The case for online buying in residential services

Today's landscape

Last month, Rollins cut its growth forecast. The country's largest pest control company said its residential web leads had weakened as AI search tools spread homeowners across more local providers, and it lowered its 2026 organic growth outlook to 4%-6% [1].

The same week as Rollins earnings were released, Rentokil said Terminix.com already lets customers price, schedule and pay online. It is now adding texts and emails to win back shoppers who churn [2].

Regional operators compete for search with these two brands, and most still sell the old way: a phone call or a form, then wait for a callback or a quote and a date. The numbers listed below are proof that these methods are hampering growth in today's "buy now" consumer market. They also show why the usual objection to selling online don't hold up.

Customers already buy this way

Online sales accounted for 7.8% of U.S. retail shopping in mid-2016. A decade later they are 17.1%, or nearly $1.5 trillion annually [3, 4]. In 2025, Amazon delivered more than 8 billion items in the U.S. the same or next day [5]. A decade of this behavioral shift has changed what buyers expect from any purchase. Buyers are seeking a price up front and a date at checkout.

Data

Second quarter	E-commerce share of U.S. retail sales
2016	7.8%
2018	9.5%
2020	16.3%
2022	14.2%
2024	16.1%
2026	17.1%

Notes: E-commerce sales as a share of total U.S. retail sales in the second quarter of each year shown.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Quarterly Retail E-Commerce Sales [3]; Census Bureau data via YCharts [4].

In a survey of 1,040 homeowners, 97% said they expect transparent pricing before hiring for services, and 80% said online booking affects which company they choose [6, 7]. A company that offers only a phone number and a contact form is asking buyers to do more work than their typical purchasing experience.

Phone sales miss the after-hours buyer

On ServiceTitan's online scheduler, 51% of bookings are made after business hours, and 40% of these are new customers [8, 9]. Buyer intent during non business hours has continued to grow and become the norm over the last decade.

Call centers also have efficiency flaws. On average, about 27% of calls to service businesses go unanswered, and fewer than 3% of callers sent to voicemail leave a message [10]. Every missed call is a lead the company paid to acquire, and negatively impacts the cost to acquire a new customer.

Operators running online buying today

Several early adopters have already shown notable results and momentum with their online booking offerings.

• ABC Home & Commercial Services, regional pest and home services

  ResultMore than $1 million in recurring revenue sold online since 2021 [11]

  What changedOnline checkout with an initial fee, recurring plan and preferred date

• Triangle Pest Control, North Carolina

  Result55% of conversions in the first six months were completed online; paid back in one month [11]

  What changedTwo online services available for purchase

• Intelligent Design, Tucson HVAC and plumbing

  Result79 jobs and $182,000 in sales in under two months, with no staff involvement [12]

  What changedMobile scheduler tied to the dispatch board

• Terminix

  ResultResidential lead declines narrowed from mid to high single digits in July and August to 1% in September [2]

  What changedOnline pricing, scheduling and payment

Notes: Results as reported by each company or its software vendor. The two pest control operators are highlighted.

Source: Click to Buy Services case studies [11]; ServiceTitan [12]; Rentokil Q3 2026 earnings call, via MarketBeat [2].

What online sales competes with

The objection I hear most from owners is that online buyers cancel before the first service. I prefer to position the pros and cons against other channels to determine it's fit in a broader sales plan.

The most common sales channel that online or paid digital aims to compete with is the tried and true Door-to-Door channel. Churn on these customers makes the economics painful. Summer sales programs can often lose 40% or more of customers in the first 18 months, with highly competitive markets reporting 40% churn in the first year [13]. Traditional door-to-door can cost anywhere between 60 and 80% of first year's contract value, meaning companies need that customer for 16 months to breakeven. That math makes Door-to-Door sales a low ROI investment on growth spend.

The math behind online purchasing

Take a recurring customer who pays a $199 initial fee and $600 a year, at a 53.5% gross margin [1, 14, 15]. Spend $50,000 on search ads at the 2026 average of $90.92 a lead and book just 25% of those leads, and you end up with about 137 customers at $365 each [16]. These customers just cost you 45% of contract value, and pay for themselves in 10 months, nearly 40% faster than Door-to-Door.

• Search ads10 months
• Door-to-door16 months

Data

Channel	Cost to acquire, share of first-year contract value	Months to break even
Search ads	45%	10
Door-to-door	60% to 80%	16

Notes: Months of gross profit needed to repay the cost of acquiring one recurring customer. Search ads: $50,000 at $90.92 a lead and a 25% booking rate, about 137 customers at $365 each, or 45% of first-year contract value. Door-to-door: 60% to 80% of first-year contract value, as stated above. Inputs are in Model assumptions below.

Source: Novare Partners model; inputs from Rollins [1], ThePricer [15] and LocaliQ [16].

Even if you assume the worst for churn, and that online customers leave at 40% a year (as bad as the worst door-to-door programs), the average lifetime value of these customers is still 2.5 years. That’s a 2.5x return on customer acquisition, or a 55% IRR on acquisition spend.

What does this all mean?

The buying experience that customers expect has evolved. Buyers want to enter their address and receive options for two or three plans with easy-to-understand pricing, open date and time windows, and a simple signup and pay process. On the backend, this requires a coordinated approach that pulls pricing from operations software, shows open time slots on routes that cover the buyer’s territory, and sending appointment and payment information directly into the operating source of truth. Purpose built technology bridges the gap between the online experience and operationalizing the business outcome. Any existing operational software with an API can support an online purchasing experience with the right backend systems in place.

If you want to see what this would look like for your company, book a call with me. We'll go through your current site and booking flow, how we would build the checkout around your pricing and routes, and how to measure it against your phone and door-to-door numbers. I am also reachable by email at clay.grantham@novarepartners.com.

References

1. What Rollins (ROL) Said on Its Q3 Earnings Call, MarketBeat, Oct. 22, 2026.
2. What Rentokil Initial (RTO) Said on Its Q3 Earnings Call, MarketBeat, Oct. 23, 2026.
3. Quarterly Retail E-Commerce Sales, 2nd Quarter 2026, U.S. Census Bureau, Aug. 18, 2026.
4. US E-Commerce Sales as Percent of Retail Sales, U.S. Census Bureau data via YCharts.
5. Amazon Sets New Prime Delivery Speed Record in 2025, Amazon, Feb. 3, 2026.
6. The New Home Service Standard: homeowner survey, Housecall Pro, Oct. 2025.
7. Housecall Pro releases new report highlighting changing customer service standards in home contracting, PR Newswire, Dec. 15, 2025.
8. Call Trends in the Trades, ServiceTitan, data from May 2025 to July 2026.
9. Scheduling Pro, ServiceTitan.
10. See How Much Missed Sales Calls Cost Home Services Businesses, Invoca, May 23, 2024.
11. Pest control case studies: ABC Home & Commercial Services and Triangle Pest Control, Click to Buy Services.
12. Scheduling Pro 2.0 led to $182,000 in sales at Intelligent Design, ServiceTitan, July 18, 2024.
13. Who's Knocking at Your Door?, Pest Control Technology, Feb. 2016.
14. 2025 Preliminary Results, Rentokil Initial, Mar. 5, 2026.
15. How Much Does Pest Control Cost Per Month?, ThePricer, Sept. 5, 2026.
16. 2026 Search Advertising Benchmarks, LocaliQ, June 1, 2026.

Model assumptions