Every performance pay plan in home services starts with one question: can this technician change the size of the ticket?

If the answer is yes, you are building performance pay for a selling tech. If the answer is no, you are building performance pay for a non-selling tech, which most of the industry calls pay for performance. The two buckets use different math, reward different behavior, and fit different roles. Put a tech in the wrong bucket and you end up paying them for something they cannot control, which is the fastest way to make a performance pay plan feel like a gimmick.

This article walks through both buckets, the main structures inside each, and why the strongest plans combine them.

Who Is a Selling Tech and Who Is Not

A non-selling tech shows up to a job that is already scoped and priced. Landscaping crews, HVAC installers, garage door installers, christmas light installers, and home cleaners usually fall here. The ticket is set before they arrive, so what they control is how well and how efficiently they do the work.

A selling tech can impact the actual ticket revenue. They diagnose, present options, and recommend repairs, upgrades, and maintenance plans. Service techs in HVAC, window washing, plumbing, and electrical are the classic example.

In HVAC there is a third role: the comfort advisor. A comfort advisor is essentially a dedicated salesperson who sells the system, and an installer puts it in. Larger shops often run comfort advisors, service techs, and installers as separate roles. Most smaller shops hybridize the service tech and comfort advisor roles, so the service tech does the selling, and then run a couple of install crews alongside them. Our recommendation is to have service techs sell rather than hiring dedicated comfort advisors until you reach the size where a separate sales role makes sense. Either way, it is your call, and the roles you choose determine which performance pay bucket applies to each person.

Non-Selling Tech Performance Pay

Since a non-selling tech cannot grow the ticket, their performance pay has to reward what they can control. There are three main ways to do it.

1. Labor Difference Performance Pay

Labor difference is the most popular form of pay for performance. Every job gets a labor budget, set by the hours billed for that job. When the job is done, you compare the billed hours to the actual hours, and the difference is paid out as performance pay.

The formula: billed hours minus actual hours, paid out to the tech.

Hypothetical example:

A cleaning job is billed at 4 hours
The tech finishes in 3 hours
4 − 3 = 1 hour under budget
At a hypothetical billing rate of $75 per saved hour: 1 × $25 = $75 in performance pay on that job

This model is popular because it runs inside the labor budget the company already set for the job. The efficient tech earns the hours they saved, and the company stays on its labor number.

2. Per-Review Bonuses

The second option is paying per review. Every review a tech earns pays a set bonus. It is simple to explain, simple to track, and it ties pay directly to how the customer felt about the work.

3. KPI Scorecards

The third option is a scorecard. You choose your KPIs, group them into quadrants, and assign each quadrant a weight. Those weights decide how much of a total bonus pool gets paid out. Four quadrants is the maximum.

Hypothetical example:

Monthly bonus pool: $400
Quadrant weights: 40%, 30%, 20%, 10%
Quadrant values: $400 × 0.40 = $160, $400 × 0.30 = $120, $400 × 0.20 = $80, $400 × 0.10 = $40
Tech hits the first three quadrants and misses the fourth: $160 + $120 + $80 = $360

Scorecards work, and plenty of shops pay this way. Our honest take is that they are a weak way to push people to overperform. The bonus pool is fixed, so once a tech hits their metrics, there is nothing left to chase.

Those are the three main structures for non-selling tech performance pay. If you want to de-emphasize selling in your business, this is how you do it.

Selling Tech Performance Pay

Selling tech performance pay flips the logic. Because the tech controls the ticket, you commission them for the work they sell and do. This is the bucket TeamBuyIn is built around.

Commission Structures

There are three ways to set commissions for selling techs:

Fixed rate per service: a set dollar amount every time a specific service is sold and completed.
Percentage per service: a percentage of the revenue or the profit on that service.
Percentage per user: the tech earns a set percentage of the revenue they produce on every job.

These can be mixed. You can pay a fixed rate on some services and a percentage on others, which gives your technicians consistent commissions they can count on.

The Power of Tiers and Revenue Thresholds

A tier aka revenue thresholds are a revenue target for a tech to produce. Once they hit it, they move to the next tier at a higher rate, and there is no ceiling on what they can make. Tiers keep techs producing more instead of coasting once they hit a number, which is exactly the problem with the scorecard pool above. They also work in both buckets, which makes them the most flexible tool in performance pay.

Tiers and Revenue Thresholds for Selling Technicians

Tiers are how TeamBuyIn recommends paying selling techs. A good place to set the first tier is the tech's break-even point on labor cost.

Hypothetical example, using a hypothetical target of 20% labor cost:

Tech earns $30 per hour × 40 hours = $1,200 per week
Break-even revenue: $1,200 ÷ 0.20 = $6,000 per week
Tier 1: 5% on revenue from $6,000 to $10,000
Tier 2: 8% on revenue above $10,000

If the tech produces $12,000 in a week:

Tier 1: ($10,000 − $6,000) × 0.05 = $200
Tier 2: ($12,000 − $10,000) × 0.08 = $160
Total performance pay: $200 + $160 = $360
Total weekly pay: $1,200 + $360 = $1,560
Labor cost: $1,560 ÷ $12,000 = 13%

The tech takes home $360 more, and labor cost still lands under the 20% target. That gap is room to pay your best people even more as the business grows.

Tiers and Revenue Thresholds for Non-Selling Technicians

This article opened with one question: can this tech change the ticket? A non-selling tech cannot. What they can change is how many tickets they complete, and that is where tiers can replace labor difference pay.

Labor difference pay exists for one core reason: to make your team faster and more efficient so they can get through more jobs in a day, while still doing quality work. Tiers deliver the same result when you measure them per pay period instead of per job. On a flat-rate job, revenue stays the same whether the tech finishes in three hours or five, so a per-job tier pays nothing for speed, but instead, will make team members eager to take on more work rather than get through their current work as fast as possible. Measured weekly, a faster tech completes more jobs, produces more revenue, and crosses into the next tier.

Hypothetical example, using the same tiers and $1,000 average jobs:

Tech A completes 10 jobs: 10 × $1,000 = $10,000 in revenue
Tech A's pay: ($10,000 − $6,000) × 0.05 = $200
Tech B works faster and completes 12 jobs: 12 × $1,000 = $12,000 in revenue
Tech B's pay: $360, from the example above
Difference: $360 − $200 = $160 more for the faster tech

Production without quality creates callbacks, so pair tiers with a callback rule. Decide what callback rate you consider the cost of doing business. If a tech's callback rate goes above it, they earn no commission for a set period: a day, a week, or whatever you judge fair.

Hypothetical example, with a 5% callback threshold:

Tech completes 40 jobs in a month with 3 callbacks
Callback rate: 3 ÷ 40 = 7.5%
7.5% is above 5%, so no commission for the period you set

Like any of your commission rules, the callback rule has to be written down, agreed to, and signed by the technician before you implement it.

Upsell Commissions

On top of tiers, you can pay additional commissions on upsells. If a tech turns a repair call into a repair plus an upgrade, the upsell earns its own, generally higher commission. That rewards the exact behavior that separates a selling tech from a non-selling one.

Create A Hybrid Structure Leveraging Both

Everything above can look like a choice between two systems. You do not need selling tech commissions for some people and non-selling tech pay for others, and you do not need to pick one or the other for a single tech.

The best structure hybridizes both. Think back to the smaller shop running service techs who also install. That tech could earn:

A sales incentive for selling a maintenance plan
A bonus for every review they gather
An incentive on every job they complete

The first is selling tech pay. The second is non-selling tech pay. The third can be either, depending on how you structure it. Together they reward the full job, from the conversation with the customer to the review after the truck leaves.

The work is figuring out which incentives you actually want to run in your organization, then building one plan that manages all of them.

List Your Incentives Before You Build a Performance Pay Plan

Start with your roster. For each role, answer the question this article opened with: can this tech change the ticket? Then write down the one to three behaviors you most want to pay for. That list tells you which bucket, or which mix, belongs in your plan.

If you want help turning that list into a performance pay plan, book a call with our team.

FAQ About Performance Pay Types

What is the difference between selling and non-selling tech performance pay?

Selling tech performance pay is for technicians who can impact the ticket revenue, like service techs who diagnose and recommend repairs, upgrades, and maintenance plans. Non-selling tech performance pay is for technicians working on jobs that are already scoped and priced, like landscaping crews, installers, and home cleaners. Selling techs are paid through commissions, while non-selling techs are paid for what they control: efficiency, reviews, and KPIs.

Is pay for performance the same as performance pay?

The terms are often used interchangeably. In home services, pay for performance most commonly refers to non-selling tech performance pay, like labor difference, review bonuses, and KPI scorecards, but both terms cover any plan that ties a technician's pay to results.

How does labor difference performance pay work?

Every job gets a labor budget based on the hours billed for that job. When the job is done, you subtract the actual hours from the billed hours, and that difference is paid out to the tech as performance pay.

How many KPIs should a performance pay scorecard have?

Four quadrants is the maximum. Each quadrant gets a weight, and those weights determine how much of a total bonus pool gets paid out when a tech hits the metrics in that quadrant.

What is the best way to pay selling technicians?

TeamBuyIn recommends tiers. A tier is a revenue amount a tech can produce, and once they hit it, they move to the next tier at a higher rate with no ceiling. A good place to set the first tier is the tech's break-even point on labor cost. You can also add commissions for upsells on top of tiers.

Can tiers replace labor difference pay for non-selling techs?

Yes, if you measure tiers per pay period instead of per job. A faster tech completes more jobs, produces more revenue over the week, and crosses into the next tier. Pair tiers with a callback rule so speed does not come at the cost of quality.

What is a callback rule in performance pay?

A callback rule sets the callback rate you consider the cost of doing business. If a tech's callback rate goes above it, they earn no commission for a set period, like a day or a week. The rule has to be written down, agreed to, and signed by the technician before you implement it.

Can you combine selling and non-selling performance pay?

Yes, and the best plans do. A service tech can earn a sales incentive for selling a maintenance plan, a bonus for every review, and an incentive on every job they complete, all in one plan.

Performance Pay for Selling vs. Non-Selling Technicians Explained