest control contract
You have two options for creating a professional pest control contract:
- Start with a contract template from a legal document provider like LawDepot or DocuSign. Then, have a lawyer or other legal expert review it.
- Draft a contract yourself and go through it line by line with your legal expert.
There’s a common thread here: you should always consult a legal expert. They can ensure your pest control contracts are fair, accurate, and protect your business.
If you choose to start with a template, we recommend using DocuSign. DocuSign gives you prebuilt contract templates and that your customers can securely sign online.
Plus, DocuSign connects with Jobber, a pest control CRM that stores your customer details and estimates. When you connect DocuSign with Jobber, you can easily edit, track, and get approval for your service agreements.
Here’s how that works:
1. Use Jobber to create a pest treatment estimate in minutes. Write out your line items, add costs, view your estimated margin, and modify each service’s pricing in response.
2. Connect DocuSign with Jobber and decide when you want DocuSign to automatically draft service agreements for you. Then, pick DocuSign’s Service Contract template.
3. Once your quote is sent, approved, or converted into a job, your pest control service agreement will show up with blank fields that you can fill for each specific customer.
4. You can then drag and drop details from your Jobber account into your agreement—like your customer’s address and the service agreement price.
Your drafted agreement is linked within Jobber, so you can easily edit and send the final agreement to your client through DocuSign.
Benefits of pest control service contracts
Pest control service contracts can bring your business consistent revenue. They bring your customers the comfort of safe, pest-free properties—and an on-call service provider when pests come back.
With pest control contracts, you’ll also:
- Help your pest control technicians catch hints of infestation before they grow into bigger problems
- Reduce emergency calls to your crews, helping you schedule and allocate resources better
- Use recurring interactions with customers to upsell additional services
Not all customers are good candidates for pest control contracts. Some pests problems, like infrequent mouse sightings, can be solved in a one-off service call. Provide a standard estimate to these customers instead.
To avoid pushing your services to those who don’t need or want them, sell pest control service agreements to customers who:
- Have a persistent pest issue that they don’t have the expertise to solve
- Have extremely destructive pests (like termites) that cause serious damage
- Are too busy to deal with their pest problem
READ MORE: 7 ways you should be marketing your pest control business
How to profit from your pest control contracts faster
You’ve learned how to create a pest control service agreement—now learn how to sell them, schedule visits, and get paid faster.
1. Offer pest control contracts an option on your estimates
When a potential customer asks for a pest treatment estimate, use that estimate to suggest a long-term pest control agreement.
This gives your customers flexibility, and makes your service agreements look like a valuable add-on instead of a pushy sales tactic.
Use Jobber to add a monthly or quarterly treatment as an optional line item. This is a line item that customers can select if they want it—they just need to check the box when they open your estimate in their online client portal.
Use these optional line items to let customers choose between different treatment schedules, like monthly or quarterly.
After your customer selects a package, copy the included services onto your pest control service agreement.
2. Set recurring visits easily
Once your customer has signed the pest control service agreement, put every scheduled visit into an online calendar right away.
In Jobber, you can create a recurring job and choose how often your treatments and inspections happen.
3. Assign the best crews for the job
Before or after you put a visit in your calendar, assign one or multiple pest control technicians to the job—it just takes a few clicks.
As soon as you assign someone, they get a notification that there’s a new visit in their schedule. They’ll be able to see it in their calendar in Jobber, too.
4. Track pesticide usage
Use Jobber’s chemical tracking form to record the details of every pesticide treatment, including product registration numbers and the pests you used them for.
You can also record the property address, weather conditions, and other job site details.
When you need to report on your usage, you can download your company’s entire chemical application history. Sort your chemical history by date, client, or applicator to quickly access the information you need.
5. Get paid on time
Having multiple customers with recurring visits is great—but it can make payment collection tricky. Stay on top of it by tracking invoices in Jobber, following up frequently, and making payment easy for customers.
Here are a few ways to prevent late and missed payments:
- Invoice and charge customers automatically.
Get permission from customers to securely save their cards on file, and Jobber will automatically charge them when the time is right.
You can decide on your invoicing schedule the moment you create a recurring pest control job in Jobber.
- Check your invoice statuses regularly.
Throughout your week, take a glance at your business dashboard in Jobber to see how many drafted, outstanding, and past-due invoices you have.
- Follow up automatically on overdue invoices.
Instead of calling and emailing customers to chase down outstanding invoices, use Jobber to automatically follow up via email or text.
- Collect payment on the spot.
Avoid chasing payments altogether by letting customers pay you at the property—by card—as soon as the job is done.
The Jobber Card Reader lets you quickly and securely accept credit card payment in person with one tap.
Want to hear about that process from a real pest control business owner? Here’s how Brandon Jones, owner of JP Pest Control Services, works faster and smarter with Jobber as his pest control software.
When you use Jobber’s pest control software to speed up your service agreement contract scheduling, dispatching, and payments, you’ll have more time to grow your business.