How to Turn Memorial Maintenance Into a Revenue Stream

Q4 is when budgets get built, and most cemetery executives are asking the same question: where does next year’s growth come from? Burial and memorial sales are only part of the picture. One of the most overlooked opportunities sits in a place most operations treat purely as a cost — the long-term upkeep of the memorials themselves.

The perpetual care gap

Perpetual care funds are generally built to cover grounds maintenance — mowing, roads, general upkeep of the property. What they rarely account for is the ongoing condition of individual memorials: markers that settle, tilt, or need to be reset years after installation. Those issues still land on the cemetery’s plate, usually as unbudgeted labour and a steady stream of family complaints.

That’s the perpetual care gap. The expectation is that memorials stay level and well kept forever; the funding to make that happen often isn’t there.

The perpetual care gap

What perpetual care covers — and what it doesn’t

Covered by perpetual care

Grounds maintenance

Mowing, roads, general upkeep

The gap

Memorial upkeep

Levelling, resets, settling

No funding set aside for memorials, so upkeep lands on the cemetery as unbudgeted labour.

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MMAP

Funds memorial upkeep up front

MMAP embeds a $250 fee in the memorial sale, closing the gap.

The MMAP model

MMAP is designed to close that gap by making memorial maintenance a funded program rather than an ongoing expense. The model is simple: a $250 maintenance fee is embedded into the memorial sale, so it’s part of the purchase from the start rather than a separate ask later.

The numbers work out cleanly:

• Embedded fee: $250 per memorial

• Net return: $227 per memorial after program costs

• Result: memorial upkeep is funded up front, and the program contributes revenue instead of draining it

What it adds up to

Per-memorial figures only tell part of the story. Take an operation placing 200 memorials a year: at $227 net each, that’s roughly $45,400 in annual net return. At 500 memorials a year, it’s approximately $113,500 — recurring, predictable revenue tied directly to a service families already expect.

Because the fee is built into the sale, there’s no separate collection process and no awkward follow-up conversation with families. The cost of caring for the memorial is accounted for at the moment it’s purchased.

MMAP revenue model

From a $250 fee to $227 net per memorial

$250

Embedded fee per memorial

→

$227

Net return after program costs

What it adds up to annually

200 memorials a year

$45,400

annual net return

500 memorials a year

$113,500

annual net return

Illustrative volumes. Net return = $227 × memorials placed.

Why it matters for Q4 planning

If maintenance is already on your books as an unfunded liability, MMAP reframes it as a funded line item. For executives mapping next year’s budget, that’s a concrete way to add a new revenue stream while solving a service problem that otherwise only grows over time.

→ Request an MMAP overview and we’ll walk through how the model would work at your volume.