Two houses on the same Carrollwood street can get very different quotes, and both can be fair. Square footage is only part of it. The length of the exterior perimeter matters, so does a crawl space, so does how much mulch sits against the foundation, and so does how long the problem has been running before anyone called.

The pest drives the rest. General pest work covers ants, roaches, spiders, silverfish and the rest of what a Florida yard sends indoors. Termites, mosquitoes, rodents and bed bugs get priced on their own, because each one needs different products, different equipment and a different follow-up schedule.

What are the typical Tampa prices right now?

These ranges are for a three bedroom single family home in Hillsborough County, reviewed in September 2026. A quote outside these numbers is worth a question, though it is not automatically wrong.

Service	Typical Tampa range	What moves the number
One-time general treatment	$145 to $295	Square footage and how much interior work is needed
Quarterly plan, per visit	$95 to $165	The first service usually costs more than the ones after it
Termite inspection	$85 to $175	A signed WDO report for a sale sits at the top of the range
Liquid termite treatment	$1,400 to $3,200	Linear feet of foundation, slab or crawl space, drilling
Termite bait system	$1,500 to $2,800 to install	Then $325 to $550 a year to monitor the stations
Mosquito service, per monthly visit	$55 to $110	Yard size, shade, and how much standing water it holds
Rodent exclusion	$450 to $1,600	Number of entry points, roof pitch, attic access

Bed bug work is quoted after an inspection, because the price follows the number of rooms involved and how much clutter has to be moved before anything is treated.

Is a quarterly plan cheaper than calling when you see something?

For most Tampa houses, yes. Tampa never gets a freeze hard enough to knock populations back, so pest pressure runs through winter at a lower level and never really stops. A house on one-time treatments tends to buy three or four of them a year anyway, at full single visit pricing, and each one starts from zero.

Our plans work out like this. Home Shield is $39 a month, billed quarterly, and covers four scheduled visits with interior and exterior treatment. Home Shield Plus is $79 a month and adds monthly yard mosquito service through the wet season plus fire ant and lawn pest work. Home Shield Termite is $109 a month and adds bait station monitoring and an annual termite inspection with a written report. Station installation is quoted separately and up front.

One-time treatment still makes sense in specific cases. A rental you are about to hand over, a single wasp nest, or a one-off ant trail after heavy rain does not need a year of service.

What should a written quote include?

Ask for these in writing before you agree to anything. A company that will not put them on paper is telling you something.

The pest or pests being treated, named by species where it matters
What each visit covers inside the house and outside it
How many visits a year, and roughly which months
The price per visit and the total for a year
Whether re-treatment between visits costs extra
The term of the agreement and how you cancel it
Whether the first service is priced differently from the rest
What products will be used, and label information on request

Why does the first visit cost more?

The first service is the heavy one. It usually means a full interior treatment with targeted placements in cracks, voids and under appliances, a full perimeter application outside, eaves knocked down, webs pulled and any nests found and treated. Later visits maintain that work rather than starting it.

If a quote shows one flat number for every visit including the first, look at whether the plan price has simply been averaged upward to cover it. Both structures are honest. You just want to know which one you are buying.

What drives termite pricing?

Termite numbers swing wider than anything else on the list, and the reason is the structure. A liquid barrier is trenched and rodded around the foundation, and slab homes often need drilling through patios, driveways and garage floors. That labor is measured in linear feet, so a long rambling ranch costs more than a compact two story house with the same square footage.

A bait system costs less on day one and more over time. Stations go in the soil around the house and get checked through the year. The install is in the $1,500 to $2,800 band, and monitoring runs $325 to $550 a year after that.

Drywood termites are a different job again. They live inside the wood with no soil contact, so a soil barrier does nothing for them. Depending on how far the infestation has spread, the answer is localized wood treatment or whole structure fumigation, which is priced per cubic foot by a fumigation company.

How do I check a company before I pay anyone?

Florida regulates this trade. A pest control business needs a license from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, and each business location has to employ a certified operator in charge of its pest control work. Ask any company you are considering for its business license number and the name of its certified operator, then confirm it with FDACS.

Two more things worth asking. First, is the technician who shows up at your door carrying an employee identification card. Second, will you get the product name and label information if you ask for it after a visit. Every product goes down according to its label, and that label controls where it can be applied and how long to stay off a treated surface.

Which pests cost the most to leave alone?

Termites, easily. A liquid treatment on a house with a live subterranean colony is expensive. Repairing sill plates, joists and studs after two or three years of undetected feeding is a different order of expense, and it is not covered by a standard homeowners policy.

Rodents come second. Trapping clears what is already in the attic. The gaps at the soffit, roof line, vents and utility penetrations are what let the next ones in, and the insulation damage adds up while you wait. That is why exclusion is quoted as its own line rather than bundled into a trapping visit.

Getting a number for your house

Pricing a Tampa home properly takes a walk around the outside, a look inside and a check at the attic access. We do that at no charge, name the pest, and give you the plan and the price in writing before anything happens. See what a plan covers on our pest control plans page, or read the Carrollwood page if you want the local detail first.

How Much Does Pest Control Cost in Tampa?