The Truth About Chem Costs and Pool Service Rates

Prices at the supply house keep climbing, and chlorine isn’t bouncing back to 2016. We dig into the real reasons chemical costs surged 100–160% in just five years—pandemic shocks, the Biolab fire, transportation and regulatory pressures, payroll hikes—and why those forces keep a firm floor under today’s pricing. From tabs and liquid chlorine to cal-hypo and specialty products, we connect the dots between market dynamics and the margins on your route.

Then we get practical. You’ll hear how to stop absorbing chemical costs without alienating good clients: move trichlor tablets out of your monthly rate, bill a 50‑pound bucket upfront, or use a one-time halfway subsidy to transition. We outline when to charge for shock events, how to set a seasonal algaecide or conditioner fee for enzymes and phosphate removers, and how to document usage so problem pools don’t sink your profits. If a timer fails, a party trashes the water, or the system sits in spa mode, you’ll have a clear, fair policy ready to go.

Finally, we walk through the pricing math that calms nerves. A $10 monthly increase across an average route can more than offset one or two cancellations, and small annual bumps are easier for customers to accept than sporadic leaps. We share language for a simple rate letter grounded in facts—chemical inflation, fuel, payroll—and a framework for tracking costs per account so you know when to adjust. The result is a service business that stays profitable, transparent, and sustainable, even when chlorine keeps inching up.

• structural reasons chlorine prices stay elevated
• why bundling tabs and shocks destroys margins
• options to bill tablets upfront or split the first bucket
• when and how to charge for shock and specialty chems
• using a seasonal algaecide or conditioner fee
• the math and mindset for small annual price increases
• writing a clear, honest rate increase letter
• handling pushback and customer churn without panic
• tracking costs per account to spot problem pools
• links to more episodes and coaching resour

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage On Chemical Costs
• 2:31 Pools As Costly Recreation
• 3:22 A Decade Of Price Surges
• 6:04 Pandemic Shock And Supply Crunch
• 8:35 Why Prices Stay High Now
• 10:52 Stop Absorbing Chemical Costs
• 12:58 Charging For Tablets And Shock
• 15:53 Seasonal Algaecide And Specialty Fees
• 18:09 Raising Rates Without Losing Your Route

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:03

Hey, welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show. In this episode, I'm going to talk to you about chemical prices. I get asked often, are chemical prices going to go up or are they going to eventually come down at some point? And of course, I have some bad news for you as far as chemical pricing goes in the pool industry. 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 swimming poollearning.com. So a swimming pool is kind of a recreational item, and for that reason, it's going to cost more money if you have a house with a pool. And if you have pool service, you know that over the years the cost of everything has gone up pretty dramatically in the industry. And as you know with prices, once they go up, they rarely go back down. I mean there are rare occasions where prices may fall, but then the whole economy is probably in a pretty bad recession or even in a semi-depression if prices were to drop down to a level, you know, maybe a few years prior, if it goes to that price, then the whole economy is suffering at that point. And so it doesn't do you any good really to get cheap chemicals when the whole economy is in a tank. And it's really one of those things where if you look at the prices, and I have this chart here that I pulled up here of pricing of your standard chlorine over the uh course of 10 years. So back in 2016, and this is really disheartening when I read this and when I look at this chart, the trichlor tablets, a 50-pound bucket, was ranging from about$75 to$85. Calhypo was probably about a hundred dollars for a 50-pound bucket, and then liquid chlorine for one gallon. The price was you know around a dollar fifty or so in California, and of course, it's steadily gone up to be a lot more expensive now. If you jump up, you know, if you go through the years, you you'll see the biggest jump price increase, of course, uh, right at the pandemic where tablets started going up in 2021. They're about a uh$170. They peaked at$300 in 2022, and Calhypo kind of peaked also in 2022 at 200 230 dollars for 50 pounds, and of course, the chluchlorine has been really expensive as well. And then if you look at 2026, the tablet prices, of course, are a little bit more stable, they reflect more 2020 numbers, right before the peak of the pandemic, and you can get a 50-pound bucket for like 200 roughly. Calhypo is roughly the same price it was uh back in the height of the pandemic, so still about 250 for 50 pounds, and liquid chlorine is anywhere from seven to nine dollars a gallon, depending on your region. Florida is probably gonna be less, of course, because you have like seven liquid chlorine factories there, and that that's that's what keeps the price lower in that region of the country. But most other regions have experienced a pretty huge price increase. Now, how does this compare with inflation? And this is where you can actually utilize the price increase letter, and this is something that helps your pool service when you can raise prices, of course, but the chemical costs are a great way or a great segue into raising prices for your customers. Well, if we look at the uh rate of inflation, you know, the uh rate of inflation from 2016 to 2026 was about 35%. And that's over a 10-year period, which is about right, because there were some years, if you remember, where the rate of inflation was like eight percent, it was like really crazy, and then they raised interest rates to kind of curb that now it's down to a normal level of like three percent or four percent. But if you look at that and compare it to the price of chemicals in the pool industry from 2016 to 2026, that's a price increase of a hundred to a hundred and sixty percent. Now I want to pause here for a second so you can wrap your head around that. If you could imagine something going up a hundred or one hundred and sixty percent in price, it's pretty incredible in a ten-year period for that kind of price increase. And really realistically, you're looking more like a five-year period because from 2016 to about 2020, the prices were pretty flat. They went up like ten dollars here and there. So in the last five years, the price increase went up a hundred to a hundred and sixty percent in chemical costs. Now, a lot of that has to do, well, a lot of that had to do with the biolab. I don't know if you're you can recall this that far back, but I think most pool pros remember that there was a massive facility fire for Biolab in 2020. Biolab produced uh a ton of trichlor tablets for the US market. They were one of the only producers of trichlor tablets in the US at that point, and so of course that caused the trichlor tablets to skyrocket in price. But since the trichlor tablets were scarce, that caused all the other chemicals to go up as well. Liquid chlorine, dichloro, cal hypo, because supply and demand, basic supply and demand kicked in at that point when you can't get chlorine, and there were signs posted at your supplier saying we're out of all chlorine or whatever. That was very common. And the price of murionic acid also went up because they actually use a component of chlorine in that murionic acid when they when they create it. And of course, that was a big deal back then when that happened. And what happened to keep the prices inflated, of course, where the transportation cost has gone up tremendously because of different things that happened after the pandemic as well. And then you have more regulatory because of the biolab factory burning down. There's there was a crackdown on regulations, so that also raises the cost. And then the cost of payroll has gone up steadily in the last 10 years as well, especially in California, where it's gone to an unsustainable level. So all those factors are going to keep the price of chlorine at a set price. Maybe it will increase somewhat as well as time goes on, but it's never going to drop back down because there are factors that were created by the pandemic that are in play now that can't be reversed at this point. And this was a real wake-up call for the pool industry because a lot of pool service companies, myself included, we weren't raising prices on our customers on a regular basis. We were keeping everything pretty flat. It's embarrassing, but before 2020, the service rate in my area was about$95 per pool. But everything was inexpensive as far as you know equipment and chemical costs, so it went hand in hand. But there is really nothing that can fix 100% or 160% inflation on your costs and business except a massive price increase. Now, if you're in California, you know that a lot of other costs of business went up as well, like the minimum wage is like$17 an hour right now, and then cost of fuel has increased steadily. So there is an even greater factor in California to the price increases that people experience across the nation. I think California probably has the highest price increases of everything out there, or any state, probably outside of New York, you know, we have the highest cost of living in the country. And of course, all of this leads to one important aspect of your pool service business, or actually I should say, two important aspects. The first aspect is that you can't absorb chemical costs in your service to the point that we used to be able to absorb it. What I mean by that is prior to these massive price increases, a lot of companies supplied the three clo three-inch trichlor tablets with their with their monthly rate. We didn't really bother with charging extra if we had to shock the pool, you know, if we had to pour in three or four gallons of liquid chlorine. It wasn't a big deal because you know it was a buck fifty for a gallon, so it didn't hurt us at all. And sometimes the specialty chemicals were also included because, again, you were making money because the cost was not very high in the business. So all that, of course, went out the window when the prices went up to the level they're at right now. So if you are including trichlor tablets, you should have already, if not, you should move those outside of your monthly service rate. Now it becomes a little difficult because if you've been including the tablets for a lot of years, and then you tell the customer that you can't include them anymore, there may be some pushback. So what I normally advise people to do is that you have a certain segment of customers where you can definitely just let them know that because of the higher chemical cost, you can no longer supply them with the tablets, and you can you're gonna charge them at the beginning of the season for a 50-pound bucket that should last about a year or a year and a half, depending on the pool size, maybe two years in some cases. And so that's a one-time charge you're gonna include. Now, for those customers that may push back and may not like that, what you can do is go halfway with them. You know, I'm gonna we'll supply you with the tablets. Actually, I I'll take that, I'll back up a little bit. They're going to buy the tablets from you, you're gonna drop it off, but you're going to pay for half of it. And so you will only charge the customer for half the cost of the tablets the first time, and then the following time, when you drop off another 50-pound bucket of tablets, they'll pay the entire cost. And so that's kind of like meeting them in the middle, if it was included in your service rate at that point. You can of course just raise your service rate to cover the cost of that as well. But I would really prefer if you move that out of your your monthly service rate going forward, it just makes it easier for you to keep your costs lower if you move those tablets out. Because some pools take more tablets than others, and it's really hard to really see if you're losing money on a pool with the tablet without charging the customer for those. Also, you're gonna have to move away from when you shock the pool, not charging the customer for the extra chemicals. And most of the time, when you have to shock the pool, it has to do with something that's a failure at that pool service, at that pool service account. For instance, maybe the customer left it in spa mode all week and then the pool has some algae, or there's a problem with a filter, or the pump wasn't running properly. Those are usually the causes of the algae, and you have to shock the pool. And typically when you do that, you're losing money, and so that cost has to be passed on to the customer. Maybe they had a pool party, the pool got trashed, and then you have to add more chemicals. If it's your fault, which happens sometimes, maybe you forgot to put chemicals in or you didn't put the right amount of chemicals in, or you neglected to clean the filter in a timely manner. Now, if it's your fault, it's harder to push it on the customer. But a lot of times I found that most of the time when there's algae in the pool and I have to shock it, something happened to the pool, maybe the on-tripper on the timer got dislodged and it was off all week, something like that. And so those costs of shocking gets passed on to the customer now because you can't afford to be throwing in three or four gallons of liquid chlorine, you just lost all your profit at that pool that month. Nor can you give them specialty chemicals without charging them. You can't use enzymes or phosphoryl removers or the pool rx in the pool without passing those charges on to the customer now. And that's pretty easy to do. Customers will get, at least from me and other people here, we s we have an algebra charge at the beginning of the season. It's a standard thing where you just charge the customer a fee for the summer and just have an algicide water conditioner fee. We used to charge for a conditioner and it used to be a conditioner charge. And so you could do an algicide conditioner. Well, you could put algicide water conditioner charge, and you could charge them, you know, sixty dollars or eighty dollars, whatever you're gonna charge them for whatever, especially the chemicals you're gonna use that pool, and that's pays for the pool or x or any kind of enzymes or phosphates, or you could charge them for a bottle of phosphates and enzymes and leave it at the pool. It's your choice, but again, absorbing any kind of chemical costs with the prices being where they're at is something that's unsustainable in a business. And if you go to like a fast food restaurant and you notice that the prices are steadily increasing, which is typical here in Southern California, the owner can't absorb the extra cost, and you can't afford to sell you the burger and fries and coke at the same price anymore. So he raises the price, and the same thing happens in your service. And so the next stage, of course, is a price increase. And with this inflation, and you can use this as your way of raising your prices, saying that the inflation of the chemical costs has gotten to a point where you are actually losing money and you have to raise their service rate, unfortunately, to stay in business. People understand that you know that if the costs get to a point and you can't sustain yourself, and if you explain it correctly, I think there the price increase goes over well. And another great thing about everything going up in price is that people are used to prices going up. I mean, your insurance has gone up, everything has gone up that uh for yourself, and so it's nothing that's shocking that the price of pool service will go up for them as well. How often should you raise the prices? Well, I think every year you should have some kind of increase of a small percentage or a small number. So if you're charging 180 a month for pools, going up to 190 is not something that's unheard of, you know, going up to 195, it's not something that is crippling the people. You don't want to make big jumps. I think if you make a in California, people are really price conscious, it's kind of weird. We pay so much money for everything, but on the flip side of it, we're kind of like, hey, that went up by five dollars. That's crazy. It's it's weird. So if you raise prices too high in your area, you know, if you go up from 180 to 200, people may balk at that and may get some pushback and you may lose some service accounts. Now there is a sweet spot, and I've gone over this formula before, and I think it's worth addressing here that if you have 80 customers and you're charging 180 a month, that's$14,400, and you go to$190. So let me do the math here. So that's$15,200. If you're$80 times$190, and if you uh subtract the amounts, that's a price increase of$800 per month. And so if you have an$800 price increase and two customers cancel, that's still close to a$400 price increase. If three customers cancel, you're still making$200 more a month and you've lost three customers, which you can actually recapture eventually, and that frees up some time, of course. But raising from$180 to$190, you're probably not going to lose any customers. I can't predict it, no one can. But if you do lose one or two customers, you're still better off. You know,$400 extra per month with two customers lost times$12 is still$4,800 more a month, or year, I should say, sorry. I wish that was a month, a year in income. So it's kind of good. You lose two customers, but you still make more money, and you can, of course, get two more customers over the course of the year to replace that. And so there is a tipping point, and if you raise the prices too high, you may lose more than four or five customers, and then the price increase is pretty much a wash at that point until you rebuild your route with those customers you lost, which is not a bad thing either. The point is not to be afraid to raise your prices because you may lose customers, and again, most customers will just absorb that cost increase without flinching in most cases. They may, you know, you may have to word your increase letter carefully, explaining inflation and explaining the costs going up. But it's one of those things where I'm asked often, and and I'll restate this, someone I always get this question every year, you know, are chemical costs gonna eventually go down this year? And my answer is nothing really goes down in price again, unless the economy goes in the tank, and then of course they're gonna cut costs because no one's buying anything. So, barring that happening, chemical costs are gonna always gradually go up, and that's why you should be raising your rates on a yearly basis, if not every other year, raising it somewhat to cover that cost and doing a full analysis, you can do all that, but in reality, you don't have to go through a lot of trouble to understand that if you're paying 10% more for chemicals this year, you have to raise your rates up to cover that with your clients a certain amount of dollars to cover that increase in chemical costs. It's basic math. You don't want to lose money, and if costs gradually go up this year, you're going to have to raise your prices as well. There's no business that I know of that you know can absorb increases in operating costs without raising prices or passing them on to the consumer, and this is kind of just basic business, and so don't feel bad if you raise your prices and lose one or two clients. It's part of business. You may have lost clients anyway during the year, regardless. Maybe they were really on a threshold anyway of canceling because they couldn't afford it, and raising the prices just pushed them over. Who knows? They may have canceled anyway, regardless. So don't fear price increases. It's something that needs to be done to offset the 100 and 160% price increase, cost increase of chemicals in the industry. Looking for other podcasts, you can find those on my website, swimmingpoollearning.com. Click on the podcast icon. There'll be a drop down menu of other podcasts there as well. And if you're interested in the coaching program that I offer, you can learn more at poolguycoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have a great story week, and God bless.