I get where you're coming from but I am not onboard completely with what you're saying for these reasons. And this is for all businesses, not just pest control.

1) Just an observation, we have no idea what their cost of business is and how they need to spread overhead across different customers. For all you/we know, everything they have to pay to operate the business, from workmen's comp to the electric bill, ballooned correspondingly.

2) They may be deprioritizing small customers (residential) in favor of B2B customers. What they want you to pay now reflects their apportionment of labor, time and materials that keeps parity with what they pay for these things for large jobs. Or there may be some other change that amounts to a tweak of business model.

3) Outrageous pricing often corresponds to high overhead. Example #1, we had to take one cat to get an ultrasound recently. $700 which includes initial diagnosis by an expert vet. The procedure itself is costless and it's like 10 minutes on the machine, but they have to absorb the cost of the ultrasound machine into their customer's jobs. Example #2, I went to a commercial "emergency clinic" (aka urgent care) a few weeks ago for what turned out to be bronchitis, and they did a COVID swap to be certain. Very routine, a 15 minute office visit. Insurance got billed for almost $500 for that one incident.

When I did websites for small biz customers, aside from you, I was constantly criticized for my outrageous pricing and terms which were usually 50% or less of what I knew for a fact most web designer can charge their customers. Everyone wanted everything for fucking free basically.

I have sympathy because we consumers all have the same issue but then again I don't have much because I've perpetually, for years, been put on the other side of that ripoff accusation.

Put your assertion to the test... can you find another contractor who does the same work for the fee structure you'd expect to pay? That would be the most interesting data point to collect.

There's also supply and demand in place but it works both ways. They may believe their shit don't stink. But if someplace is a true ripoff, they will shed customers because of that philosophy.

And they might have changed ownership or otherwise have decided that long term customers aren't important.