How much do you pay your helper/assistant?

Hello Everyone!!

I am thinking and have a license inspector work as a team.
How much should i pay him?

Like to hear your experiences on this matter to help on my decision.

Thank you

No responses in over 12 hours, huh. Very unlike this Message Board.

I used to pay my employees anywhere from $18,000 to $96,000 per year. That way, if we didn’t have an inspection, they could be in the office doing marketing, follow up, etc.

Whatever they’re worth…to you.

Think about it this way

How many extra inspections can you do with an assistant? For me it’s 1 a day, 5 a week, about 20 a month. That’s about 8000 a month. You need to pay him enough to keep him, but also enough to make a profit you can live with for extra effort involved in having an employee. Keep in mind whatever his compensation is, it actually costs at least 25 percent more than that to employ him. You’ll also loose percentage of that in taxes.

So over a year an assistants value is about 96,000 per inspector. Im sure you can find a reasonable compensation.

The goal is for all assistants to be training to be inspectors and then of course they get paid much more and are worth much more.

Exactly, some may get a bit more based on experience or training. All of our “helpers” are working towards being “inspectors” while our inspectors are working towards being “lead inspectors” with their own team.

My granddaughter is an apprentice with me, I pay her a percentage of each inspection

My young helper gets typically $70-$80 per inspection.

My experienced helper (over 10 yrs + remodeler) gets $120-$145 per inspection.

What is your average inspection cost? I’m trying to figure out your percentage that you pay your helper. This way I could use the percentage geared to my average cost. My helper has experience as a remodeler and is a Cert Prof. Inspector now.

Juan is right. I will also add that you need to find out what motivates your employees. For some it will be money, for others it might be job security, consistency of pay, being able to take time off etc…

When my inspector (newly licensed professional inspector) started working for me as an assistant, I paid him 15% of the inspection fee his first year. I found out during that time that he wasn’t motivated by money as much as he was by consistency of pay and being able to take time off. My philosophy happens to be “family always comes first”, so no matter the situation, if any happens to family, he knows my first reaction will be to ask him how much times does he need off.
So his second year I put him on salary (not recommended for everybody). He now gets about $47K=k/year, has 2 weeks paid vacation and gets quarterly bonuses. As soon as I can hire a couple more inspectors, I will split the team in two, my inspector will become lead inspector and I will train the other one.

William, was that 15% per inspection he helped with/got referred to you or was it 15% of the total fee for every inspection you did?

Although I did all the ancillaries, I paid him 15% of the total inspection fee (home + pool + sprinkler + etc…). I juggled around the idea of paying his commission just for the home inspection and then as he got certified for the different ancillaries, I would add to his pay, but at the end of the day, I wanted to make my life easier by doing a % of total fee.
Some will say that 15% isn’t much, however, on top of that, I pay for his license renewal, tools, insurance, car (since we ride in the same car). I also pay for any specialty training he wants that will add to our services…
His first year he got paid $30k, never had to go back home and write reports until 2am, did not have to dish out $$ for tools or have to worry about generating the business. Just show up, work hard and well :slight_smile:

One more ? - was it true commissioned base as in he had to inspect with you to be paid or did he get that 15% regardless if he participated in the inspection.

When he was commission based, he had to work for his 15%/house of course.
Now that he’s salaried and we don’t have inspections, he still gets paid. This rarely happens though and when it does, he takes CE classes.
I think since the beginning of the year, we had a total of 3 weird days where the inspections got postponed or cancelled all together.

That’s not enough days off for me! :mrgreen: :wink:

$80 per inepction, no matter if its a $400 or $800 fee. it evens out to be pretty fair for both of us.

We do 3 inspections day so it averages out to about same amount of $