The 2026 Pool Season: What You Need to Know

Forecasts only matter when they help you make better moves. We lay out a clear-eyed view of the 2026 pool season: modest 2–3% industry growth, a slowdown in new builds, and a steady shift toward service demand—especially across apartments, HOAs, and townhome communities where shared pools are now standard amenities. If you’ve wondered whether to raise rates, chase commercial accounts, or lean into software, this conversation connects the dots with straightforward guidance you can use.

You’ll hear a practical plan for communicating price increases, using data from last year’s costs to set fair, sustainable rates. We cover regulatory currents—from single-speed pump restrictions to shifting 1099 employment rules—and how to adapt without drama. Along the way, we spotlight tools like modern routing and service apps that streamline reporting, build client trust, and strengthen proposals for upgrades. The message is steady and actionable: protect margins, seek reliable commercial revenue, and use technology to deliver consistent, transparent service.

If this helped you get your 2026 plan in shape, subscribe, share the show with another pool pro, and leave a quick review to help others find it. Got questions or want the price increase template? Email David at swimmingpoollearning.com and let’s dial in your strategy.

• industry growth normalising at 2–3 percent
• AI shifting workers into trades, raising competition
• commercial pool opportunities expanding with multi-family builds
• service resilience through convenience and complexity
• strategic annual price increases to offset inflation
• simple math for rate changes and retention
• incremental tech gains in routing, reporting and automation
• gradual regulations on pumps, 1099 hiring and drought rules
• tariffs and overseas costs sustaining equipment and chemical prices
• practical planning for 2026 budgets and business reviews

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If you want the price increase template, email me at Dav

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The 2026 Forecast
• 1:53 Coaching Program Invitation
• 2:30 Industry Growth Returns To Normal
• 3:51 AI’s Indirect Impact On Service Jobs
• 5:04 Commercial Accounts On The Rise
• 7:13 Price Of New Builds And Economy
• 9:38 Why Service Stays Resilient
• 11:08 Planning Price Increases For 2026
• 14:52 No Big Tech Shocks Ahead
• 17:19 Regulations And Hiring Changes
• 19:34 Droughts, Tariffs, And Uncertainties

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:02

And welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show. In this episode, I'm going to give you my predictions for the 2026 season. I know it's a little early, but I thought I would get a head start on this because I think it's important to kind of plan ahead for the next season and what to expect in your business. Are you a pool service pro looking to take your business to the next level? Join the pool guy coaching program. Get expert advice, business tips, exclusive content, and get direct support. From me, I'm a 35-year veteran in the industry. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, I've got the tools to help you succeed. Learn more at swimmingpoollearning.com. I would say that the pool seasons are pretty static next to each other. There hasn't been a lot of change since the COVID era when we had a spike in inflation and spike in pool building, things of that nature. It was kind of an anomaly, and things are back to normal, so to speak, where year to year things don't change too much. I would say that the growth of the industry is probably going to continue at a rate of about 2-3% a year. You're not going to see a huge increase in the pool service industry because building has definitely slowed down since the COVID-19 pandemic when there was an explosion of building to where the builders could even keep up with the builds and all the leads. I think it was about 11 months out whenever you wanted to have a pool built. So it's one of those things where it was a pretty explosive time. There isn't a huge amount of pools being built. There's just a normal amount of pools being built. So that's something that you probably need to understand is that there's not going to be a lot of, you know, an explosion of new accounts is not going to happen in 2026. There may be a lot more people trying to get into the pool industry. I think the service industries are probably going to start to attract more people. A lot of fields where AI is kind of invading those areas and creating a shrinking job market. For example, if you have a computer science degree, getting an entry-level job out there in that field is becoming more and more difficult. And you know, it's going to be a shrinking field. And I think a lot of these jobs and a lot of the future is going to be geared towards service. You know, HVAC, electrici electricians, plumbing, pool service. These are things that are going to be impacted, I think, by AI. I wouldn't say in a negative way, but it's going to bring more people into the service industry. And that is going to be maybe a negative for you because there's more competition, if that makes sense. So AI is not impacting the industry directly, but indirectly since it's impacting other industries. I expect and I suspect more people are going to get into the pool service industry in the next five or ten years as the job market in tech fields and other fields start to shrink. One thing I think will expand, at least in my area of Southern California, are commercial accounts. There is a lot more emphasis on these kind of mega apartment communities, and single-family homes aren't being built. There's been a real shrinkage in the size of lots here in my area of Los Angeles County over the years. Even in San Bernard County, I would say the lot sizes are shrinking. So you don't have a big enough lot. Usually you're going to need about a 5,000 square foot lot to put a pool in. You have to have a decent sized backyard. Anything smaller than that, it becomes harder and harder to put in a swimming pool of any size. You know, you can put a small one in if the lot's pretty small, but you're going to have a problem putting a pool in any lot here that's less than 5,000 square feet, in my opinion. You need that area for a 15 by 30 pool and spa combo. And so here a lot of these mega apartment complexes are going up, which are these four-story apartment complexes with a pool and spa. And a lot of homes are being built townhome style, basically, with a community pool and spa. So you're going to have some more commercial account opportunities in my area, at least. And maybe in certain areas where you're at, you're also experiencing the same kind of shrinkage of the backyards and the increase of these apartment complex. So that's something to keep an eye on on the horizon. If you like commercial accounts, I think that's going to be something, at least in Southern California, where it's going to be mainly these communities with the pool versus backyard pools. And the price of pools, it to build a pool is just pretty astronomical here. And I mentioned this, and I always get people like scratching their heads or questioning this particular number that I throw out here. But a 15 by 30 pool here in my area runs you about$120,000 or so in costs. And that's just regular white plaster coping, no deck, standard equipment basically. And it's just one of those things where it's probably not sustainable as an industry and economy, especially looking at the economy kind of being flat. I wouldn't say we're going into recession next year, but the economy has been kind of flat based on all the different things that are happening in the economy. So you have to kind of look at that as well. I wouldn't say that you need to be afraid of a recession. The pool industry is pretty resilient and we're pretty insulated as an industry. We're kind of like HVAC and plumbing, where we're an essential part of the service industry. And it's something that, yes, some people will do their pools themselves when things get tight. But a lot of times pool service is one of the last services to be cut because it is a service that is convenient. You can make more money in most cases in your profession, having someone do your pool for you rather than you spending the time and energy maintaining your pool. So that's kind of what sustains the industry is that people are not wanting to do it because you can outsource something like pool service fairly easily and fairly inexpensively compared to other services that you can't really outsource as easily. I recently had my oil change, and I always think, you know, why am I taking it to you know Jiffy Loo to get the oil change and waiting there for half an hour? And I can easily do it myself in my driveway. I've done it before in the past, and it's just one of those things where it's just more convenient to hire to have someone do the oil change. I mean, when I used to do it myself, I'd have oil in my garage containers, and I'd be scratching my head, like, what do I do with these and look for a place that accepts to use oil? And it's one of those things where it's easier just to have someone do a knife spilt oil before taking off the filter. So it's like it's like something that I can do, but it's more convenient just to have just to pay to have someone do that. And pool service kind of falls in that category. A lot of cases because of the complex automation, different things that go with the pool that the customer doesn't really have time to do. I'm not saying you can't do your own pool, I'm just saying that time and energy and resources are necessary to do it effectively. Let me talk about price increases. Now, before the COVID-19 pandemic, the industry was a little behind on increasing their prices. We didn't really raise our prices much because it was a really flat inflationary market. Chemical costs were the same year after year. Equipment costs were about the same year after year. There wasn't any need to really raise the prices dramatically, or even at all in some cases. But of course, all that changed when the pandemic hit, the chemical prices shot up because of shortages, and also the expansion of the industry, pool building, the demand for chemicals and equipment went up. So, of course, when demand goes up, the price goes up, and it really affected the industry in a way that caused a lot of companies to raise their prices and to keep raising their prices year to year. So if you raise your prices last year, I would say that you're going to have to raise your prices somewhat this year as well. Maybe not an extreme percentage, but you'll have to steadily increase your prices to keep up with inflation. I do have a price increase template. It's just a simple little blurb that I put together. You can send out to the customers. If you want a copy of that, you can email me at David as swimming poollearning.com. That's David at swimming poollearning.com and I'll get that over to you. But it's basically just blaming the price increase on the economic situation in the industry, inflation, things like that. And it's a good way to kind of, you know, not make it you, but make it just what's happening everywhere. And if people watch the news, which a lot of people do, they'll read about the tariffs and about you know the refineries closing in California, it's gonna cause gas prices to spike. All these things are on the front of their minds because it's all over the place, and they'll gravitate towards the news, the bad news about the economy. And then when you send them a price increase, they're gonna understand that it's not you, it's the general environment that you're operating in, the economy that you're operating in, causing the price increase. So I the media is really helpful in that fact that it's helping you offset the sting of that price increase. But I would say, of course, increase your prices in 2026 because you have to keep up with inflation, you don't want to fall behind. And I did a podcast or I did a few of these on the math behind raising your prices. And really, if you raise your price ten dollars and you have 80 accounts, that's$800, you lose four accounts, you're still breaking even with your rate increase, and you have some more free time to get some more accounts. So the price increase doesn't necessarily cause you to lose accounts, but it's something that you have to do, and you'll have to do that because I think chemicals and equipment are gonna rise in 2026 as well, because they rose a little bit in 2025, and the price went up in 2024, and prices generally don't go down once they go up. If you if you're like me and used to get gas for like 92 cents a gallon, and then when it went above a dollar, everyone lost their mind. Now you're at you know 450 here, close to five dollars in California, a lot of areas. No one even blinks at that price when you know, 20 years ago for nine or even less than 20 years ago, I should say, when it was, or I guess about 20 years ago, it was under a dollar. And you know, it's one of those things where our tablet's gonna drop back down to$80 for a 50-pound bucket. If they're selling for$200, I don't think that's gonna happen because there's no reason for the manufacturer to lower the price. Plus, there's other factors like higher payroll, higher transportation cost, things like that, higher regul higher cost of regulations in the industry. All these are factors that are gonna keep the prices up and probably increasing every season. Are there any earth-shattering innovations coming in 2026? Probably not. Everything is pretty gradual in the industry. There's new salt systems coming out, there's new pumps that come out on the market, new automation upgrades, things like that. But nothing really revolutionary comes out on the market year to year. It's a kind of gradual industry, which is really nice about the full industry, that there's you know, we are regulated by the government to some respect. And there are changes where you may not be able to get a single speed pump as readily in 2026 as 2025 or 24, but we're not regulated as industries like the HVAC industry, where you know the energy efficiency is a big thing, and there's built-in obsoless obsolescence in older air conditioners, things like that. But parts are still readily available for old, you know, old equipment in the pool industry. So it's not something that you need to worry about. There's not going to be something dramatic happening in industry where you know I think in California there is a push for getting rid of natural gas in houses, and a lot of new communities are being built, all electric. It's not a huge deal breaker. You can still get a heat pump instead of a gas heater. So these things are something that kind of equalize themselves. The regulations, of course, are banning or making it harder to put in single speed pumps, but there's no regulation against a variable speed pump, and no regulation of you running that at 3450 RPMs for the course of duration of the pool operation. I always find it funny that these regulations are put in place, but there's nothing to actually stop you from getting a VS pump and running it at the full speed, which would be the same energy use as a single speed pump. But that's kind of how the government is when they step in. They just don't know the nuances of an industry. There may be some changes with the 1099 regulations in your area. California already went through this with AB5 a few years ago, and it's really kind of wrecked the 1099 industry. When you have an when you hire somebody, more than likely they have to be an employee. And this may be spreading in different states across the country, and it's something that you're just gonna have to adapt to. If you bring in an employee, they're gonna have to probably be if you bring on a helper, you're gonna have to be an employee and not a 1099 subcontractor. So these are things that are kind of changing, but it's slow, and these regulations kind of take time to implement themselves in the industry. And we're surviving here in California with this with these regulations, and it's something that you just have to deal with when new things happen. But I don't think there's going to be any earth-shattering regulations in the industry in 2026. There's always like drought restrictions in different areas, you know, Arizona, Nevada, these are common and you're used to it by now. California had some of these a few years ago before the rainy season kicked in. Those things can't be predicted. You know, the rain season in Arizona or Nevada or California, we can't tell if it's gonna be a drought year or not. It's one of those things where you just have to get into the year to find that out. But these are all things that you can deal with. And if you've been in the industry for a while, you know that these are pretty fluid things and they don't change dramatically how you operate. Here in California, when we had our last drought regulations, we couldn't drain pools for acid washes. It was one of those things where even people that were building pools, they were they were trying to restrict the size of pools being built. And then we just had this huge amount of rain happen the next season, which kind of washed all that regulation away. And it's one of those things where those can't things can't be predicted a year in advance. But I can tell you that the price increases are probably gonna happen in the industry for chemicals and equipment. The pool industry is not really expanding dramatically in 2026, maybe a two or three percent increase. And there's gonna be more commercial pools available, I think, in 2026 and going forward. Just get your business plan ready, find out, you know, you know, do an analysis of last year and how much you spent on chemicals and fuel maintenance, things like that for your vehicle, and then you can kind of calculate how much you want to increase your price in 2026 to keep up with the inflation of things. Auto insurance always is more expensive every year, your home insurance is more expensive, and so you have to compensate by raising your prices every season, and there's probably not going to be a season going forward where you can't where you're not gonna raise your price to keep up with the inflation and the industry. I don't predict any kind of flat market like it was, you know, the golden years of pool service was like 2012 to 2020, when really nothing changed, all the prices were similar, there was no huge dramatic increases in equipment and chemical prices, and everything, the competition was still pretty stable, all the industries around you were stable, but things have changed pretty dramatically, and I think going forward it's gonna be a much more fluid industry, and it's also going to be an industry that evolves with the technology. The AI has really helped the industry refine the software that's being used by Skimmer and other software that you can use for your routing. And I think these innovations really help you refine your business. There's just a lot more technology in the industry, and every year the technology gets better and better. So I think that's going to be a great tool and an asset 2026. But again, I don't see anything dramatic on the horizon. And if you've been doing this long enough, you know that the economy ebbs and flows, and that the pool industry is pretty insulated from any kind of recession or any kind of economic depression or downturn. The tariffs are somewhat concerning because a lot of our products come from overseas, and if that if that increases the price of plastics and things of that nature and products coming in from overseas, that's gonna impact the industry. But if you're steadily raising your prices, I don't think you have to worry too much about it in 2026. And of course, I could be totally wrong because this is a prediction and we don't know what's gonna happen until it actually happens. If you're looking for other podcasts, you can find those by going to my website, swingprolearning.com. On the banner, click on the podcast icon, and there'll be over 1700 podcasts for you to listen to there. And if you're interested in the coaching program that I offer, you can learn more at PoolGayCoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have a rest of your week. God bless.