Residential vs. Commercial Pools: No Contest

Commercial pool service can look like the fast lane to bigger revenue, until you realize how many forces you do not control. We walk through the real differences between residential pool care and commercial pool maintenance, starting with what “commercial” actually means: community-used pools like apartments, HOAs, hotels, the YMCA, and public facilities that live under health department oversight. That oversight changes your day, your paperwork, and your stress level in ways most new techs do not see coming. 

We get specific about the operational realities: inspections, daily logs, and shutdown triggers tied to chlorine and pH ranges, plus the unpredictable stuff like user behavior that can close a pool even when you did your job. We also talk about the people side of the business, because commercial accounts often add management companies, approval delays, and the challenge of pleasing 30 or 40 voices instead of one homeowner. If you have ever felt stuck waiting on authorization while a motor is down and the water is slipping, you will recognize this problem instantly. 

Then we dig into the money, the right way. Yes, commercial accounts can pay significantly more, but they usually demand three to five visits a week, higher insurance limits, and a “headache factor” you should price honestly. We also cover the risk of concentrating your income in a few large accounts and the cash-flow pain that can come with net-30 billing and slow payments. If you are deciding what kind of pool service route to build, this conversation will help you choose with open eyes. 

If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a pool pro friend, and leave a quick review so more service techs can find the show.

We break down why residential pool care often beats commercial pool care for working pool pros, even when commercial accounts look more lucrative. We compare regulation, workload, pricing, risk, and the day-to-day realities that make one route easier to live with and easier to keep stable.  
• defining commercial pools vs residential backyard pools  
• health department regulation, inspections, and required logs  
• certification differences like CPO requirements for commercial work  
• dealing with management companies, approvals, and multiple stakeholders  
• heavy bather load and why commercial water turns faster  
• shutdown triggers and chemistry ranges that can get you closed  
• pricing a commercial account, including the “headache factor”  
• higher insurance requirements and building costs into bids  
• time demands, service frequency, and why mixing routes is hard  
• concentration risk when you lose a high-dollar account  
• payment delays, net-30 billing, and the hassle of collections  
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Transcript

Welcome And The Core Claim

0:14

Hey, welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show. In this episode, I'm going to go over why I think residential pool care does win over commercial pool care. I'll go over a description of what makes each different from each other as well, and why most pool service professionals choose residential pool service over commercial pool service. 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. A commercial pool is defined by any pool that is used by basically a community, and it's not a sole residential pool, although some residential pools they do do swimming lessons, and there are services that rent residential pools out to strangers and a part of the community, I guess you can say. But strictly speaking, commercial pools are those pools that are usually used by members of a community of some type, YMCA, apartments, condominiums, HOAs, hotels, motels, public facilities run by the city. Anything that is owned and operated by an entity is what is considered a commercial

What Counts As Commercial

1:42

pool. These are regulated by the county health department. They get inspected. But a HOA community has the homeowners using the pool. Those that live in the community have friends that can use it as well. So that's the main difference between a residential pool where yes, you can have a pool party, where you have neighbors coming to the pool. But generally speaking, a residential pool is in the residence backyard of a single family home, and it's not part of a larger community of homes. You can have residential pools in an HOA community, you can have individual owners of that parcel that have a pool that the pool is not open for use besides anyone but their household, and that's still a residential pool, and these are not as regulated as commercial pools, and that's the first benefit of a residential pool over a commercial pool is the regulation of that pool. Since the public pool is used by a lot of different people, you know, an HOA pool or a hotel or a YMCA pool, the health department has to regulate that pool to make sure that that water is safe for various different people to swim and use that pool. But as far as a residential pool goes, the health department does not go back there and check the residential residential pool to make sure the water is safe for swimming. Not to say that you shouldn't maintain the pools to where they're safe to swim in. It just means that there aren't as many regulations around a residential pool as a commercial pool. For example, in my state, you don't need to be CPO certified to do residential pool service. If you do a

Regulations And CPO Requirements

3:47

commercial pool, you have to either be CPO certified or in a lot of cases certified by that county to do that pool commercial pool. And because again, of all the regulations and safety codes that need to be that you need to be aware of as a service provider for a commercial pool type. Whereas a residential pool, anyone can get a truck, get a business license, and start doing pool service because it's not really regulated here in my state, and most states don't regulate residential pool service. So that's definitely a plus. And this eliminates a lot of complicated regulations and dealing with third parties. If you do commercial pools, you realize that sometimes you're dealing with the management company. Before you do anything, you have to get approval. The complaints are a little bit different in a commercial pool than a residential pool because you again the public is using it, so people have different opinions of the pool service, and it's a lot harder, I think, to please 30 or 40 different people at one time than pleasing one homeowner. There's also the fact that the commercial pools are generally, and this is generally speaking, used much more heavily than a residential pool. There are some residential pools that get heavy usage, but nothing compared to as a scale of a commercial pool. I used to serve as commercial pools when I first started, and I remember these apartment complexes, you know, they have these self-closing iron gates and they have hours posted there, and most

Managing People And Complaints

5:20

of them open like around 10 a.m. or so, and they close at a certain time. But it's really easy to put a brick on the door and prop it open and leave that open for anyone who wants to use that pool, and that's commonly what happens in the summertime in these apartment complexes where you just have anyone that can access the pool using it. Now, granted, that's not safe to do, and you break a lot of safety violations, but it happens all the time, and it's almost like an open public pool in an apartment complex sometimes. They have friends of friends coming, people just walk in and use it, and it's a big mess as far as usage with commercial pools. I'm just talking on a small scale here, but if you do a hotel pool or if you do the YMCA pool, you have a lot of different bodies in that water, and it's paramount that the water is safe to swim in. There's a lot of, of course, checks and balances. The health department's gonna check on you. You have to keep a log of here in my county, you have to log the readings every day in a log so that they can check the pool to make sure it's safe to swim in each day, and the health department can come anytime to close that pool down, which happens a lot actually. If the chlorine level is above 10 parts per million, or if it falls below one part per million, or if the pH

Heavy Use And Health Department Logs

6:40

is below 7.2, or if the pH is above 8.0, they can easily close down that pool until you correct that. Then close down the pool if someone complains about a baby in there with a diaper, they'll close down that pool. If someone complains about someone bleeding in the pool, there's all kinds of reasons why they will close the pool down, and that's something to be also cognizant of is that a lot of things are out of your control as a service provider. The amount of people using the pool, things that the health department are gonna cite you for and find, problems with the management, not keeping the gates locked, all these things are really out of your control as a provider, and so you have a lot less control at a commercial pool than you would have at a residential backyard pool. The one advantage a commercial pool has, and there's a lot of companies that do strictly commercial pools and not residential, there's a reason for that because the commercial pools require a lot more time investment. I'll cover that in a second. But one of the benefits of the commercial service is that you can charge more money for it because there's a lot more layers involved than taking care of a commercial pool. So let's just say you had a 20,000 gallon commercial pool, it was in an apartment complex, and you're there three times a week to service that pool. Because of the fact that it's in an apartment complex, it's a commercial pool, you're gonna do records and logs, and you have to also make sure the water is safe to swim in, and you're going to do a lot of different things to ensure this. There are some costs associated to the management

Pricing Commercial Pools The Right Way

8:13

for you maintaining this pool. So let's just say you had a 20,000 gallon pool, and normally you would charge 180 a month for your service area for a backyard pool. How much would this 20,000 gallon pool be in a commercial setting? Generally speaking, and this is just a ballpark, and every area is a little bit different. You would basically take your monthly service rate, which is at 180, divided by four, which is the every week. So you're charging $45 a week if you're charging $180 a month. And this is not counting the extra days, of course. This is a straight 30-day math. And basically, you're looking at $45 per stop here at this commercial pool three times a week. And so that's $135 a week times four. That's $540, and that's just the minimum charge if you're going to convert your residential rate to a commercial rate. And you have to add, of course, the headache factor, which is a huge increase because it's a big headache to take care of these commercial pools. And that would bring this pool up to about $800 per month plus chemicals for the headache fee. $800 to $1,000, depending on your service area for this 20,000 gallon pool. So, yes, the money is there and it's pretty lucrative, and you can make a lot more money on these commercial pools. And that's a timely plug for the insurance because you're going to need more insurance with these commercial pools as well. Usually it's a $2 million per occurrence and $4 million total policy, which is a little more expensive to have this insurance, and they usually will ask you for that policy: the two million per occurrence, four million total versus residential insurance, which usually is one million per occurrence, and two million or three million total for the policy. So it's one of those things where that's a little different as well. And it's gonna cost you a little bit more, but you're gonna build that into the price of the commercial service account. Time definitely is something that you need to invest in these commercial pools. Most of these will require three visits a week in the summer, sometimes four visits, sometimes five, sometimes every day during the week, sometimes two services, depending on the pool.

Insurance Costs And Time Demands

10:22

In a winter time, usually you can cut back a little bit on your service unless they're heating it all year round. And it's one of those things where taking time off with a commercial pool is more difficult. If you're doing residential and commercial pools and there's a problem at a commercial pool, of course, that's a priority because you're getting paid a premium for that pool and you want to go back and take care of that problem, or the health department closes it down, you got to rush back over and correct the chemistry on that pool. So the time involvement is a lot more than for a commercial pool. And that's why a lot of times when you're mixing commercial and residential, it doesn't work as well because of the time commitment with commercial pools and the residential pools suffer, or if the residential pools are being taken care of, the commercial pool will suffer sometimes as well. And it's why companies will do only commercial pools across the board, or only residential pools across the board. And it's hard to mix that business. You could try it, but it's really hard to have three commercial pools and 60 residential pools. You're gonna find that the mix doesn't work too well because the commercial pools do require more time, and it may be more lucrative and more logical for you to focus on commercial pools only at that point, have 10 accounts versus having 80 accounts, and really focus on that commercial pool service. One of the drawbacks of a commercial pool or having two or three of these is that you have all your eggs in one basket, so to speak, which means with a residential pool service route, if you have 90 pools or 80 pools and a customer cancels, it's not a big deal. If two customers cancel, not a big deal. If three cancel, yes, it becomes kind of irritating, and it's what it's more of a big deal if you lose three customers in one month. But if you have a commercial pool where you're charging $1,500 a month and they get someone that underbids you by $200 and they decide to switch providers, which does happen by the way, all the time, you just lost $1,500 a month. And if that's a big portion of your business, it's gonna take you a while to get that back quickly, and usually they don't give you

Losing One Big Account Risk

12:27

much notice when they're canceling you for service, and $1,500 a month is a big hit. Now, if you had two commercial accounts and you lost two of them in that month, that sometimes could almost put you out of business entirely. So be careful of that factor as well that having all your eggs in two or three baskets versus having those eggs spread across 80 pools makes for a more stable business. Now, if you're doing commercial pool service only, you're making really good money on top of everything. So you should have a lot of money saved and tucked away. And if you do lose a $1,500 account, you can spend some effort and time to get another $1,500 account or $2,000 account back as quickly as possible with some cushion there because you're always going to have extra money in a commercial pool service route because you're getting paid quite a significantly more amount of money and you can absorb that loss a lot better than if you had residential pools and commercial pools combined. Another problem you may run into with commercial pools is getting approval for things quickly enough to so the pool doesn't turn on you and cause problems. This is a kind of a catch-22. You know, if you have a commercial pool with the motor burns out, you want to get it replaced as quickly as possible so you can reopen that pool. But sometimes it takes a while for the management to contact the certain people that need to approve it. And by then a week has gone by and it becomes more of a mess now because now you have to turn the pool around, put the new motor in, and do a lot more work. Whereas if it was a residential backyard, it's really it could be off for a few days and really not cause a problem. People are gonna complain, you're not gonna have people climbing over the gate to use the pool. It's one of those things where it's normal, pool's off for two or three days, get a new motor put

Approvals Delays And Payment Problems

14:15

in, and everything's back up and running. For a commercial pool, it's not quite as easy as that sometimes, and it can become really messy, and then receiving payment for work done, or if they miss a payment, or correcting a payment becomes very complicated when you're dealing with a someone at the front desk of an apartment complex that maybe is not as forthcoming, and you know, you normally will have a 30-day net with a commercial account, so you build them and it takes them 30 days to pay you. But if they miss the payment, if there's a problem, or the holiday messes everything up, you don't get your money on time, or you don't get paid for a repair on time. The recourse is tough. You have to just kind of call them, spend time and effort trying to collect your money. You want to be careful you don't burn a bridge as well because they're giving you you know $1,500 a month for that pool. So, this is another layer of commercial pool service that you have to think about as well, and that is customers, customer relations with management or with the owner of the complex is sometimes more intricate and a little takes a little bit more of a fine white glove kind of handling than with a residential pool. You know, if Mr. Smith forgets to pay you one month, you text him and he's like, Oh, sorry about that, he'll send you the money right away, zeality or whatever. But if you're dealing with a commercial account and the 30-day net has passed, then you have to go through a lot of sometimes wrangling to get your money, and you're not getting paid for that account, and you're losing a bundle of money at that moment. So I know I focus a lot on the financial end of this, and I'll end with the health department. There's a lot of layers with the health department. You it you don't really know who you're gonna get as an inspector. I fortunately had really good health inspectors when I had my commercial pools, they never really hassled me. I always mentioned this pool here where it was a pool in the middle of an of a four-story apartment complex, and the pool was just killed all the time. I could never see the bottom. It was a sand filter, I'd be backwashing it all the time, and really I could never really get that pool cleared up. And the health department never sighted me, never closed it down because I guess when he got there, he's like, Wow, this is crazy. I mean, there are lots people in the pool too, by the way, when I was doing the pool, it was like the center of the whole complex having this pool there. And it's something that, of course, he was understanding, but a lot of health department, health department

Inspector Uncertainty And Final Takeaways

16:41

employees are not understanding. And if the pH gets to 7.0, they're gonna shut you down. If the chlorine level is, you know, you just shocked the pool recently because it looked bad and they happen to inspect it that day, they're gonna close the pool down. You know, if the cyaneric acid gets above 100, they'll close the pool down. So there's a lot to a lot to think about when you're going from residential to commercial pool service, and you have to have the personality and also the patience to deal with not just management, but also the county with the health department getting the right certifications, all these things add another layer to thinking about getting commercial service. Yes, the money's lucrative, it is something that you can scale very easily if you have three or four of these, but is it really worth it to your time, effort, and money, and all the frustration that you may have to deal with? Or is a residential pool route where maybe five or six people use their pool out of 80 pools a week? Is that something that is more attractive to you? I think in most cases, most pool service professionals like residential pools, because honestly, most of the pools don't get used that much, they're more of a decoration back there than anything, and it's really easy work. And again, it doesn't hurt too much if you lose one or two accounts, and you can easily gain one or two accounts very rapidly as well. Getting commercial accounts is much harder. There's not really a network you can work through, and it's it's not the an easy thing to replace a commercial pool that you just lost. If you're looking

Residential Wins Plus Next Steps

18:12

for other podcasts, you can find us by going to my website, swimming for learning.com, on the banner, click on the podcast icon. There'll be over 1900 podcasts for you there. And if you're interested in my coaching program, you can learn more at poolguidecoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have a good rest of your week. God bless.