Average revenue per call

Revenue per call is the price side of a funeral home’s revenue, just as call volume is the quantity side. Multiply the two and you have the top line. The formula looks simple, but small choices about what goes into it can move the result by hundreds of dollars a call, and a buyer will rebuild it from the case files. Getting it right before a sale is cheaper than defending a loose number during diligence. This page sets out the definition we use across our funeral home valuation hub.

What is the formula for average revenue per call?

Divide service and merchandise revenue by retail calls for the same period. Everything that is not the firm’s own retail sale to a family stays out of the numerator, and everything that is not a retail call stays out of the denominator.

1. Start with total funeral revenue for the year.
2. Remove cash advance items billed to families.
3. Remove trade cremation and embalming revenue from other funeral homes, pet cremation, monument and flower sales, and rental income.
4. Remove preneed trust earnings and insurance growth, and report them on a separate line.
5. Divide what remains by retail calls, counting each decedent once.
6. Repeat the calculation for traditional burial, cremation with services, and direct cremation.

Step two matters most. The FTC Funeral Rule defines a cash advance item as anything described to the purchaser as a cash advance or accommodation, or obtained from a third party and paid for on the purchaser’s behalf. Its examples include cemetery or crematory services, clergy honoraria, flowers, obituary notices, and death certificates. Those dollars pass through to someone else, so including them overstates what the firm sells.

How do SCI and Carriage calculate it?

Both public consolidators report the metric, and each strips out different items. Their definitions are a useful template, and a warning that two numbers with the same name may not be comparable.

Sources: SCI’s 2025 Form 10-K and Carriage’s 2025 Form 10-K. SCI explains that it removes those items “to avoid distorting our average of normal funeral services revenue.” Carriage’s two operating figures differ by $161 a contract purely because of trust earnings. That is why we keep investment income out of the base figure and show it on its own line.

Why must revenue per call be split by disposition?

Because the blended number mixes very different sales. Carriage states in its 10-K that its “average cremation service revenue is approximately one-third of the average revenue earned from a traditional burial service.”

With a gap that large, the blended figure is mostly a measure of mix. The second number in the Four-Number Funeral Home Valuation Screen is revenue per call by disposition for that reason, together with each disposition’s share of calls. A seller who shows only the blended average hides the trend a buyer most wants to see. Our guide to rising cremation rates and funeral home values carries that mix math into valuation.

How do sellers, buyers, and lenders each use it?

All three use it to judge how durable revenue is, but they look at different sides of the number.

Sellers

Sellers use it to show pricing discipline. A firm that has kept revenue per call steady by disposition, while competitors discounted, can point to it as evidence of reputation. Before going to market, it is worth checking your price list against local competitors; our guide to pricing your GPL before a sale covers how to do that without driving families away.

Buyers

Buyers forecast it forward. They hold each disposition’s figure roughly steady, apply realistic price increases, and shift the mix toward cremation at the local pace. They also check for guaranteed preneed contracts that will mature at old prices, which can pull the average down for years. A buyer who plans to change the price list after closing will model that separately and will not credit the seller for it.

Lenders

Lenders rarely ask for the figure by name, but they read it through the earnings. A falling blended average with flat calls tells a credit officer that revenue is eroding even if the call count looks stable. Some credit officers will run a downside case that holds calls flat and moves a few burials a year into direct cremation, then ask whether coverage still clears the minimum. A seller who has already run that case, and can show the answer, removes one reason for a lender to cut the loan amount.

How is revenue per call verified in diligence?

A buyer rebuilds it from case-level records rather than accepting the seller’s summary. The test is whether invoice totals, signed statements, and deposits all tell the same story.

The Funeral Rule requires an itemized statement of funeral goods and services selected for every arrangement, listing each item’s price, the cash advance items, and the total. That document is the natural starting point. A buyer samples retail cases from each disposition, compares the statement with the invoice and the case register, and traces the payment to a deposit, an insurance assignment, or a preneed release.

Booked versus collected

Revenue per call should reflect what families actually paid. If the firm writes off a meaningful share of balances, or books insurance assignments that are later reduced, the booked average overstates the real one. Ask for receivables aging and write-offs by year, and compute the figure on collected revenue as a cross-check.

Preneed maturities at old prices

Guaranteed preneed contracts are delivered at the price agreed years earlier, with trust growth or policy growth making up some or all of the difference. If 25 of 160 calls are guaranteed maturities averaging $1,000 below today’s prices, the reported average sits about $156 below current pricing. Separate maturities from at-need calls so a buyer sees both.

Are NFDA’s median prices the same as revenue per call?

No. The NFDA’s 2023 General Price List Study, reported by Funeral Director Daily, put the median adult funeral with viewing and burial at $8,300 and with viewing and cremation at $6,280. Those are list prices for defined bundles at member firms.

A firm’s actual revenue per call reflects what families bought, discounts, direct cremations, and merchandise choices. It is usually a different number from either median, and it is the one that drives value.

What mistakes distort revenue per call?

The common errors are leaving cash advances in, counting trade work as calls, folding in trust income, and reading the blended figure without the mix. The example below shows the last one, which is the easiest to miss.

A buyer reading only the blended average would think pricing power was weak. A buyer reading the split sees healthy pricing offset by a mix shift, and can forecast both. Rules of thumb that price a firm per call ignore this entirely, which is one reason our guide to per-call rules of thumb treats them with caution. Where trust earnings are material, our guide to preneed trust income and commissions shows how to present them separately.