Service businesses hit a wall where homeowners won't pay more, but material costs jumped 18-25% in 2025 while prices rose only 1.5%. Margins are collapsing and profit per job is heading toward zero.
We were able to keep pushing and keep pushing. Every time we dealt with a raise in our cost, we were able to handle that out in the world with our customers. But what's happened here recently is we've hit a peak price point, a point where the homeowner goes, uh-uh, no more. And so this number has started to stagnate and slowly rise back like it was before 2019, but our cost of goods has continued to rise, squeezing down the margin by job. And so the problem with that is not only are we not making enough profit per job, but it even affects our commissions and everything else that people make, affecting your culture, affecting all kinds of situations out there for your business. In 2025, this past year, The amount that we could charge only rose about 1.5% over the last year, but our cost of goods have continued to rise 18 to 25%. You can just imagine the squeeze that that's putting on, and that profit is going to be almost nothing if we continue on this trajectory. So that's peak price.
