Sudharvik Home Services earns 22% of every job and wants to cut it to 18% to stop partners leaving. Compute the contribution per job at both take rates and say what the cut really costs.

At a 22% take the platform keeps Rs 84 of a Rs 1,200 job after its Rs 180 of per-job costs; at 18% it keeps Rs 36, a fall of 57%. The partner's income rises by Rs 48, 4.8%, on every job, including the ones from partners who were never going to leave. On Rs 2 crore of monthly fixed costs the breakeven moves from about 2.4 lakh jobs a month to 5.6 lakh. The founders should price the cut against cheaper ways of keeping partners before approving it.

A fruit seller who buys mangoes at Rs 100 a dozen and sells at Rs 120 has Rs 20 of margin, but if the auto to the market costs Rs 15 per dozen, the margin that pays his rent is Rs 5, and a Rs 4 price cut wipes out most of it. Contribution per job is the take less every cost that happens because the job happened, and here that is Rs 264 less Rs 180, Rs 84, or 7.0% of the job value. The Rs 80 discount, Rs 60 incentive and Rs 40 of payment and support are all paid per job, so they belong in this line, not in fixed costs. The 22% headline take rateThe share of a transaction a marketplace keeps as its own revenue, before any costs; the rest goes to the supplier. is revenue, not margin.

The take falls from Rs 264 to Rs 216, Rs 48 less, and nothing on the cost side moves with it. Rs 216 less Rs 180 leaves Rs 36, so a four-point cut in the take rate removes 57% of the contribution, from 7.0% of the job to 3.0%. The asymmetry is the whole lesson: the partner's take-home rises from Rs 996 to Rs 1044, a 4.8% raise, while the platform loses more than half of what it kept. The cut would have to retain a great many partners to be worth that.

Three questions. First, how many partners are really leaving, and are they the busy ones? If only 30% of jobs are done by partners at risk, a cut aimed at them alone costs Rs 14.4 a job on average and leaves Rs 69.6 of contribution, against Rs 36 for a cut given to everyone. Second, is there a cheaper rupee? Cutting the customer discount from Rs 80 to Rs 32 would pay for the whole take cut, if customers keep booking at a smaller discount. Third, what is the floor: contribution reaches zero at a 15% take, so 18% leaves Rs 36 of room for any further pressure, and a rival at 15% could not keep that up on these costs either. The limitation: this is one average job; a Rs 3,000 electrical repair and a Rs 600 cleaning have very different contributions, and partner churn will differ by category too.