As solo pooper scooper can expect to take home over $70,000 a year after taxes and expense ($35 – $45 per hour). This assumes you have a pet waste business with a full book of business, visit an average of 4-5 yards per hour, work a full 40-hour workweek using a financed used vehicle.
In this article, we’ll go over how we got to this number so you can tweak the assumptions for your own situation.
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Table of Contents
How Much Should Do Pooper Scoopers Charge?
Pooper scoopers charge $10 – $15 per site visit per yard. The range is based on yard size. Larger yards equals higher prices. Also, expect to pay an extra $2-$4 per extra dog.
Some examples:
- Small yard, one dog = $10 per week
- Small yard, two dogs = $12 per week
- Large yard, one dog = $15-$20 per week
How Often Do You Do The Same Yard?
Most pooper scooper services come by weekly to clean your yard. You can schedule them to come more often if you have more dogs or a smaller yard that you want to be picked up more often.
Selling Dog Poop For Money
Can you sell poop? Absolutely! Of course, you’d never sell it directly even to a farmer, you could compost it first, make a fertilizer, then bag it and sell it as compost.
The trick is setting it up properly to kill pathogens. While you could buy a compost bin we recommend building one. Follow the guidelines here on humanure. They are made to kill all pathogens and make a safe poop compost ready for reuse.
Using that method and depending on your business size it’ll take 6 months to a year to fill each compost bin. Then it needs to age another year. After two years you should have plenty of compost ready to sell.
Bulk compost sells for $3 all the way up to $30 per cubic yard. This price usually includes delivery.
Bagged compost sells for $3 to $10 per cubic foot.
The main issue here will be branding, marketing, and getting people to know that the product is safe. You may want to have it analyzed at a lab for worms and fecal coliforms to confirm that the pathogens have been killed.
Pooper Scooper Business Revenue
Most pet waste employees average 4 to 5 stops per hour. Over an 8 hour workday that comes out to 32 to 40 yards.
At an average of $12 per yard that’s $384 to $480 in revenue per day.
Next, we’ll cover expenses. Then we’ll tally it up for the total profit you can expect to make with a solo pet waste business.
Pooper Scooper Business Expenses
Pet waste businesses have very low expenses. One of your largest expenses though will be transportation.
We’ll take these average expenses from our mobile pet grooming article. Assume that you do this right and pay for expenses as a business rather than just using your personal vehicle.
One Time Costs | |
Used Vehicle | $12,000 |
Branding, vehicle artwork, business cards, etc. | $5,000 |
On-going Expenses | |
Vehicle Maintenance (annual) | $1,000 |
Commercial auto insurance | $1,000 |
Solo health insurance | $4,800 |
General liability insurance | $500 |
Based on the above you have $18,000 in one-time costs. With loan financing at 6% over 5 years, that’s about $350 per month.
Annual costs come out to $7,300 or $610 a month.
Total monthly expenses are about $960 in this example assuming you purchase everything upfront. Obviously, it’s much less if you already own a vehicle and skip the vehicle artwork.
Pooper Scooper Net Profit
So let’s tally everything up.
As a solo pet waste worker, you’re bringing in about $400 per day. Over a typical work year of 50 weeks, working 5 days per week, that comes out to $100,000 in revenue per year.
Monthly expenses were $960 which comes out to $11,520 a year.
Total profit comes out to $100,000 minus $11,520 which equals $88,480.
Assuming you pay 20% in taxes your take-home amount is $70,784. Not too shabby!
What About Auto Pooper Scoopers?
A few entrepreneurs have started to develop AI robot-based pooper scoopers. While these are too early for the current pooper scooper business, it’s something to keep an eye on.
How much does a professional pooper scooper cost?
Expect to pay about $15 – $30 for a professional pooper scooper rake and scoop set.
Click the images below to check current prices on Amazon.
My name is Ken and I’m one of the staff writers at Petloverguy.com. I’ve cared for pets most of my life starting with hamsters, turtles, and snakes. Then moving up to parakeets, guinea pigs, and even ducks.
I currently live with two yorkies and a chihuahua mix.