Affiliate Disclaimer: All products and services featured are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Expect to pay around $250 to $290 for a one-time ant exterminator service or around $58 per month, based on quotes from Terminix and Orkin. Ants aren’t the most damaging household pests, but they’re a major nuisance. To help you address your ant problem, we’ve ranked the best pest control companies available and assessed the average pest control costs. We’ve detailed the factors that impact this price and provided recommendations for treatment below.
Cost of an Ant Exterminator
You can schedule a onetime treatment to eliminate ants or buy an annual plan for ongoing control against ants and other pests. We received the following quotes for annual plans from two of our top providers, Terminix and Orkin:
Terminix: $36.33 per month
Orkin: $44.50 per month
These quotes are for a three-bedroom home in the Atlanta area with a yard close to half an acre. Both plans include an interior treatment and ongoing perimeter protection for the home’s exterior.
Factors Affecting Ant Exterminator Cost
Here are some of the key factors that affect ant extermination pricing.
- Home size: A home with greater square footage has more space for an ant problem to affect and may require a more concentrated treatment.
- Treatment type: Depending on the infestation’s severity, your pest control specialist may prescribe different ant treatments. This can include ant baits, repellents, or fumigation with dispersible insecticides. These treatments all have different price points, and you may need to have entry points sealed to prevent future infestations.
- Treatment frequency: A onetime visit from a pest control specialist is cheaper than an annual plan. However, annual plans provide ongoing pest management to ensure your ant problem remains under control.
- Local rates: Pricing for ant control may vary by location. Travel time can also increase costs if you don’t have a pest control specialist near your neighborhood.
Types of Ants
Here are some common species of ants that infest homes and lawns.
- Crazy ants: Crazy ants are commonly found on the Gulf Coast. Known for building large ant colonies, this species can be difficult to control. Crazy ants construct both indoor and outdoor nests and will cover more ground than many other ant species to find food sources.
- Fire ants: These red ants are known for their ability to sting, and each ant can potentially deliver multiple stings when alarmed or threatened. Fire ant mounds are typically visible in your yard and may house more than 100,000 ants.
- Sugar ants: Sugar ants are common ants with small bodies that often infest homes. The term sugar ant is not an official designation. Most commonly, the term is used to describe odorous house ants. These ants emit a foul odor when crushed.
- Carpenter ants: Unlike most other household ants, carpenter ants can potentially damage the wooden structural materials in your home. This occurs when these large ants tunnel into the wood to build nests. They do not use wood as a food source and will instead feed on crumbs and kitchen scraps. People often refer to carpenter ants as black ants.
Professional Exterminators vs. DIY Products
Hiring a professional ant exterminator is the most efficient and effective way to eliminate ants from your home and lawn. However, you can explore do-it-yourself (DIY) options for small infestations. Ant traps and baits are available at big-box retailers or local lawn and garden centers. One common brand is Terro Liquid Ant Killer, a poisoned bait station that contains borax. Ants will carry the toxic bait back to their nests and spread it to the rest of the colony.
Our Recommendation
We recommend hiring a pest control professional to treat your home’s ant infestation. DIY products may work for small infestations, but a larger-scale problem may require various extermination methods that only a professional can provide. Terminix and Orkin are two well-known names in the pest control industry that provide ant extermination services for homeowners and businesses.
Terminix
- Pricing: $36.33 per month
- State availability: 45 states (all but Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Vermont)
Terminix offers both onetime ant treatments and annual plans that protect against many other common pests. Its annual plans include several follow-up visits throughout the year. Terminix also offers free inspections for termites. We found that you can request a quote for your ant removal service conveniently on the Terminix website, or you can call to schedule an inspection.
Orkin
- Pricing: $44.50 per month
- State availability: 49 states (all but Alaska)
Orkin provides pest extermination and prevention services to most of the United States. It can provide targeted ant treatments, or you can subscribe to its annual plan and receive treatments throughout the year for many pest types. When we visited Orkin’s website, we found that it has an extensive library of pest articles including detailed accounts of ant species and their respective behaviors. The company provides free quotes online, or you can request a call back from a representative to speak to a pest control specialist directly.
Ant Exterminator Cost FAQ
What types of ant treatments do pest control companies provide?
Pest control companies may use bait stations, barrier sprays, and several types of pesticides to exterminate and repel ants from your home. They may also seal cracks in your home’s structure with caulk to help prevent reinfestations.
What can I do to keep ants from infesting my home?
One way to keep ants from infesting your home is to limit the available food sources. Make sure that you are disposing of food scraps and cleaning up crumbs after meals. You should also regularly clean your kitchen sink to prevent food particles from accumulating.
What do ant nests look like?
Some ants, such as fire ants, build visible nests in your yard. These nests look like loose, sandy mounds that rise slightly above the surrounding soil. Carpenter ants will nest within wood, and you may see a trail of sawdust.
How We Chose the Top Pest Control Companies
Our pest control research process starts with analyzing customer reviews on third-party websites such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB), Trustpilot, and Google Reviews. We then do a deep dive into each company’s website, service plans, and available cost information. We also secret shop the companies we review, reach out to representatives, and request quotes.
From there, we compile the information we’ve gathered and compare each company using our in-depth pest control methodology and review criteria. This process uses a series of factors that are important to our readers, and we score each company depending on how well they perform in each factor. For instance, companies that offer more guarantees for their service earned more points than others, and pest control plans with a larger range of covered pests earned more points than ones with fewer.
After analyzing dozens of residential and commercial pest control businesses through this process, we were able to determine the best pest control companies on the market.