How we research, write and check what we publish
Every page here makes claims about money, health or the law. This is the standard each one has to meet before it goes live, how the cost estimates are built, and what we do when we are wrong.
Who writes and who reviews
Pages are written by the PestControlMatch editorial team, and each one is checked against the sources listed at its foot. We have not yet appointed a licensed technical reviewer, so no page claims to be expert reviewed.
When a named, licensed reviewer is appointed, this section will show their name, license number, state, years in the trade and a link to the public registry entry, and each page they have read will say so. Until then, treat the sources at the bottom of each page as the authority and check anything that matters with your state's pesticide regulator.
Where the numbers come from
| Figure | Source | How often it is checked |
|---|---|---|
| Population, housing age, home value | U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey five-year estimates 2023 | Each ACS release |
| Pest control worker wages | U.S. Department of Labor O*NET OnLine, republishing Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data for pest control workers, May 2025. These are wages paid to workers, not prices charged to homeowners, and are percentile figures not re-checked against the Bureau's own table. | Each release |
| License fees | The state agriculture department's published fees and the statute that sets them | When the statute or fee page changes |
| Pesticide law, categories and paperwork rules | State statutes, administrative rules and agency pages, each linked on the page that uses it | When a rule changes or a reader reports one |
| Wildlife rules | The state natural resources department's own species pages and permit documents | When a document changes |
| Disease and season data | State health department pages and summaries, with the date of the figures printed beside them | Each time we re-check, and the date is shown |
| Cost estimates | Published national cost ranges from third-party sites that we have not verified and do not cite, adjusted by the state's pest control worker wage ratio to the US. They are estimates, not quotes, and we have collected no customer quotes. | When the wage data or the state fee schedule changes |
The rules every page follows
- 1A fact we cannot source is left out. A fact we could confirm only secondhand stays in only if the sentence says so. We do not guess a rule or a fee from memory.
- 2Every cost figure is labelled an estimate and shows how it was built. We never present a range as a quote.
- 3Pages say when you do not need a company. If sealing a gap or removing a food source is the fix, the page says so before the form.
- 4We do not publish reviews, rankings or "best of" lists. We have no basis for ranking companies we do not inspect.
- 5Referral income never changes what a page recommends. Companies that pay for requests do not see pages before publication and cannot edit them.
- 6Each page shows the date it was last reviewed and, where it quotes prices, the date those prices are as of.
- 7Pages may be drafted with software help. A person reads each one, and every factual claim has to trace to a source we list, or it comes out.
How we estimate costs
The figures on this site are estimates, not quotes. Each estimate starts from published national cost ranges for the job, one to three per service, taken from third-party cost guides that we have not verified and do not cite. It takes the median of their lows to the median of their highs, or widens a single range 15 percent each side, and multiplies that band by the state's pest control worker median wage ratio to the US (0.98), using wage data that the U.S. Department of Labor publishes through O*NET OnLine from Bureau of Labor Statistics figures. A wage is what workers are paid, not what customers are charged. No permit fee is added, because pest control has no city permit; the fees that companies and their applicators pay the state to be certified and licensed appear in their own rows.
We found no pest control company in the states we cover that publishes a regular price, so the estimates carry no company anchor, and we have not collected customer quotes or invoices. When we do, we will say how many and from when. Ranges are reviewed at least twice a year, and each page shows its last review date. Your actual price depends on the pest, the size of your home and the company you choose.
Corrections
If something on this site is wrong, tell us which page, which number or rule, and what you saw instead, with a link if you have one. We check it against the source. If you are right we fix the page, write the date of the fix at the foot of that page and add a line to the log below.
- Oct 19, 2026: First published. No corrections yet.
How the site is paid for
PestControlMatch earns money when a pest control company, or a referral partner acting for one, receives a homeowner request from us. That is a conflict of interest and we say so on every page. The way we deal with it is in the rules above: sources on every claim, no rankings, no paid placement, and pages that tell you when not to call anyone. The full account is on how it works.
- PestControlMatch: how we estimate costs (editorial policy) Read Oct 19, 2026.
- U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2023 five-year estimates (tables B01003, B25034, B25077) Read Oct 19, 2026.
- O*NET OnLine: Michigan Wages 37-2021.00 Pest Control Workers (BLS 2025 data) Read Oct 19, 2026. Confirm with the source before you rely on it.