An investigation fee must cover the paid case calendar and defined outside expenses, rather than just time spent in the field. Fictional Harbor Trace sells 160 investigator hours from 320 scheduled hours per base month. The compensated owner is already one of two investigators; administration adds no third investigator.
Budget the accepted question and expenses while retaining reporting time, paid owner effort and task limits.
Define the case question before pricing its effort
Harbor Trace is an unarmed two-investigator agency in Jacksonville. Surveillance, background work, legal support, locate research and insurance work allocate the same delivery pool. A case starts with a reviewed purpose, defined question, task boundary and payer rather than an unlimited promise of a result. The fictional forecast covers January 2027 to December 2029.
This article covers commercial budgeting, not surveillance, entry or information-acquisition methods. Purchased records access does not itself establish authority to obtain or use information. No achieved case success, current operating credential or unrestricted access is supplied by this fictional plan.
Allocate all case categories to one paid pool
The base 50% utilization earns $18,640.00 at a weighted $116.50 per sold investigator hour. Preparation, reporting, gaps and other nonsold work need space in the remaining calendar. The figures exclude opening ramp and later growth.
| Service | Base sold volume | Fee per hour | Base revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Surveillance | 48 hour | $125.00 | $6,000.00 |
| Background | 24 hour | $100.00 | $2,400.00 |
| Legal support | 40 hour | $140.00 | $5,600.00 |
| Locate work | 16 hour | $110.00 | $1,760.00 |
| Insurance | 32 hour | $90.00 | $2,880.00 |
| Total selected mix | 160 hour | $116.50 weighted | $18,640.00 |
Distinguish case purchases from the investigator payroll
Travel and records/access purchases are direct services budgeted at 9% of revenue, with no physical inventory. Case systems, communications and recurring administration remain overhead. An outside purchase can increase cost without creating another billable investigator hour.
The two investigators include the owner once. Quarter-time paid administration handles intake, records and billing for that same team. Track report preparation, unsuccessful permitted work and client follow-up as effort; a result-dependent interpretation of the fee would describe a different revenue model.
Blended collection is not an advance ledger
The saved opening year has $205,040.00 revenue, -$9,992.96 EBITDA and -$12,737.51 net income. EBITDA excludes depreciation, interest and income tax. Final-year EBITDA improves to $24,561.00, conditional on the retained hours, fees and expenses.
The scenario uses 15-day blended collection and includes no client-advance ledger. Proposed owner-only equity is $75,000.00, against $14,500.00 launch uses; it is uncommitted. A credit-control contingency remains a paid cost while full modeled collections are retained. Refundable office deposits and unquoted access/cover requirements are excluded.
Use a scoped case budget with an expense decision point
Build the budget from accepted investigator effort, preparation/reporting time and separately identified outside purchases. Establish what happens if the available information or permitted task boundary changes before more cost is incurred.
Review actual effort, purchased access and collection on completed paid scopes. If reporting or access limits absorb the margin, narrow the accepted task or revise the fee instead of promising a successful finding or removing owner pay.
Make the next decision with your own evidence
Record accepted case effort, reporting time, outside expense approvals and actual collections, then verify case-specific access and cover terms before committing the next scope.
Explore published business plan examples ↗Harbor Trace is a fictional prelaunch scenario prepared with AI assistance. Inputs are illustrative; forecast results come from the matching saved financial model. Funding is proposed. The diagrams explain the case and do not depict actual premises, established demand or promised earnings. Replace the assumptions with evidence before committing.
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