Is switching vendors worth it?

A supplier discount, a subcontractor rate, or an equipment lease often comes with a fixed monthly fee attached to a lower per-job price. Whether that trade is worth it depends entirely on your actual job volume — the same rate card can be a clear win at 30 jobs a month and a loss at 3.

Open the free vendor rate break-even calculator

What a headline discount cannot see

Fixed fees hide at low volume. A vendor's monthly minimum or lease payment is spread across however many jobs you actually run — fewer jobs means a bigger slice of that fee lands on each one.

Break-even is a job count, not a percentage. The real question is not "is this rate lower," it's "how many jobs a month do I need to run before this rate is lower for me."

Some deals never pay off. If the new per-job cost is not actually lower than your current one, stacking a fixed fee on top makes every volume worse, not just low volume.

A number you can defend

Enter your current jobs per month, revenue per job, current fixed monthly cost, and current variable cost per job.
Enter up to three vendor alternatives as a fixed monthly cost and a variable cost per job.
Compare monthly cost and cost per job at your real volume, not a rate card's advertised number.
Check the break-even job count — the volume where the new fixed cost is paid for by the per-job savings.

Worked example

At 20 jobs a month with no fixed cost, a $120 per-job variable cost is $120 per job. A "Bulk supplier" offer adds a $100 monthly minimum but drops the per-job cost to $90 — $95 per job at 20 jobs a month, a $25-per-job saving worth $500 a month. That $100 minimum pays for itself at just 4 jobs a month, well under the 20 actually run. A "Subcontractor" alternative with no minimum and a flat $115 per job is already cheaper than the $120 baseline at any volume at all, with no break-even threshold to clear.

Common questions

How do I know if switching vendors is worth it?

Compare the total monthly cost at your actual job volume, not the headline per-job rate. A vendor's fixed monthly fee plus its per-job cost, divided by your monthly jobs, gives a true cost per job you can compare directly against your current cost per job.

When does a vendor's monthly minimum pay for itself?

Break-even volume is the new fixed cost minus your current fixed cost, divided by the per-job savings the new rate offers. A $100 monthly minimum against a $30-per-job saving pays for itself at 4 jobs a month; below that volume the fixed fee costs more than the discount saves.

What if the new vendor's per-job rate isn't actually lower?

If the new variable cost per job is equal to or higher than your current one, no volume makes the switch pay off — the calculator reports it as 'not cheaper' rather than a break-even job count, because adding a fixed fee on top of an equal or higher per-job rate never turns a profit at any volume.