Revenue Per Truck: The Metric Every Contractor Should Track Weekly
Revenue per truck tells you how efficiently each unit in your fleet is generating income. Track it weekly and you will know exactly where capacity, pricing, or booking improvements will have the most impact.
Revenue per truck (RPT) is the simplest and most direct measure of how efficiently your contracting business is converting capacity into revenue. Every truck you operate represents a fixed cost — tech wages, vehicle expense, insurance, equipment. RPT tells you how much revenue that fixed cost is generating. Low RPT means you are carrying the cost of capacity you are not monetizing. High RPT means your existing fleet is maximally productive — and it is time to think about growing.
How to Calculate Revenue Per Truck
Annual RPT = total annual revenue ÷ average number of revenue-generating trucks in operation. Use average trucks, not peak or minimum — if you run six trucks in summer and four in winter, your average might be five. For a weekly view: weekly RPT = weekly revenue ÷ trucks deployed that week. Track this weekly so you can see the impact of scheduling changes, pricing adjustments, or call volume changes in near real time.
The Five Drivers of Revenue Per Truck
- Jobs per day per truck: how many calls each tech completes
- Average ticket: what each job generates in revenue
- Upsell rate: additional revenue beyond the primary service
- Call answer rate: the percentage of inbound calls that become booked jobs
- Dispatch efficiency: how well routing and scheduling minimizes windshield time
Most contractors focus exclusively on jobs per day and average ticket — which are important but only two of the five drivers. The biggest overlooked lever is call answer rate. If 40% of your inbound calls never get answered, you are operating at 60% of your potential booking capacity. Every $1 you spend improving answer rate — through AI answering, better CSR coverage, or call forwarding systems — has a direct multiplier effect on RPT.
Revenue Per Truck Benchmarks by Trade
| Trade | Annual RPT Benchmarks |
|---|---|
| Residential HVAC (top quartile) | $300K–$400K |
| Residential HVAC (average) | $180K–$240K |
| Residential plumbing (top quartile) | $280K–$360K |
| Residential plumbing (average) | $160K–$220K |
| Electrical service (top quartile) | $220K–$300K |
| Roofing (per crew, annual) | $600K–$1.2M |
Improving RPT: Where to Start
Start by calculating your current RPT. If you are below the average benchmark for your trade, investigate the five drivers in order of leverage. For most contractors below benchmark, the biggest gaps are in call answer rate (leading to low booking volume) and average ticket (leading to low revenue per job). Fix the answer rate first — it is the fastest win and requires no new skills from your team.
The truck you almost added
Before adding a fifth truck, ask whether your four trucks are performing at top-quartile RPT. A truck running at $180K/year can often be pushed to $280K with better dispatch, pricing, and call handling — adding $100K in revenue at near-zero marginal cost. Adding the fifth truck at $180K/year is often the wrong move when underperforming trucks are the real opportunity.
Weekly RPT Tracking Routine
Every Monday morning, calculate last week's RPT by truck. Flag any truck that came in below your target. Investigate the cause: low call volume that week? A tech callback that ate time? Missed calls? Dispatching error? The weekly cadence creates accountability without being micro-management — your dispatcher and lead techs see the number and know where it came from.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good revenue per truck for a small HVAC company?
For a two- to five-truck residential HVAC operation in a mid-size market, $200K–$260K annual RPT is a reasonable target. Top-performing small operations in competitive markets regularly hit $300K+ per truck. If you are below $160K, the business is likely not generating enough gross margin to pay the full costs of the truck and support overhead and profit.
Should I include replacement system revenue in RPT calculations?
Yes — include all revenue generated by the truck and its tech, including service, repairs, and replacements. If you want to analyze the revenue mix, track service-only RPT and replacement-only RPT separately, but your top-line RPT should capture total revenue per truck.
How many jobs per day should each HVAC tech complete?
For residential service calls, five to seven jobs per day is typical. Top-performing dispatch operations achieve seven to nine jobs per day through better geographic clustering and faster job transitions. Replacement and installation techs typically complete one to two jobs per day given the longer scope.
How does call answering affect revenue per truck?
Directly. If your trucks have capacity for six jobs per day but your booking rate is limited by missed calls, trucks run at four or five jobs — below capacity. Fixing answer rate fills the schedule, which increases jobs per day, which increases RPT. This is often the highest-ROI intervention available to contractors with underperforming RPT.
When should I add another truck based on RPT?
Consider adding capacity when your existing trucks are consistently at or above the top-quartile RPT for your trade AND you are turning away or delaying jobs due to capacity. Adding trucks before hitting high RPT on current trucks typically dilutes revenue per truck further rather than growing total revenue efficiently.
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