Appliance Repair profit margin benchmarks
The IRS reports what one-owner businesses filing Schedule C earn, by sector. Appliance Repair falls under Miscellaneous repairs. For tax year 2023, 438,242 returns reported $24.4 billion in receipts, $7.5 billion in cost of sales and $3.2 billion in net income less deficit (the table gives thousands of dollars):
| Benchmark | Value |
|---|---|
| Gross margin | 69.3% |
| Net margin, owner pay included | 13.2% |
| Average receipts per return | $55,765 |
| Average net income per return | $7,372 |
The owner's own draw is not an expense on a Schedule C, so that net margin is mostly the owner's wage, not profit on top of it.
Where the money goes in appliance repair
Appliance repair is labor and parts, with the diagnostic visit as the anchor. Parts lead times can mean two trips.
Where appliance repair margin leaks, and how to win it back
- Diagnostic fee too low
- Second trips for parts
- Parts sold at cost
- Repairs that turn into replacements
- Warranty callbacks
Ways appliance repair techs raise margin: charge a diagnostic fee credited to the repair; order parts the same day; mark up parts; offer a repair or replace estimate on older units.
Check your appliance repair prices against the costs
The typical national prices from our sourced calculators are a check on whether your prices leave room for margin:
| Service | Typical | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Dryer vent cleaning | $126 | $90 to $163 a job |
Work out the margin on each line of your menu, not just the big jobs. The usual appliance repair menu: washer repair; dryer repair; dryer vent cleaning; refrigerator repair; dishwasher repair; oven and range repair; microwave repair; diagnostic fee; install new appliance; ice maker repair.
Overhead comes out of the margin before profit. In appliance repair it includes general liability insurance, which Insureon's customers who are contractors as a group pay an average of $83 a month for; commercial auto at $270 a month on the same figures.
Work out your own margin
Put one recent appliance repair job into the calculator above, or switch it to "My margin for the year" to set your year next to the IRS benchmark. A 50% markup is a 33% margin; the markup calculator shows the rest.
Sources
- IRS Statistics of Income: Nonfarm sole proprietorships, Table 2, income statements by industrial sector, tax year 2023, checked October 9, 2026
- IRS: SOI tax stats, nonfarm sole proprietorship statistics, checked October 9, 2026
- Insureon: Insurance cost for contractors as a group, checked October 9, 2026
- Fixr, dryer vent cleaning cost, checked October 8, 2026
- Bob Vila, dryer vent cleaning cost, checked October 8, 2026
- Thumbtack, dryer vent cleaning cost, checked October 8, 2026
- HomeAdvisor, cost to clean ducts and vents (dryer vent add-on), checked October 8, 2026
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (state and national files), checked October 8, 2026
- US Census Bureau, 2020 ZIP Code Tabulation Area to county relationship file, checked October 8, 2026
Last checked October 9, 2026. This page is general information, not legal or tax advice. Rules change and differ by state and city, so confirm with the agency named before you act.