JOBBER HOME SERVICE ECONOMIC REPORT
Jobber Tracks the Pulse of Home Service
Jobber is the leading software platform for home and commercial service businesses. It supports over 100,000 businesses and 400,000+ professionals across industries like landscaping, HVAC, plumbing, and cleaning, helping them manage operations and get paid faster.
Home Service is a major but underreported part of the economy—local, labor-intensive, and essential. The Home Service Economic Report (HSER) leverages Jobber’s proprietary data drawn from its more than 400,000 users to offer a rare, real-time view of trends in consumer demand, revenue, and economic conditions across four key segments: Green, Cleaning, Contracting, and Construction.
The HSER delivers actionable insights on market shifts, challenges, and strategies, helping businesses understand what’s happening, why it matters, and how to succeed.
Q1 2026 at a Glance
Our Q4 outlook projected steady improvement in 2026, and Q1 largely delivered. Consumer caution, housing lock-in, and demand for repairs and maintenance supported this narrative. The exception was inflation, which reversed course in March rather than cooling, adding a layer of uncertainty.
- Inflation spiked late, but homeowners kept spending. After holding steady through February, inflation jumped to 3.3% in March and consumer sentiment fell sharply. Even so, elevated home equity levels continued supporting homeowner spend.
- Tight housing supply kept demand flowing to Home Service. With mortgage rates above 6% and inventory at 4.1 months, many homeowners choosing to stay put rather than move, demand for repairs, maintenance, and upgrades remained resilient.
- The case for Home Service growth is strong. The average U.S. home is now 44 years old, maintenance needs continue to rise, and homeowners remain significantly underinvested in upkeep relative to industry recommendations. While trade school enrollment and new business formation activity are increasing, demand continues to outpace labor supply across many trades.
- All four segments followed a similar pattern. January opened cautiously, February stabilized, and March finished with strong momentum as homeowners moved forward with deferred projects and seasonal work.
- Revenue growth came from both pricing and job activity. Construction and Contracting recovered primarily through stronger job volume later in the quarter, while Green and Cleaning benefited from a combination of larger invoice sizes and improving demand.
- Digital payments continued gaining share. Online payments now represent the majority of all Jobber-processed transactions, increasing 7% year-over-year. The continued shift reflects growing customer expectations for faster, more seamless digital experiences.
The Broader Home Service Economic Landscape
After holding near 2.4% earlier in the quarter, inflation accelerated to 3.3% in March1, reaching its highest level in nearly two years. Higher energy costs were a major contributor to the increase. As inflation rose, consumer confidence weakened considerably. The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index fell 5.8% year-over-year, with declines concentrated in short-term expectations from immediate cost pressures rather than long-term outlook.
Mortgage rates improved modestly but remained above 6% for much of Q13. Combined with softer existing home sales and housing inventory levels at roughly 4.1 months of supply4, many homeowners continued to choose to remain in their current homes. That dynamic continues acting as a tailwind for Home Service businesses as homeowners invest in maintaining and improving their existing properties instead of relocating. Median home prices rose to $409K, keeping equity levels high and enabling homeowners to spend on home-related projects5.Harvard’s Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA) further supports this outlook. It projects homeowner improvement spending to reach $518 billion in 2026, growing roughly 1.8% from the previous year6. The National Association of Home Builders Remodeling Market Index (NAHB) held steady7, with remodelers pointing to aging housing stock and the mortgage lock-in effect as the primary drivers of demand.
The Long View: Structural Forces Supporting Home Service
More workers are entering the trades, but demand continues to grow faster
The Home Service category continues attracting both talent and new business formation activity. Construction business formations increased 12% year-over-year in Q19, marking the strongest pace since 2023. Green and Cleaning business formations accelerated even faster, rising roughly 24% year-over-year10.
Trade school enrollment has also continued climbing11 as younger workers increasingly view skilled trades as stable, high-demand career paths that are less exposed to automation risk.
A growing maintenance backlog continues supporting long-term demand
The average U.S. home is now approximately 44 years old12, placing much of the housing stock squarely within the phase where maintenance needs accelerate. While the supply of skilled operators is growing, the amount of deferred work continues growing even faster. Businesses that invest early in operational capacity, customer relationships, and service quality may be best positioned to capture that long-term demand.
According to the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), homeowners should spend between 1–4% of their home’s value annually on upkeep and maintenance13. In practice, average spending remains closer to 0.6%14. Applied across roughly $48 trillion in U.S. residential real estate14, that gap represents more than $190 billion in annual maintenance underspending.
Home Service Category Performance
Segment Snapshot: A cautious start followed by a strong finish
Q1 2026 followed a similar pattern across all four segments: a cautious January, a stabilizing February, and a strong rebound in March.
Strong revenue performance in Green and steady recurring demand in Cleaning helped offset softer booking activity early in the quarter, while Contracting and Construction recovered later in the quarter as homeowners increasingly moved forward with deferred repairs and improvement projects.
Green
Strongest performance across the Home Service economy
Median revenue posted double-digit year-over-year growth in most months, maintaining a positive momentum throughout the quarter. New work scheduled remained relatively flat early in the quarter before accelerating sharply in March, increasing 7% year-over-year as homeowners began moving forward with spring projects.
Average invoice size climbed 8% in January and 16% in February, suggesting Green businesses are successfully selling higher-value work. March pulled back slightly on invoices as job volume picked up, but by then the revenue picture was already well established.
Cleaning
Recurring reliability drives steady growth as new demand returns
The Cleaning segment delivered consistent growth in Q1, with median revenue increasing each month. February saw the strongest growth, with revenue rising 13% year-over-year. New work scheduled was down nearly 5% in January before turning positive for February and March. That recovery in new bookings, combined with sustained revenue growth, suggests cleaning businesses are expanding beyond their recurring base.
Average invoice size grew modestly but steadily, up 5% in January and March. For Cleaning operators, the segment’s low seasonality and recurring nature remain its core advantage.
Contracting
Slower start gives way to strong finish in March
The Contracting segment ended on a high note. Both revenue and new work scheduled were negative in January, down 3% and 4% respectively, before stabilizing in February and accelerating sharply in March, when median revenue grew 10% and new work jumped 8% year-over-year. The March rebound suggests homeowners delayed projects early in the year before moving forward on repairs and essential work later in the quarter.
Average invoice sizes remained relatively flat throughout the quarter, with monthly growth hovering just above 1%. March’s performance was driven by higher job volume rather than increases in invoice size.
Construction
Sluggish start gives way to recovery as projects get moving
The Construction segment had challenges at the beginning of the year, with revenue down 3% year-over-year and new work scheduled down 7% year-over-year in January. Conditions improved in February before accelerating in March, when both revenue and new work jumped 7% year-over-year. The pattern mirrors the Contracting segment with a clear recovery seen later in the quarter.
Average invoice size was up nearly 5% in January as businesses executed higher-value backlog work, but declined 4% in March as job volume recovered, suggesting smaller, faster-turnaround projects entered the pipeline.
Digital Payments Are No Longer a Differentiator. They’re the Expectation.
Digital payments accounted for more than 51% of all Jobber-processed transactions during Q1 2026, increasing 7% year-over-year and continuing a steady upward trend that has persisted over the past several years. What started as a competitive differentiator has become an increasingly standard customer expectation.
For home and commercial service businesses, the takeaway is straightforward: customers expect fast, frictionless payment experiences. Businesses that streamline the process from quote to invoice to payment are improving both customer experience and cash flow. Those who haven’t yet embraced integrated digital payments aren’t just behind on convenience; they’re leaving speed and cash flow on the table.
Conclusion & Outlook
Q1 2026 reinforced the resilience of the Home Service economy.
Inflation rose, consumer confidence weakened, and housing activity remained subdued, yet every major segment finished the quarter with positive momentum.
The broader dynamic remains intact: homeowners are staying put longer, supported by elevated home equity and limited housing supply. Instead of moving, many continue investing in repairs, maintenance, and improvements to their existing homes.
At the same time, aging housing stock and years of deferred maintenance continue supporting long-term demand. While consumers remain cautious and spending decisions are becoming more deliberate, the need for home service work has not gone away.
Looking ahead, the outlook for Home Service remains constructive. Businesses that continue investing in operational efficiency, customer experience, and workforce capacity will be best positioned to capture demand as the market continues evolving
Methodology & Data Sources:
- Inflation data is sourced from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, via Trading Economics.
- Consumer sentiment data is sourced from Surveys of Consumers by the University of Michigan. The index is a monthly survey of consumer confidence levels in the United States conducted by the University of Michigan.
- 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rates are sourced from Freddie Mac, via the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
- Existing home sales and inventory data are sourced from the National Association of Realtors, via Trading Economics.
- Existing home sales prices are sourced from the National Association of Realtors, via Trading Economics.
- The Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA) is sourced from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. LIRA measures short-term trends in national spending for improvements and maintenance to owner-occupied homes.
- The Remodeling Market Index is sourced from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). The NAHB is a quarterly survey-based index that gauges remodeler sentiment on current and future market conditions.
- Construction Business Formation data is sourced from the US Census.
- Green and Cleaning Business Formation data is sourced from the US Census.
- Technical and Trade School enrollment data is sourced from the US Census.
- Average housing stock age is sourced from US Census, via This Old House.
- Recommended annual home repair and maintenance spend is sourced from Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae). Fannie Mae is a government-sponsored enterprise that supports the U.S. housing market by buying mortgages from lenders, helping provide stability and funding for home loans.
- Spending by home value data is sourced from the US Census.
- U.S. residential real estate data is sourced from the Federal Reserve.
- Home Service insights in this report are based on proprietary data aggregated from over 400,000 Home Service professionals using Jobber across the United States. This includes segment performance* and digital payment adoption.
*The year-over-year change in median revenue, new work scheduled, and invoice sizes were calculated by aggregating data from a cohort of businesses using Jobber since January 2023. This doesn’t include any new businesses that started using Jobber during that period.
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