How Much Can an Electronics Repair Shop Owner Make With $80K Pay
You’re trying to see if a repair shop can pay you, not just ring up sales This page separates $80,000 modeled owner pay, revenue, gross margin, operating costs, reserves, and pre-tax take-home using a first-year through mature-year planning view
Owner income$80kNet margin24%Revenue for target pay$329kBusiness difficultyHard
Want to test your repair volume?
Owner income calculator
Estimate owner take-home and the gap to target pay from revenue, margin, costs, reserves, and target pay.
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Planning note: This is a researched planning estimate, not guaranteed salary, tax advice, or owner distribution advice. Actual owner income depends on sales mix, staffing, margin, reserves, and overhead.
What actually changes owner income?
1
Repair Volume
67/wk
Hitting about 67 events a week is the fastest way to spread the fixed load and move cash to the owner.
2
Fixed Overhead
$5.7K/mo
At about $5,650 a month, rent, utilities, insurance, software, and admin hit take-home before volume can help.
3
Ticket Mix
$9.5K
A better mix of repairs, refurb sales, and plans lifts blended revenue per customer and speeds payback.
4
Parts Margin
16%-20%
Parts and refurbishment costs fall from 20% to 16% of revenue, and every rework cycle you avoid protects gross profit.
5
Tech Output
1.5-4.0h
More billable hours per tech let each shift carry more revenue before you add another hire.
6
CAC Quality
$35-$50
CAC starts at $50 in Year 1 and drops to $35 by Year 5, so cheaper leads stretch the marketing budget.
How do you check owner income in the Electronics Repair Shop model?
How many repairs does an electronics repair shop need to make money?
An Electronics Repair Shop needs about $222,000 in year-one revenue to break even before owner pay, using the supplied 74.5% contribution margin and $95.20 blended revenue per repair. That works out to about 2,331 repairs a year, or roughly 45 per week. If the owner also takes $80,000, the target rises to about $329,000, or about 67 repairs per week; warranty rework and cash reserves push it higher.
Break-even math
$82,500 non-owner payroll
$67,800 fixed costs
$15,000 marketing
$222,000 first-year revenue
Volume to watch
2,331 repairs per year
45 repairs per week
$329,000 with owner salary
67 repairs per week
How much does an electronics repair shop owner make?
An Electronics Repair Shop owner can model $80,000 per year, or $6,667 per month before taxes, but that’s planned owner pay, not a universal average; How Is The Customer Satisfaction Level For Your Electronics Repair Shop? ties directly to repeat work and reviews. Here’s the quick math: a first-year shop needs about $329,000 in revenue to cover 25.5% variable costs, $67,800 fixed overhead, $15,000 marketing, and $162,500 payroll including the owner.
Owner Pay Model
$80,000 annual owner salary
$6,667 monthly pay before taxes
$329,000 first-year revenue target
25.5% variable cost load
What Changes Pay
Replace hired labor, owner pay can rise
That gain is labor pay, not passive profit
Staffed shops need higher repair volume
Protect take-home with repeat customers
Is an electronics repair shop profitable after hiring technicians?
An Electronics Repair Shop can be profitable after hiring technicians, but only if the extra completed jobs cover the added payroll fast. First-year payroll is $162,500, then it rises to $250,000 in year two with one repair technician, full-time admin, and half-time marketing support; with owner salary included, break-even is about $452,800 in revenue. In plain English: more hands can raise capacity, but idle time, training, quality control, and rework can wipe out the gain.
Payroll pressure
$162,500 year-one payroll
Owner, lead tech, half-time admin
Hiring raises fixed cost fast
Extra work must fill the bench
What can break margin
$250,000 year-two payroll
Break-even near $452,800 revenue
Owner take-home gets squeezed
Rework and idle time hurt fast
Key Takeaways
Completed repairs, not quotes, fund owner pay.
Parts cost and rework can erase margin fast.
Technician hours must create more billables than payroll.
Fixed overhead and CAC set the break-even floor.
Compare low, base, and higher-volume owner income scenarios
Owner income scenarios
Owner pay moves with event volume, payroll, fixed overhead, and marketing. These cases show the path from lean break-even to a higher-volume shop with more reserve room.
Lean, base, and high owner-pay cases for the repair shop.
Scenario
Low CaseLean case
Base CasePlan case
High CaseUpside case
Launch model
This lean case keeps the shop near non-owner break-even with a limited draw.
This base case supports about $80,000 of owner pay at steady first-year volume.
This upside case assumes stronger volume and more room for reserves before the next hire.
Typical setup
About $222,000 revenue and 45 events per week, with first-year marketing, payroll, and fixed overhead just covered before owner pay.
About $329,000 revenue and 67 events per week, with the modeled mix, contribution margin, payroll, fixed overhead, and marketing working together.
About $421,000 revenue and 85 events per week, with stronger contribution margin and enough cushion to delay extra staffing.
Cost drivers
45 events/week
$222,000 revenue
payroll
fixed overhead
marketing
67 events/week
$329,000 revenue
contribution margin
payroll
fixed overhead
85 events/week
$421,000 revenue
contribution margin
reserve build
staffing delay
Owner income rangeBefore owner reserves
Limited owner drawLimited draw
$80,000Target pay
Higher draw with reservesUpside case
Best fit
Use this to stress-test a hard opening where cash is tight and owner pay stays light.
Use this as the main planning case if the shop hits the first-year operating plan.
Use this to test a busier shop with better cash cover and more room to pay the owner.
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Planning note: Scenario ranges are researched planning assumptions, not guaranteed earnings, salary promises, tax advice, or distributions.
Electronics Repair Shop Core Six Income Drivers
Completed Repair Volume
Completed Repair Volume
Completed, paid jobs are the cash gate here. Diagnostics, quotes, and walk-ins do not fund owner pay unless they convert. Under the model, the first-year target is about 67 events per week, or roughly 3,484 completed jobs a year, to support a $80,000 owner salary.
Volume only helps if turnaround time, parts supply, technician capacity, and repair quality hold. If they slip, the leak shows up fast as missed pickups, refunds, and warranty rework. One clean rule: more booked work is not more income unless it closes and gets paid.
Track Paid Jobs, Not Just Leads
Measure booked, completed, and paid jobs separately so you can see where cash breaks. The key inputs are jobs per week, average completion time, parts availability, and rework rate. If completion rate drops, owner draw drops even when walk-ins stay high.
Completed jobs per week
Pickup delay days
Warranty rework count
Refunds and no-shows
Use those four checks to decide when to add labor, slow intake, or tighten parts control. If higher volume raises rework or delays, the extra sales can still hurt take-home income.
Parts Cost and Warranty Rework
Parts Cost and Warranty Rework
This driver covers parts, refurbishment materials, return credits, and warranty repair hours. The model shows parts and refurbishment costs at 200% of revenue in year one, easing to 160% in the mature year. At $329,000 revenue, every 1 percentage point of parts cost is about $3,290 of pre-tax profit pressure, so owner pay gets squeezed fast.
Cheap parts can look good on paper, but failed repairs, repeat visits, and bad reviews hit cash twice: once on the first job and again on the redo. Track inventory shrink and dead stock, because both trap cash and quietly cut the money left for the owner’s draw.
Cut Rework, Not Just Part Cost
Track part cost per job, supplier defect rate, warranty repair hours, and return credits. Compare part cost + warranty labor to billed revenue on every repair, so you can spot jobs that look profitable but aren’t. If the rework rate rises, margin falls even when sales stay flat.
Use supplier scorecards, receipt checks, and reorder limits on slow parts. Keep a simple log of failed repairs and reason codes, then stop buying the parts that trigger repeat work. That protects cash flow and makes owner income more reliable.
Average Ticket and Service Mix
Average Ticket and Service Mix
This driver is the mix of repair labor, contract work, protection plans, and refurbished sales. At the stated first-year pricing of $75 per hour and 15 billable hours, the service mix sets the ceiling for revenue per job, but only if parts cost and warranty work stay contained.
Higher ticket does not always mean higher take-home. A shop with $5,650 in monthly fixed overhead still needs enough paid work to cover the floor before owner pay, so low-margin add-ons can hurt cash flow if they add labor time, returns, or warranty risk.
Track Margin by Job Type
Measure each job type separately: completed repairs, contract work, protection plans, and refurbished sales. Track billable hours, parts cost, warranty rework hours, and the share of sales from each mix, because that tells you which jobs fund owner draw and which ones just add volume.
Price by labor and risk.
Watch rework hours weekly.
Keep parts cost inside plan.
Push the highest-margin mix.
What this estimate hides is time drain. If a higher-ticket job needs more parts handling, longer bench time, or a bigger warranty reserve, it can lower gross margin even when sales rise, so the mix has to be tested on net profit per hour, not just ticket size.
Technician Productivity and Payroll
Billable Hours vs Payroll
Owner income rises only when technician payroll creates more billable work than it costs. In year one, the stack includes $65,000 for a lead technician and $17,500 for half-time admin, so the team has to stay busy and keep rework low before the owner can pay themself more.
By year two, adding a $45,000 repair technician lifts payroll to $250,000 including the owner. That can grow sales, but only if the new tech adds real billable hours, passes quality checks, and avoids warranty rework. If the owner keeps doing repairs, cash stays safer early, but sales can hit a ceiling.
Track Utilization and Rework
Measure billable hours per technician, rework hours, and turnaround time every week. The key test is simple: does added payroll produce more paid repair time than it consumes?
Track billable hours by tech
Flag warranty rework fast
Use owner time on bottlenecks
Train before adding headcount
Half-time admin at $17,500 should free repair staff for paid jobs, not create more handoffs. If training slips or quality checks are weak, cheap labor turns into refunds, missed pickups, and lost owner pay.
Fixed Overhead and Location Costs
Fixed Overhead and Location Costs
Fixed overhead is the monthly cost base the shop pays before owner pay. Here it is $5,650 per month or $67,800 per year, with $3,500 rent making up about 62% of the total. The rest is $600 utilities, $450 insurance, $300 software, $500 professional services, $200 supplies, and $100 security.
This cost floor matters because every fixed dollar has to be covered by completed, paid repairs before the owner can draw income. If rent goes up, the shop needs more paid volume or faster turnaround to protect profit. Higher overhead raises the break-even repair volume even when pricing and service mix stay the same.
Track rent against paid repairs
Watch monthly overhead, rent as a share of overhead, and completed repairs per week. If the shop is paying $5,650 a month before owner pay, the question is simple: are booked, paid jobs clearing that base fast enough to leave cash for the owner?
Keep the location tied to throughput. A higher-rent site only works if it brings in more paid repairs, faster pickup, or higher-ticket jobs. If not, the extra fixed cost cuts take-home income and makes slow weeks hurt more.
Measure rent per completed repair.
Forecast weekly paid job volume.
Compare turnaround to occupancy cost.
Customer Acquisition and Local Demand
Local Demand That Turns Into Booked Repairs
For an electronics repair shop, demand only matters when it turns into paid jobs. With a $15,000 first-year marketing budget and $50 customer acquisition cost, the plan supports about 300 acquired customers if that cost holds. If those customers do not book repairs, rebook, or refer others, the owner still eats the marketing spend.
By the mature year, $55,000 in marketing at $35 CAC implies about 1,571 customers. That only helps income if the mix is profitable: repairs, school accounts, business accounts, gamers, referrals, and repeat customers must create paid work, not just traffic. Vanity traffic does not pay the owner.
Track Source, Conversion, and Repeat Bookings
Measure booked repairs per source, not clicks or foot traffic. Break out customer acquisition cost, first-job conversion rate, repeat repair rate, and referral rate by channel so you can see which sources actually cover labor, parts, and overhead. If a channel brings leads but weak bookings, cut it fast.
Use a simple test: keep channels only if they produce profitable jobs after parts, technician time, and warranty rework. School and business accounts can be strong, but only when they bring steady paid volume. One clean rule: if it doesn’t book repairs, it doesn’t earn marketing dollars.
