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Route Profitability Calculator: your real net per hour

Mobile grooming looks profitable until you account for drive time and van costs. This calculator shows your real net profit per hour on the road — not just your revenue.

Revenue isn't profit

A $90 groom sounds great until you subtract fuel, product, van wear, and the 20 minutes you spent driving to the stop. Mobile groomers who only track revenue routinely overestimate what they actually earn per hour.

The numbers that quietly eat your margin:

  • Drive time between stops — unpaid but unavoidable
  • Fuel and van maintenance on every mile
  • Fewer dogs per day than a salon (you can't overlap)
  • Idle time when a client cancels last-minute
Density is everything in mobile. Tight routes with short drives between stops are the difference between $30/hr and $60/hr.

How to use this calculator

Enter your average ticket, how many stops you run per day, your grooming and drive times, and your per-stop costs. We'll calculate your true net profit per hour on the road.

How to raise your number

Tighten your route: cluster clients by neighborhood and book them the same day. Cutting average drive time from 25 to 12 minutes can add an hour of billable work to your day.

Raise your ticket, not your stops: one more stop adds drive time and fatigue. Raising your average ticket adds pure margin.

Track van costs honestly: set aside a per-mile reserve for maintenance and eventual replacement. Ignoring it just hides a cost you'll pay later.

Common questions

Yes. Drive time is time you can't spend grooming or doing anything else income-producing. If you ignore it, your hourly rate looks higher than it really is — and you'll underprice.
A common rule is $0.30–$0.50 per mile for fuel, maintenance, tires, and eventual replacement. Estimate your real per-stop figure and put it in the fuel + van cost field.
It can be — mobile commands premium pricing — but only with tight routes. Spread-out clients and long drives can make mobile less profitable per hour than a busy salon.
Most full-time mobile groomers run 5–8 stops a day depending on groom complexity and drive distance. More than that usually means cutting corners or burning out.
Related course
Build a mobile route that actually pays.

Route density, pricing for mobile, and the systems that keep a van profitable — built from real mobile operating numbers.

Route Efficiency and Scheduling — $69
Counts toward the GC Mobile Business cert · 14-day money-back guarantee