Running In-House Maintenance? You Need This Formula.

If you’re running in-house maintenance and can’t tell me your target monthly revenue per tech… we’ve got a problem.

A few years ago, my business partner Adam and I were scaling up our in-house maintenance team at RL Property Management. The demand was there, the trucks were on the road, and the invoices were going out. But we still didn’t know (really know) whether the whole thing was profitable.

Turns out, we were flying blind.

Fast forward to today: we’ve built a $1M/year in-house maintenance operation, and there’s one formula we live and die by. It tells us exactly how much revenue we should be bringing in each month, and helps us spot the leaks before they become sinkholes.

In this post, I’m going to walk you through that formula (the same one I shared a few weeks ago in my newsletter). I’ll also show you the three silent killers that can quietly tank your margins if you’re not paying close attention.

Let’s get into it.

The Formula That Saves You From Bleeding Cash

Here’s the formula we use at RL Property Management to track whether our in-house maintenance department is healthy and profitable:

Maint. Revenue Target = 40h × 4.33 × Billing Rate × #Techs × Utilization × 1.2

I know… at first glance, it looks like something you’d find on a dusty whiteboard in your kid’s algebra class. But once you understand each piece, it’s simple and powerful.

Let’s break it down:

• 40h = Full-time hours per week

• 4.33 = Average number of weeks per month

• Billing Rate = Your hourly charge to owners (not the tech’s wage!)

• #Techs = The number of billable, full-time technicians

• Utilization = Percentage of paid hours that are billable (we shoot for 88–92%)

• 1.2 = Bump for materials, since most revenue lines include pass-through material costs

Here’s the key point: you should be charging at least 3x your tech’s hourly wage. If you’re paying a tech $28/hour and only charging $60/hour, you’re toast. That margin will disappear before lunch. Between overhead, PTO, insurance, and the time they spend stuck at Home Depot or in team meetings, your profit evaporates.

Let’s run a real example:

• 3 techs

• $84/hour billing rate

• 90% utilization

Plug that in:

40 × 4.33 × 84 × 3 × 0.9 × 1.2 = ~$47,000/month

That $47K number? That’s what we need to hit just to keep the machine running profitably. And that’s what should show up in your “4710 - Maintenance & Repairs Income” account each month.

If it doesn’t?

You’re probably losing money, even if it feels like things are humming along. And you won’t feel the pain until it’s way too late.

The bottom line is this: you can’t run a profitable in-house maintenance team without knowing your target revenue. This formula gives you that number. Memorize it. Print it. Tattoo it on your ops manager (kidding, mostly).

Next, let’s talk about the three silent killers that can quietly wreck your margins, without ever showing up in your P&L.

The 3 Silent Killers That Eat Your Profit

Let’s say you’ve got your formula dialed in and your revenue target posted on the wall. Great start.

But here’s the brutal truth: hitting that number consistently takes discipline. And even if you think you’re on track, your maintenance revenue can quietly bleed out through three common cracks. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve lived it.

Let’s walk through the three biggest threats and how to shut them down.

1. Techs Not Billing Enough Hours

This is by far the most common—and sneakiest—profit killer.

It shows up in a few ways:

• Techs working low hours overall (maybe they’re on the job late… or starting late).

• Too many hours billed to overhead (aka “admin” catch-all hell).

• Phantom hours on the timesheet that don’t tie back to any actual work order.

You’ll hear excuses: “Oh, I was helping another tech,” or “That was a call that didn’t go anywhere.” And yeah, some of that’s legit. But if you don’t have one person owning this number and checking it weekly, it spirals.

The fix:

• Audit every tech’s billed vs. paid hours weekly. Not quarterly. Not “when you get a chance.”

• Assign one person to monitor this religiously. (At RL, it’s not me. But someone is on it like a hawk.)

2. Unbilled Material Costs

Another profit leak - this one’s death by a thousand receipts.

How it happens:

• Techs swipe the company card and forget to attach it to a work order.

• Materials get purchased, but never billed back to the owner.

• (Worst case: someone buys a new drill “for the job” and it mysteriously ends up in their garage.)

The fix:

• Audit your company credit card statements line by line against owner invoices.

• Yes, it’s tedious. But if you’re not capturing 100% of reimbursable material costs, you’re subsidizing repairs for your clients. That’s not generosity—that’s bad business.

3. Unbilled Work Orders

Last one (and this one hurts).

A tech has a work order open from six months ago and says, “Yeah, I just need to go back and finish up.”

Meanwhile, that job is unbilled, incomplete, and sitting on your books like a dead fish.

The fix:

• Track every single work order.

• Require at least one billable hour on every job.

• Make sure it gets to the finish line: completed and invoiced.

Otherwise, all your clean math from earlier? Doesn’t matter.

Want to stop losing money? Start by closing these three loops. They’re not glamorous fixes, but they’re absolutely necessary.

Why This Formula Matters So Much

Running in-house maintenance can be an incredible asset OR a total money pit. There’s not a lot of in-between.

The upside is real: you control the timeline, the quality, and the customer experience. You’re not waiting on flaky vendors or trying to explain to a resident why no one showed up for their leaky faucet (again). But here’s the trap: if you’re not tracking the right numbers, you can lose money for years without realizing it.

I’ve talked to plenty of PM owners who thought their in-house team was “doing fine.” Then they ran the math… and discovered they were effectively paying their owners for the privilege of doing repairs.

This formula changes that.

It gives you a target. A line in the sand. A way to actually know if you’re on track or upside-down.

When in-house maintenance works, it works beautifully. But if you’re flying blind on the numbers… it’ll quietly sink your bottom line.

That’s why I call this a triple win formula:

• Profit for your company — Real margin, not wishful thinking.

• Lower costs for your owners — Yes, even after your markup.

• Faster service for your residents — Which means fewer complaints and better reviews.

But none of that happens by accident.

If you don’t define success, measure it, and chase it (every single month), your maintenance department will drift. And when it drifts, it bleeds.

Set your target. Know your gaps. And fix them before they turn into losses.

Want to Go Deeper?

If you want to build or overhaul your in-house maintenance operation the right way, my business partner Adam Rich has put together a full course on exactly that. This isn’t theory, it’s the real-world playbook we used to grow a $1M/year in-house maintenance team from scratch.

He covers everything:

• How to staff and train your techs

• How to structure billing and invoicing

• How to track profitability and utilization

• Even the systems we use to make sure nothing falls through the cracks

Crane members get access to the course for free.

(It’s included in your membership, no upsell here.)

Not a member yet? Might be time to check it out.

Closing Thought

You can’t fix what you don’t measure.

Start with the formula.

Audit the killers.

And if you need a shortcut, borrow our blueprint.