What a small engine repair shop actually makes: labor versus parts profit, owner pay, the numbers to watch
Updated September 3, 2026 · North Trestle LLC
There is no single answer for what a small engine repair shop makes. Published numbers cover a one-person shop doing under $100,000 a year. They also cover a multi-tech shop over $1 million. Most of what a shop keeps depends on its own overhead, not on a national average. What is true almost everywhere: labor keeps more of each dollar than parts do. The owner gets paid last. Winter tests the cash on hand. This guide lays out the published ranges, each one sourced and dated, plus a one-page monthly P&L sheet you can fill in with your own numbers.
How much does a small engine repair shop make in a year?
No yearly survey is built just for small engine repair shops. The closest published numbers come from a few different places, and they do not all agree.
The U.S. Census tracked $623 million in total receipts across the narrow “Home and Garden Equipment Repair and Maintenance” category in 2017. That is the most recent count for that exact code. A wider IBISWorld report groups garden equipment repair together with appliance repair. It puts the 2026 market at $7.4 billion across 37,453 businesses, or roughly $198,000 in average revenue per business. That average blends in appliance-only shops too. It likely makes a busy engine shop look smaller than it is, and a slow one look bigger.
The trade’s own dealer survey comes from Power Equipment Trade. It found that 57 percent of dealers run with 1 to 5 people on staff. About half report over $1 million a year in total sales. That figure includes new equipment sales, not just repair work. A repair-only shop with no showroom almost always makes less than a dealer that also sells mowers and tractors.
How much profit on parts, versus labor?
Labor keeps more of each dollar than parts do, and it is not close. A dealer study of outdoor power equipment shops tracked this over five years. Labor, called “service” in the study, kept about 56 cents of profit on every dollar billed. Parts kept about 34 cents on the dollar over that same stretch. A separate dealer guide puts parts profit even higher, at 40 cents on the dollar. That number holds when a shop prices the same way every time, instead of guessing.
The reason is simple. Parts cost the shop real money before they reach the counter. That cost is the price from the maker, the freight, and the time spent ordering and stocking them. Labor’s biggest cost is the tech’s wage, and that wage is almost always well under what the shop charges per hour.
| Source | What it found | Date |
|---|---|---|
| United Equipment Dealers Association, Cost of Doing Business Study | Labor profit averaged 56 cents on the dollar. Parts profit averaged 34 cents. Both are five-year averages. | 2016 study, five years through 2016 (checked 2026-09-03). |
| Bob Clements International, dealer guide | Parts should keep 40 cents of profit on the dollar. A tech should bill at least 85 percent of paid hours. | Published 2019, updated 2021 (checked 2026-09-03). |
| Power Equipment Trade, 2024 dealer survey | Average shop labor rate is $90 an hour. About 1 in 4 dealers make over 60 percent of sales from parts and service. | 2024 survey (checked 2026-09-03). |
| BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook | Small engine mechanic median pay is $23.90 an hour, or $49,710 a year. That is a wage, not a shop’s profit. | May 2025 data (checked 2026-09-03). |
| IBISWorld, Appliance Repair (groups in garden equipment repair) | The market is $7.4 billion across 37,453 businesses. Profit is reported at 15.5 percent of sales. | 2026 report (checked 2026-09-03). |
These are published averages from other people’s research, not numbers pulled from ReedPort shops. A shop that prices parts by guesswork usually keeps less profit than these numbers show. The price list guide covers how to set a parts price. Do that, and you keep a set profit every time, not whatever is left over.
What does the owner actually take home?
No solid public survey says what a small engine shop owner takes home in a year. Be careful of any site that gives one flat number with no source behind it. What is published is the wage floor for a hired mechanic. The median is $23.90 an hour. The lowest-paid tenth of the field earns under $17 an hour. The highest-paid tenth earns over $35 (BLS, May 2025 data). An owner who also turns wrenches earns at least that much in wage value, before any profit shows up on top.
Owner pay is whatever is left after everything else gets paid. That means tech wages, rent, insurance, parts cost, and a cushion for slow months, all paid first. That is the same math behind the labor-rate guide’s rate formula, just run for the whole shop instead of one hour. The monthly P&L sheet below walks through it, line by line.
Is small engine repair a good business to own?
It can be, for an owner who prices by the numbers and plans ahead for the slow months. It is not a way to get rich fast. The trade skews toward small, owner-run shops. Power Equipment Trade’s 2024 survey found 57 percent of dealers run with 1 to 5 people on staff. Most repair-only shops run smaller than that. That survey’s dealers often sell new equipment too, which pads their sales. It is a real trade with steady repeat work. Shops that track their numbers do better than shops that guess.
What fixed costs does a shop carry every month, in season or out?
Rent, insurance, tools, software, and utilities all get billed whether one mower comes through the door this month or fifty do. One guide written for lenders who finance equipment dealers found that 60 to 70 percent of a season’s money lands between March and August (checked 2026-09-03). That leaves November through February as the leanest stretch of the year. A shop that spends its spring cash instead of setting some aside will feel that gap hard by January.
Plan for the gap the same way you plan for anything you can see coming. Build a cash cushion during the spring rush. Size it to cover two to three months of fixed costs. Expect it to shrink every winter, then fill back up every spring.
What six numbers should you check every month?
Six numbers tell you almost everything about how a shop is doing. None of them need a bookkeeper.
- Labor sales. What you billed for labor this month.
- Parts sales. What you billed for parts this month.
- Profit on labor and parts. What is left after tech wages and parts cost, before overhead.
- Billable hours per tech. Hours actually billed to a customer, against the hours you paid for.
- Tickets open more than 14 days. Work sitting on the bench too long ties up the bay and the customer’s patience.
- Receivables over 30 days. Money a charge-account customer owes that is starting to age.
Fill in the monthly shop P&L spreadsheet with your own numbers, one column per month. Or print the blank one-page version and fill it in by hand. Either one has a spot for each of these six numbers, plus the fixed costs that eat into them. One page tells you what the shop made this month, not just what it billed.
Where do these numbers show up in ReedPort today?
ReedPort already has a place to see three of these numbers. Labor & parts totals is a report behind a PIN. An owner sees the shop’s labor dollars, parts dollars, and profit for any date range. The counter staff never sees it. Receivables shows every unpaid invoice sorted into 0 to 30, 31 to 60, 61 to 90, and over-90-day buckets. A charge account slipping past 30 days stands out at a glance. The calendar view lists every open work ticket that has not been invoiced yet. Each one shows the day it came in and the day it is expected out. A ticket sitting for two weeks is easy to spot.
There is no single “tickets open over 14 days” filter yet. You would read that number off the calendar view by eye, the same way you would flip through a stack of tickets on a spike. That is an honest gap, not a hidden feature.
Write the numbers down every month
A shop that checks these numbers monthly catches a slow month before it becomes a slow quarter. Grab the spreadsheet or the printable sheet, no email required, and fill it in from your invoices at the end of each month. Pair it with the price list guide for the parts side and the labor-rate guide for the labor side.
Or keep the labor and parts totals in ReedPort as you finish each ticket. The profit number is already there when the month ends. Cost and profit show on the ticket for you and your techs. They never print on the customer’s copy.