How Much Property Maintenance Owners Make With $120k Pay
A property maintenance business owner makes $120,000 per year before tax in this researched model, because the CEO/founder salary is set at that level That is planned compensation, not guaranteed profit or automatic distributions Here’s the quick math: first-year direct costs are 170% of revenue, variable costs are 85%, fixed overhead is $9,900 per month, and non-owner salaries total $345,000 per year To fund $120,000 of owner pay under those assumptions, the business needs about $784,000 in annual revenue before reserves, capex, debt service, and taxes
Owner income$120kNet margin-31% to 69%Revenue for target pay$945kBusiness difficultyHard
Want to test your owner pay?
Owner income calculator
Estimate owner take-home and the target-pay gap from revenue, margin, costs, reserves, and target pay.
!
Planning note: Research-based planning estimate only. Actual owner income depends on collected revenue, margins, payroll, reserves, debt, and reinvestment. This is not guaranteed salary, tax advice, or owner distribution advice.
Want the six main income drivers?
1
Package Mix
$350-$1.35K
Moving more work into Silver and Gold, plus add-ons, lifts revenue per account without the same labor growth.
2
Billable Hours
5-8 hrs
Each active customer goes from 5 to 8 billable hours a month, so utilization is the fastest way to grow revenue.
3
Gross Margin
83%-87%
Direct costs fall from about 17% to 13%, which keeps more of each dollar for owner pay.
4
Add-on Fees
$50-$75
The out-of-scope project fee rises from $50 to $75 a month, and that extra work is high-margin when crews are already on site.
5
Overhead Control
$9.9K
Fixed overhead is $9.9K a month, so keeping admin lean is what turns operating profit into take-home cash.
6
Fleet Cost
$2.5K
The $2.5K fleet lease and maintenance bill stays in the way until routing is tight and truck time is used well.
Want to see the full Property Maintenance forecast?
What property maintenance business profit margin should owners watch?
For Property Maintenance, owners should watch contribution margin first, not just raw cost cuts; for startup context, see How Much Does It Cost To Open, Start, Launch Your Property Maintenance Business? Year 1 gross margin is 83.0%, and Year 5 rises to 87.0%, while contribution margin after variable costs improves from 74.5% to 80.0%. On $1,000,000 of revenue, every 1 point of margin is $10,000 before overhead.
Watch the margin levers
Track contribution margin, not just spend
Push subcontractor costs down
Mark up materials tightly
Cut unpaid travel time
Protect owner take-home
Avoid callbacks that eat margin
Limit subcontractor overuse
Raise margin by 1 point = $10,000
Keep overhead from swallowing profit
How much revenue does a property maintenance business need to pay the owner?
Property Maintenance needs about $784,000 per year, or $65,300 per month, to pay the owner $120,000 in Year 1. For market context, see What Is The Current Growth Rate Of Property Maintenance?, but owner pay comes down to contribution margin, payroll, fixed overhead, and reserves.
Quick Math
$120,000 owner salary
$345,000 non-owner payroll
$118,800 fixed overhead
$583,800 total before margin
Revenue Target
74.5% contribution margin
$583,800 / 74.5%
$784,000 annual revenue needed
Excludes taxes, debt, reserves, and $263,000 launch capex
What is property maintenance owner operator income?
Property Maintenance owner-operator income is a mix of your pay for running the company and the profit left after labor and overhead. In the Year 1 model, the owner is treated like a CEO/founder at $120,000 a year, plus a $70,000 lead technician and two $45,000 technicians, so the labor stack is $280,000 before other costs. If the owner is in the field, that pay is real labor income; if the owner manages crews, you still need to charge a replacement labor cost to see true profit, and the real driver is utilization, dispatch, account retention, and gross margin.
Income mix
$120,000 owner pay in the model
$70,000 lead technician budget
$45,000 per technician, two total
$280,000 labor stack in Year 1
Profit drivers
Utilization keeps crews billable
Dispatch cuts dead time and rework
Retention protects recurring revenue
Gross margin shows real owner income
Key Takeaways
Recurring contracts make revenue steadier and easier to forecast.
Package pricing must cover travel, labor, materials, and callbacks.
Billable hours drive technician profit, not just headcount.
Overhead and capex can starve owner cash fast.
Compare lean, base, and growth owner income scenarios
Owner income scenarios
Owner income depends on whether the $120,000 draw fits inside fixed overhead and payroll. The low case protects cash, the base case funds salary, and the high case waits for more scale.
Low, base, and high owner pay cases for property maintenance planning.
Scenario
Low CaseCash watch
Base CaseSalary funded
High CaseScale pressure
Launch model
Revenue stays below the level needed to cover the owner's full draw.
Revenue reaches the level that can fund the $120,000 owner salary before reserves and debt.
By Year 5, payroll expands and the owner draw only grows after more revenue and margin show up.
Typical setup
Fixed overhead and non-owner payroll stay heavy, so cash needs come first and owner pay gets trimmed.
The operation is stable, fixed costs are covered, and the owner draw is supported but not yet a free cash surplus.
Payroll rises to about $1,050,000, contribution improves, and extra distributions wait for a bigger revenue base.
Cost drivers
Sub-$784,000 Year 1 revenue
fixed overhead
non-owner payroll
capex drag
About $784,000 revenue
fixed overhead covered
$120,000 owner salary
reserves and debt
Year 5 payroll about $1,050,000
stronger margin
higher revenue base
extra distributions
Owner income rangeBefore owner reserves
Below $120,000Cash watch
$120,000Salary funded
Above $120,000Scale pressure
Best fit
Use this to stress-test a slow start and protect liquidity.
Use this as the middle plan once sales and staffing are steady.
Use this to test upside after the business has real operating scale.
!
Planning note: These scenario ranges are researched planning assumptions, not guaranteed earnings, salary promises, tax advice, or distributions.
Property Maintenance Core Six Income Drivers
Recurring account base
Recurring Account Base
Recurring accounts make the top line easier to forecast. Owner pay tracks active customers × package price × renewal rate, so a base of Bronze, Silver, and Gold plans at $350, $750, and $1,200 in Year 1, rising to $400, $850, and $1,350 by Year 5, gives steadier revenue than one-time repair calls.
Cash flow still depends on payment terms and scope control. Loose scopes, slow collections, and weak renewals can cut take-home income fast, even when sales look strong. The better mix is steady monthly work orders plus billed extras, so revenue stays predictable and less tied to emergency fixes.
Track the Contract Base
Measure renewal rate, days to collect, and package mix every month. If churn rises or invoices sit open, the recurring base stops acting like recurring income. Also watch work-order volume per account, because heavy service use without change orders usually means the plan is underpriced.
Write scope in plain English.
Bill extras the same day.
Review renewals before expiry.
Reprice busy accounts fast.
The cleanest growth path is more retained accounts, not more one-off jobs. Higher-tier plans help only when they stay inside scope and get collected on time.
Property maintenance business overhead
Fixed Overhead and Cash
This driver is the monthly cost base that gets paid before the owner sees cash. Fixed overhead is $9,900 per month, made up of $3,500 rent, $2,500 fleet lease and maintenance, $1,200 software, and $800 insurance. Add $465,000 in Year 1 salaried payroll, including the $120,000 founder salary, and take-home pay gets constrained fast.
Here’s the quick math: overhead, payroll, capex, and reserves all come out before distributions. Launch capex totals $263,000, and the model flags a $502,000 minimum cash need in Month 9. If the owner takes distributions before reserves are funded, the business can run short on working cash even when sales are growing.
Protect Cash Before Owner Draw
Track monthly overhead against collected revenue, not booked sales. Watch the gap between cash in and cash out, plus payroll timing and reserve balance. If fixed costs stay at $9,900 and salaried payroll stays at $465,000, the owner should hold draws until the cash plan covers capex and the $502,000 Month 9 floor.
Track rent, fleet, software, insurance
Review payroll before each owner draw
Hold cash for capex and reserves
Pricing and service mix
Pricing and Service Mix
Pricing has to cover travel, labor burden, materials, callbacks, after-hours work, and admin time. In Year 1, monthly packages run from $350 to $1,200, rising to $400 to $1,350 by Year 5. If small jobs are priced too low, unpaid scheduling and drive time eat owner income fast, even when revenue looks busy.
Here’s the quick math: the mix only works if the minimum callout fee, package price, project fee, emergency repair pricing, and material markup all cover real job cost. The out-of-scope project fee rises from $50 to $75 per customer per month, so loose scopes or cheap one-off work can turn into margin leaks and weaker cash flow.
Price the full job, not just the task
Track gross margin by job type: routine package work, out-of-scope work, and emergency repairs. A simple rule is to test whether each call covers labor, travel, materials, and admin before it starts. If it doesn’t, the job may keep crews busy but still drag down owner pay.
Measure average ticket, callback rate, and the share of revenue from add-ons. Then tighten scope language, set a real callout floor, and use material markup source values consistently. One line to keep in mind: busy is not profitable.
Maintenance technician billable hours
Billable Hours per Tech
Payroll only creates profit when technicians spend enough time on paid work. In this model, average billable hours per active customer rise from 5 in Year 1 to 8 in Year 5, so each crew member must carry more paid work to cover wages of $45,000 per technician or $70,000 per lead tech. The risk is simple: callbacks, training, supervision, and scheduling gaps still get paid, but they do not bill.
For the owner, low utilization turns growth into a cash drain. If the team adds customers but the extra work stays non-billable, gross profit does not keep up with payroll, so owner pay gets squeezed first. The key inputs are active customers, billable hours per customer, technician count, and rework rate. One clean metric matters: paid hours divided by paid capacity.
Raise Utilization Fast
Track billable hours by tech, by week, and by customer. Split the time into paid work, callbacks, training, supervision, and open gaps so you can see where payroll leaks. If a route or account creates repeat fixes, it is not full-value work. Measure that before adding headcount, because each extra technician adds a fixed salary burden.
Watch billable hours per active customer.
Flag callbacks and rework by account.
Fill gaps before hiring another tech.
Protect lead tech time from supervision overload.
Use scheduling to stack jobs by area and skill, then test whether one lead can support more field hours without breaking quality. If schedules stay thin, the business keeps paying for idle crews while cash stays stuck in wages. That is the margin leak that cuts owner draws.
Property maintenance gross margin
Property maintenance gross margin
Gross margin is what’s left after direct job costs, before overhead. With the source mix, Year 1 direct costs are 170% of revenue from subcontractors 80%, direct labor 60%, and materials 30%, so the job-level math is negative before insurance, software, rent, or admin payroll. That means owner take-home is under real pressure unless pricing and scope improve.
Year 5 direct costs fall to 130% of revenue, but that still does not cover the work. Warranty callbacks and subcontractor overruns can erase the remaining margin fast, so the owner only gets paid if the direct job stack drops below sales on every contract, not just on average.
Track direct job cost ratios
Track each job’s labor, subcontractor, and material cost against revenue, then price to keep direct costs under 100% of sales. Use package mix, call volume, and out-of-scope fees to see where the margin leaks. One loose scope can turn a full month of work into owner-pay drag.
Watch callback rate, subcontractor change orders, and material markups by contract. Separate direct costs from overhead in the model: insurance, software, rent, and admin payroll sit below gross profit, so they should not be used to hide bad job economics. Here’s the quick math: if direct costs stay above revenue, cash for draws disappears.
Property maintenance route efficiency
Dense Routes
When jobs are spread out, the owner pays for unpaid windshield time, fuel, truck wear, and crew idle time. This driver includes travel time between properties, jobs per route, dispatch quality, service area radius, and emergency job load. Dense routes turn the same crew and van time into more billable work; scattered accounts can look profitable on paper but still miss the owner’s pay once drive time is counted.
The key inputs are travel time between properties and jobs per route. With fleet lease and maintenance at $2,500 per month and a $75,000 upfront buy for 3 vans, route inefficiency hits cash fast because that fixed vehicle cost gets spread over fewer billable stops.
Track Route Density
Measure minutes between stops, jobs per route, and emergency jobs by service area for each crew. If a job needs long drive time, it should be priced higher or moved into a tighter route. Otherwise, the business keeps the revenue but loses the margin to fuel, labor, and dead time.
