How Americans Hire Pest Control in 2026: What the Numbers Say

Quick answer: About half of US homeowners paid a licensed pest control company in the past year. Most start online, a growing share now ask AI tools, and many hire whichever company calls back first. The step most people skip is checking the company's state license, and it takes about a minute.

52%

Homeowners who used a licensed pro in the past year

Harris Poll for NPMA, 2026

83%

Homeowners who start their search online

Scorpion, 2026

45%

Consumers who used AI tools to find local businesses

BrightLocal, 2026

16,565

Pest control companies in the US

NPMA and Specialty Consultants, 2026

We read the main 2026 studies of how people find and hire pest control, and of how the industry itself works. This is what they say, in plain terms, with each number next to the study it came from. If you are about to hire someone, the last section is the part to keep.

Who hires pest control

More people than you might think. In a Harris Poll of 1,389 homeowners for the National Pest Management Association (January 29 to February 2, 2026), 52% said they had used a licensed pest control professional in the past year.

The reasons are usually one of these:

• Something showed up indoors: ants on the counter, a roach at night, droppings in a cabinet.
• The season turned: termite swarms in spring, mice and rats moving inside in fall.
• A house is being sold: many lenders and buyers want a termite report before closing. See what your state requires.
• A landlord has to act: several states put pest control on the landlord in writing.

Where people look first

Online, almost always. Scorpion's 2026 State of Pest Control Marketing Report found that 83% of homeowners start their search online. Where online is changing fast. In BrightLocal's 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey of 1,002 US adults, 71% had used Google to look for a local business in the past year, down from 83% the year before, while 45% had used AI tools, up from 6%. ChatGPT alone was at 31% and Google's AI Mode at 23%.

People do not take those answers on faith. The same BrightLocal survey found that 88% of people who use AI tools for local recommendations double-check what they are told before acting.

What they check before calling

Reviews, mostly. BrightLocal's 2026 numbers: 68% of consumers will only use a business with four stars or more, 47% skip a business with fewer than 20 reviews, and 74% want to see reviews from the last three months. Scorpion found that 74% of homeowners look up a neighbor's recommendation online before they call.

Reviews tell you how other customers felt. They do not tell you whether the state lets the company do the work. That is what the license is for, and it is the check the surveys show people rarely mention.

Who they end up hiring

Usually a small, local company, and often the first one to call back. The industry's own count (NPMA and Specialty Consultants, April 2026) puts it at 16,565 companies, 81.4% of them with one or two locations, together serving 13.29 million residential customers. Most homeowners who stay with a company do it on a plan: 85.4% of residential revenue in 2025 came from recurring service.

Speed decides a lot of it. Home-service studies on response time in 2026 put the share of customers who hire the first company to respond at about 78%. That is worth knowing from the other side: the first company to call you back is not automatically the right one.

What goes wrong

The problems people report are rarely about the bugs. They are about the sale: pressure at the door, long contracts with cancellation fees, and sellers who are not licensed at all. In 2026, Florida's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services shut down an unlicensed door-to-door pest control operation that had written 600 contracts in nine days. Minnesota's Attorney General warns homeowners about door-to-door pest control sales for the same reasons.

A company that will not give you its license number, or tells you it is not needed, has answered your question.

What it costs

Prices depend on the pest, the size of the house and how established the problem is, so a real number only comes from a company that has looked. For planning, PestPin's national ranges put a general treatment at $125 to $450, termite treatment at $575 to $1,400 and bed bug treatment at $400 to $1,800. The cost calculator adjusts those for your home, and if you already have a quote, it shows where the quote sits and what to ask.

A one-minute check before you hire

• Ask for the state license number and the exact business name it is under.
• Look it up with the state, or in one place across 35 states with PestPin's license lookup. A name, a license number or a phone number all work.
• Got a flyer, a van at the curb or a missed call? Check the phone number against the published numbers on state license records.
• Get the plan, the number of visits and the total price in writing before any work starts.
• Ask what happens if the pests come back, and what it costs to cancel.

How we put this together

We read each study below on September 26, 2026, and every number above sits next to the study it came from. None of it is a PestPin survey. The sources: BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026; Scorpion, 2026 State of Pest Control Marketing Report; NPMA and Specialty Consultants, US pest control industry report, April 2026; Harris Poll for NPMA, National Pest Management Month release, 2026; Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services press release, 2026; Minnesota Attorney General consumer alert on pest control sales; and 2026 home-service speed-to-lead studies from Contractor in Charge and LeadResponse.