Pool Service Bidding Rules Every Pro Must Follow

Saying yes to every pool is the fastest way to burn out your route and your margins. We break down a practical bidding system for weekly service, green pool cleanups, acid washes, and installs that protects your time, sets clear expectations, and helps you win the right work at the right price.

We start with the mindset shift: only bid work you’re ready to start. From there, we walk through a thorough site assessment that treats each pool like a home inspection—surface condition, equipment health, tree cover, access, and debris patterns all factor into time-on-site. You’ll hear why a strict no‑touch rule during bids prevents costly blame games, plus how to read client fit by talking through expectations before you ever pick up a pole.

Next, we get into pricing mechanics. Set a realistic baseline for an easy pool and scale up for gallons, complexity, and seasonal load. Ditch the “it evens out across my route” myth—each account must carry its true cost. We share a simple script for correcting an underbid without losing the client: own the mistake, explain the time gap, and offer a clear path forward. For green pools, we recommend tiered severity and a built‑in cushion to cover surprise revisits and chemical demand. For repairs and installs, use flat fees with adders for tight pads and re-plumbing so you get paid for both the job and the opportunity cost.

By the end, you’ll have the tools to bid with confidence, avoid troublesome accounts, and charge prices that reflect your expertise. If you’re landing every quote, you’re likely underpriced; aim to win fewer, better jobs that pay fairly and keep your schedule sane. 

• committing to jobs you actually want
• assessing surfaces, equipment, debris, and access
• meeting clients and gauging fit
• no‑touch policy during bids to avoid liability
• building a baseline rate and scaling by time
• raising underbids with direct, honest language
• pricing green pools with a 20 percent cushion
• flat‑fee installs with adders for complexity
• focusing on opportunity cost and

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Chapters

• 2:39 Why Winning The Right Jobs Matters
• 6:04 A Cautionary Tale Of Backing Out
• 8:08 How To Politely Price Yourself Out
• 8:08 Assess The Pool Like An Inspector
• 11:10 Meet The Customer And Read The Fit
• 14:08 Hands Off: Don’t Touch Equipment
• 17:50 Build A Smart Pricing Baseline

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:51

Hey, welcome to the Pooh Guy Podcast Show. In this episode, I'm going to talk to you about successful bidding. I'm going to cover a lot of aspects here from the initial bidding process itself to some things to note and look out for, and basically just a kind of game plan when you're bidding for any kind of service in the pool industry, weekly service, acid wash, green pool cleanup, etc. 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. All this comes from making kind of these mistakes out there myself and then learning from them the hard way. So I thought I would share this with you so you kind of understand the best way to do your bidding and the most effective way, in my opinion, that the bidding process works. The first thing, of course, is to make sure that you really want to take on the service account or to do that green pool cleanup, acid wash, whatever, and that when you make that decision, you're going to want to move forward with your decision. This is really important because you may ultimately make the wrong decision and then you try to back out of it, which looks very unprofessional and leaves a lot of bad feelings with the customer. I have a good example here. One of the my group members took on a pool. And it was one of those pools that would take a good extra 15 or 20 minutes over a normal pool that he would do. And so he took the account, and then when he got to his truck and drove away, and immediately in his truck, he decided that, you know what, I really don't want this account. I shouldn't have taken it. And so he's like, uh, what do I do now? I took this account I shouldn't have taken. So he called me and and I walked him through a few things and I warned him too that if this person was that volatile and angry towards the previous company, they're not going to be too happy with him giving a bid, accepting it, telling him he's going to start the pool and then backing out. But there's ways you can kind of make it uh work, and he basically told them that he made a mistake by taking in the account because he realized now that it just wouldn't fit into his surface route. And he should have checked ahead of time. He didn't, and he realized now. I told him give it like a an hour or two and then let him know that you realize that you made a mistake, that you didn't notice that you were overbooked that day and you can't take on their pool, and you apologi apologize and and let them know that you know you're you're going to not service their pool. And it worked out okay. I don't think they left a bad review or anything. But this goes to show that the first principle is if you bid on something and you get the bid, you should be mentally and of course able to move forward on doing whatever that is a green pool cleanup, acid wash, weekly service on that pool. So just don't take pools you don't want. And I did a podcast earlier of how to get out of it, and basically just bid high. You know, if your weekly service is 190 and or 200 and you don't really want that pool, go ahead and bid 290, you know, and more than likely they're gonna call another company and realize that you're just a really expensive pool service and they don't want to use you, and that's a good way to get out of the bid. Same thing with a green pool cleanup. If you normally bid you know$800 for a really bad green pool swamp pool cleanup, and you don't really want to do this pool because you're getting bad feelings about it, just to go ahead and bid it, you know,$1,800 and they'll call someone else to do it. And that's kind of the easy way to get out of it. And no one takes offense to a high bid. I get them all the time I mentioned when I'm dealing with vendors, and I understand that they're busy and they just don't want to you know do the work at that point. Now, some of them may just be high because they charge a lot for their services, but a lot of times it's a good method to kind of slow down your business if you're really busy. Step number two should be assessing everything about the particular pool. And I'm gonna focus right here on weekly service, and you're gonna be assessing everything about the pool. You know, you're gonna put your hand in there and rub the pool surface to see if it's rough. You're going to check the equipment, you're going to look around at the trees, the neighbors' trees, and you're going to kind of get a feel for the pool entirely. It's kind of like if you were buying a car or truck, I should say. You're going to walk around the vehicle, you're going to drive it, you're going to check everything out. You may pop the hood, which nowadays is pretty useless because most have those shields on it, you can't see anything in there, you don't know what to look for anyway, because everything is electronic. And then you're going to, of course, walk around, make sure there's no scratches or dents. Same thing with this account because you're taking this thing on and you want to note every detail about it, and you want to make sure that it's something that is acceptable. Now, of course, if you're starting out in the business and you you're just trying to get every single account, you're not going to like go over this with a fine-tooth comb. You're going to just take the pool mostly for what it is. But if you are established and you are going to be picky about it at this point, of course, you want to make sure it fits your criteria. Newer equipment, you know, good surface, not chipping or cracking. And then, of course, the customer has to be someone that you can deal with. Now, a lot of times there's a lot of remote accounts that you get where you don't meet the customer per se. You may just talk to them on the phone. I really think it's helpful to meet the customer before you take on the account. It doesn't always have to be that way. I've taken on accounts before where I've actually never met the customer. It's a rental property, things like that. But if you get a good feel for them on the phone, that's I think that's half the battle. In person is even better, so you get a real feel for what kind of person they are, you know, if they're picky or how they address you or how they talk to you. Those are all important factors. They're not deal breakers by any stretch of the of the conversation here, but they are factors as well because it's an overall kind of thing that you're looking at when you take on a service account. You know, is the pool acceptable? Is the customer going to be friendly? And you have to kind of decide at what level you're gonna be at and what level you're gonna take these things at. And of course, again, if you're starting out, you don't really care about a lot of details, you just want the account, you want the monthly income, and that's understandable. But you still have to apply these principles to make sure you're getting an account that you can actually service. You know, if the equipment is barely limping along and looks like the motor is gonna the motor is on its last leg of the filter, it looks like it's been duct taped together to keep it going, then you may want to consider that this is gonna be a tough account to maintain, and if you're established, you probably wouldn't want to take it unless the customer decides to upgrade the equipment. Step three would be to make sure that you don't touch anything. This is an important principle, it's not your account, so you shouldn't be turning on the pump. I don't do that until actually I get the pool, and then I do a full assessment after I land the account, because then you could, of course, tell the customer that they need to do fix something or whatever. But if you are there and you turn on the pool and then the motor starts humming click, and then you know the capacitor dies or whatever, they'll be like, huh, that never happened before. What did you do to my equipment? You get that kind of thing, and believe me, I've done that, and it was a really old pool. I was like, I wonder if this motor even works. So I turned it on, and then you're holding the bag like you know you broke it or something. Another one of my members hit was pushing something on the automated system, not quite familiar with it, and he put it on spa drain, and he couldn't figure out how to get out of it. So I just told him, turn the breakers off to everything for a minute, it'll reset everything. Another one of my members was in an above-ground pool, he took he saw there was a lot of debris in the pump basket, took the lid off, realized that there was no ball valve to turn off the water, and water started gushing out of there, and you couldn't get the lid back on. By the way, one of the comments on YouTube for a video I was talking about this happening on, recommended just turning on the pump. And if you turn on the pump with the lid off, it's gonna start sucking the water down into the system, and then you can get the pump lid back on. So that's actually a great tip for if you ever take the pump lid off a pool that's below sea level or below the the pool water level, doesn't have to be an above-ground pool necessarily. Turn on the pump, and that should suck the water in enough to get the lid on, and that will solve that problem. But don't touch anything because you may break something, you may hit a button, you may do something at that point. It's not your account, and you shouldn't touch anything. If you've ever bought a house and hired a home inspector, they won't even move a box away from like a socket to test it to see if the plug works. Just don't touch anything until it's your service account, and then you can assess everything and go from there. Now, as far as pricing goes, this is where it becomes really critical that you get this right. If you're bidding on a pool, you should have a baseline of how much time you spend at an average pool and what you're charging for that. I'm just gonna say 180 is your baseline charge for a 15,000 gallon, pretty easy pool with not a lot of debris around it. So if you're bidding on a 25,000 gallon pool, you really can't bid that pool at 180 because it's gonna take you longer. There's much more involved in it, especially if there's trees around it and there's more debris. The bigger the pool, the longer it takes to clean it when it gets messy. So you can't charge a baseline rate across the board for every single pool that you're doing out there. So keep that in mind as well that when you're bidding, you should have again your base rate, and then you should be able to go up based on how much time and effort it's gonna take you to service that account. And it doesn't really even out across your route. That's kind of a bad philosophy. You know, you may have a 10,000-gallon pool and a 15,000 and then a 25,000, but you're charging the same for all of them because they'll even out over time. You know, your 10,000-gallon pool is easier. That's really not true. You should get paid for that particular job. If you call a plumber and they're doing some work for you, they're not going to basically say, Well, you know, since early in the day I made$1,800 on this job, you know, and this one looks pretty easy. I'll discharge half that because I already made good money earlier today. It's not doesn't work that way. You are charging for what you think you need to get at that pool every week, regardless of the other pools on your route. So you want to bid accordingly because it's really hard when you take on a pool and you want to raise the bid. Now it's not something that's unsuccessful, it can be done, and it has been done before. There was another member of my group that bid this pool, it was a pretty heavy debris pool, and he realized that he was about$80 under. And so he approached the customer and he was really good at this stuff and business sense was really highly attuned. He said, You know, I when I took the pool on two months ago, I didn't realize that it would be this difficult to keep it clean with all everything around it. And I realized now that I am actually losing money on your pool, and so I'll have to stop service in 30 days because I'm just not making any money here with the extra time I'm putting in. And I know it's my mistake, and uh truthfully, I I made a mistake with the bidding, and I should have bid$80 more a month, and so you know I have to let you go because I'm just not making any money here. And sorry about that, you know, I I'm I underbid it by at least$80 a month. And so the customer said, Well, if I pay you$80 more a month, will you continue doing the pool? And he's like, Yes, I'll I'll be able to do that if you are able to increase it. And again, I apologize for bidding it incorrectly at the beginning, and of course you retain that account, so it can be done, but it's not customary and it's something that you don't want to be doing, so you want to make sure you get it right the first time. Same thing with the green pool cleanup. If you bid it, you know, there's I have a video with the different levels of green pools, and if it's like a level five where it's like frogs are living in there, and uh there was a green pool that someone sent a picture of um in the group that I have, and there were fish in there, and I everyone was like, Why is how in the world did fish get in this green pool? Well, the customer put the fish in there because he wanted to eat all the tadpoles and the mosquito larvae, so that's like a level five for sure, you know. If there's fish in there, then if you bid it wrong, you know, if you bid it for like 600, and technically it's gonna be about eight or nine hundred dollars worth of your time, then you've actually lost money on that because time is money. You could have been doing something else with that time, and you're not getting paid for your time, you're just kind of volunteering at that green pool at that point. So make sure you bid accordingly. And I always say bid the green green pools higher and give yourself a 20% cushion because you may use that cushion on it. So if you're thinking this will be an$800 green pool cleanup, go ahead and just tack on another$80 or so, so$880 or$900 just to give yourself that cushion in case something does come up and it's gonna cost you more time and money because you may have to make a like a fourth visit or something during the week over there to do something, and that's your time. So I always think that you should go a little higher and give yourself a cushion, and it'll work out well. And same thing with acid washes, you want to build a cushion for that as well. You you want to make sure that you're getting paid for that. One mistake that I made was bidding my repairs too low and my time that I spend there. Because truthfully, even if you are doing a pump install, it could cause there could be more time involved than you think, and there should be a baseline charge that you have for a pump install. You know, I was charging a lot less than I'm charging now for that, and typically in my area, the average for a pump install is about 450 or 500, and I was charging much much less than that, even though sometimes it took an hour and a half, sometimes it took two and a half hours. Charging a good baseline rate for the install is really crucial and key because one job may take longer than another. You can charge hourly, I guess, if you would like to, but a flat fee is usually the best. And if you have a built-in cushion, you know,$500 for a pump install. And if it looks like a really difficult job, you know, I have a person that I use a lot for my installs, and I sent him a job where a lot of the plumbing crossed over, and he's like, Oh, this is gonna be like a lot more time and money because all these pipes cross over, and I can't even get to the pump without cutting this out and moving this over, and that became like an$800 install because he had to actually move some equipment to make room for the pump, and so you can always go up based on the job site. So, of course, you have your baseline$500 install, and then from there you can go up. I would say don't go down from that because that's your base install price, and you have to make money because you're out there spending a lot of time taking time away from doing something else, you should get paid for it. So, keep that in mind as well. If you're out there doing an install, you could be doing something else to make money, like an acid wash or a green pool cleanup. So don't think that you know you should discount it or go down in price. You should have a good baseline to make up for the fact that you're not able to do something else with your time. You know, you could be doing two pools and cleaning two pools at that time and making money on your weekly service route. So you're only one person, you know, you can of course have a team doing this as well, but you're only one person in that spot doing that one task, and you're not able to do another task during that time period, and so you're getting paid for that loss of other revenue, and you should charge enough to make it worth your while to be at the job you chose to be at and service the account you chose to service. These are pretty good baseline rules for bidding and for pricing. And I suggest you implement them. If you feel like you're charging too little, you probably are, and if you're you know getting a lot, landing a lot of bids and a lot of repairs, a lot of green pool cleanups, you may be a little bit under the market at that point, and you may want to go up a little bit. Even if you don't get every bid, you're still getting paid what you're worth on the bids you're getting. It'll even out, you know, you'll do less work because you're not running around doing everything at a lower price, you're getting a higher price for what you're doing, and you're going to be able to expand and get bigger and grow by doing this and charging correctly and bidding correctly at the beginning when you take on that particular job that you so choose to take on. And remember the first rule if you're going to take it, definitely you want to be able to move forward on the pool service, weekly pool service, or the green pool cleanup, and you don't want to back out at some point because that is going to look bad for you, and it also wastes your time ultimately. If you're looking for other podcasts, you can find those by going to my website, swimmingfullearning.com. On the banner, click on the podcast icon. There'll be a drop down menu of over 1800 podcasts there for you. And if you're interested in the coaching program, you can learn more at poleguidecoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have a rest of your week and God bless.