Know Your Real Numbers, Not a Guess
Pool Founder's Profitability page now models what a route actually costs to run, down to a single mile. Instead of a rough estimate, you can see your all-in cost per mile, the true burden of labor, your fixed overhead, and your profit per labor hour. A new Recurring Revenue (MRR) tab shows how much predictable income your maintenance book generates month after month.
Open Profitability from the dashboard sidebar to see the updated cost model and the new revenue views.
A True Cost Model
The biggest change is how costs are calculated. Every completed route now carries a real travel cost instead of a placeholder, and labor reflects what a technician actually costs you.
- All-in cost per mile. On any vehicle, the Cost per Mile field lets you enter your full operating cost — fuel, maintenance, tires, and depreciation. That rate overrides the fuel-only estimate so the number reflects real wear on the truck, not just gas.
- Fuel prices, tracked automatically. If you only enter Miles Per Gallon, Pool Founder computes your driving cost from current regional gas prices, refreshed weekly. The Gas Price card shows the rate it is using.
- Mileage, split out. When a vehicle has both a cost per mile and MPG, the Total Costs breakdown separates Fuel from Vehicle wear & depreciation, so a higher all-in rate never reads as an impossible gas bill.
- Labor burden and overhead. Under Payroll settings you can set a Labor Burden (%) for payroll taxes and workers' comp, and a Monthly Overhead ($) for fixed costs like insurance and software.
With those in place, the top figure is honestly labeled Gross Profit. When you configure overhead, that card also shows how the overhead brings you down to true net. The summary reports your profit per labor hour and the hours it was measured across, plus a chip flagging any visits missing cost data so you know how far to trust the picture.
Cost per mile beats MPG when both are set. If you know your true operating cost per mile, enter it on the vehicle and the fuel-only estimate steps aside.
Recurring Revenue (MRR)
The new Recurring Revenue tab treats your maintenance book the way a subscription business tracks monthly recurring revenue. It totals the income from maintenance jobs that sit on an active route — flat monthly or weekly rates, plus per-visit rates multiplied by how often the route runs.
- MRR and annual run rate up top, alongside your count of recurring customers and average revenue per customer.
- A by-billing-type breakdown showing how much comes from monthly flat, weekly flat, and per-visit work.
- A 12-month realized revenue chart that stacks recurring maintenance revenue against one-time work orders.
- An MRR movement chart showing new versus churned customer revenue month over month.
A maintenance job with a rate but no route is not counted, because without a schedule there is no recurring revenue to project. Those jobs are surfaced as a count so you can assign them to a route and stop leaving that income invisible.
Revenue Mix and Custom Invoices
Two smaller additions round out the picture. The Profitability summary now splits revenue and profit into maintenance versus work orders, so you can see how much of the business is recurring and how much is one-off. And revenue from custom invoices — the ad-hoc invoices you create by hand — now appears on the Revenue card.
Custom-invoice revenue is clearly marked as sitting outside the profit number, because those invoices carry no attributed job costs. It shows you the full money coming in without distorting your margin math.
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Try Pool Founder free for 30 daysFrequently Asked Questions
Where do I find the MRR view?
Open Profitability from the dashboard sidebar and select the Recurring Revenue tab. It shows your current MRR, annual run rate, recurring customers, a by-billing-type breakdown, and month-over-month movement.
How does Pool Founder calculate my driving cost?
If you enter a Cost per Mile on the vehicle, it uses that all-in rate. If you only enter Miles Per Gallon, it computes fuel cost from current regional gas prices, updated weekly. The Gas Price card shows the rate in use, and when both are set the mileage cost is split into fuel and vehicle wear & depreciation.
What is the difference between gross profit and net profit here?
Gross profit is revenue minus the direct costs of the work — chemicals, parts, on-site labor, driving labor, and mileage. When you set a Monthly Overhead in Payroll settings, the Gross Profit card also shows net profit after that fixed overhead is allocated across the period.
Why is one of my maintenance jobs missing from MRR?
A maintenance job only counts toward recurring revenue once it is on an active route. Jobs that have a rate but no route are excluded and shown as a count so you can add them to a route.