Run a tighter plumbing business.

BLS counted 465,840 employed plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters in May 2025, at a median wage of $63,800 a year ($30.67 an hour).¹ Counting the self-employed, the occupation is 510,600 jobs, projected to grow 6.8 percent by 2035 with about 42,000 openings a year.² Residential service plumbing has less seasonality than HVAC, but more emergencies, more hidden problems and a wider spread of ticket sizes, from a faucet cartridge swap to a full sewer replacement.

How a plumbing business makes money

Service and repair. Leaks, faucets, toilets, garbage disposals, shutoff valves. Small tickets, high volume. They pay when they're priced from a price book with a trip or diagnostic fee, and they lose money when techs guess.

Drains and sewer. Drain clearing is a reliable earner and a door-opener. A main line stoppage that keeps coming back usually leads to a camera inspection and, sometimes, a sewer repair or replacement, one of the largest tickets in residential plumbing.

Water heaters. Repair or replace, tank, tankless or heat pump. Water heaters are a frequent big-ticket item, and they're predictable: a unit's age is on the data plate.

Repipes and remodel work. Larger projects with longer sales cycles. Some shops run them as a separate division with its own estimator.

Maintenance plans. An annual inspection with a water heater flush, a fixture and supply line check and a pressure test. Members call you first, and the visit surfaces work before it becomes an emergency.

The market in numbers

Census counts plumbing and HVAC as one industry (plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors, NAICS 238220), so any business count mixes the two. In 2023 it had 111,207 establishments with employees, 1.21 million employees and an average annual payroll of about $73,700 per employee.³ Another 178,663 nonemployer businesses, mostly owner-operators, averaged $78,389 in receipts.⁴ Fifty-eight percent of the employer establishments had fewer than five employees.

Plumbing labor is expensive, and where you work changes the math more than almost anything else:

Helpers (BLS's "helpers, pipelayers, plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters") are a separate line: 44,330 employed nationally at a median of $42,360.¹ That gap, about $21,000 at the median, is what an apprentice program costs you per head while they learn, and it is why shops that train their own people need a clear path and pay steps to keep them.

Seasonality. BLS monthly employment for plumbing and HVAC contractors (not seasonally adjusted) moved from 1,293,700 in January 2025 to 1,335,400 in July, a 3.2 percent swing.⁵ Compare that with roughly 34 percent for landscaping services. Your crew is a fixed cost all year. Winter freezes and summer HVAC overflow fill some of the calendar; memberships and planned replacements fill the rest.

Licensing and the rules that touch your work

BLS states it plainly: most states and some localities require plumbers to be licensed, and journey-level status usually follows an apprenticeship and a licensing exam.⁶ Rules for master licenses, who may pull permits, and whether a business needs a licensed master of record vary by state and city, so check yours before you open a second location in another jurisdiction.

Two federal drinking-water rules matter to service plumbers:

Sources: EPA lead-free page⁷ and EPA's Lead and Copper Rule Improvements page.⁸ EPA's LCRI page does not list a compliance calendar; check your water utility's replacement plan before you market to it.

Running the day

Plumbing dispatch is triage. On the phone, find out if water is still running, if there's sewage, and whether the customer knows where the main shutoff is. Book true emergencies first and tell everyone else an honest arrival window. BLS notes that plumbers are often on call and that evening and weekend work is common;⁶ price that time, and pay for it, or your best plumbers will find a shop that does.

Stock trucks for the work you actually get: common cartridges, wax rings, supply lines, fittings and at least one cable machine. A trip to the supply house in the middle of a job is often the most expensive part of it.

On site, the routine is the same for every call: diagnose, show the customer what you found (photos or camera footage), present options and get approval before work begins. Water heater data plates tell you age and model; recording them makes replacement follow-up possible later. TradesWork scans the data plate photo and works out the unit's age from the serial number, so the record builds itself.

Pricing your work

Flat-rate pricing is the norm in residential service plumbing. Build each task price from:

Your fully loaded cost per billable hour includes wages, payroll taxes, workers' comp (often high in plumbing), truck, fuel, tools, insurance and the hours your plumbers spend driving and waiting. Here is how much the state wage alone moves it, using the BLS medians above and the same example assumptions for everything else:

A 1.5-hour toilet rebuild with $45 in parts at a 55 percent margin comes out to $318 in the Florida example and $468 in the Illinois one. Neither is "the market price." Each is what that shop has to charge to hit its margin. The labor rate calculator builds the number from your own costs, including office overhead, and the markup and margin calculator keeps markup and margin straight.

Three pricing habits that protect margin:

1. Diagnostic or trip fee. Covers the cost of reaching the door. Decide whether it's credited toward approved work, and say so on the phone.
2. After-hours pricing. A published fee or multiplier, quoted before dispatch, that covers on-call pay.
3. Options on every larger job. Repair the old water heater, replace with a tank, or go tankless. Our good-better-best post explains why options close more work.

The plumbing pricing guide works through more examples. If you are quoting on paper or in a spreadsheet today, start from the plumbing estimate template and the plumbing invoice template.

Water heaters: the predictable big ticket

Water heaters are one of the few big-ticket plumbing jobs you can see coming. The data plate tells you the age, and most homeowners have no idea how old theirs is. Record the make, model, serial and fuel type on every visit, even when you were there for a faucet.

When a unit is nearing the end of its expected life, say so plainly and offer options: keep maintaining it with an annual flush and anode check, replace it with a like-for-like tank, or upgrade to tankless or a heat pump water heater. Price each option as a complete package, including venting, expansion tank, code upgrades, permit and haul-away, so the customer compares real totals.

Follow up. A homeowner who declined a replacement today will need one eventually, and the plumber who reminded them is usually the one who gets the call.

Marketing that works for plumbing

Be the one who answers. Plumbing emergencies go to whoever picks up. After-hours answering and missed-call text back pay for themselves quickly.

Google Business Profile, reviews and Local Services Ads. Emergency searches happen on phones, and the map pack decides who gets called. Ask every customer for a review, and track what each lead source actually books.

Your own customer list. Water heater age, last drain cleaning and membership status make for very targeted reminders. "Your water heater is 12 years old" is a better message than any coupon.

Referral partners. Realtors, property managers and home inspectors send steady work if you respond fast and report back. The plumbing marketing guide covers each channel in more depth.

Where TradesWork fits today, and where it doesn't

TradesWork is built for residential service plumbing: a flat-rate price book, good-better-best options with member pricing and monthly payment shown, an AI receptionist and missed-call text back that put flooding and gas smells first, memberships that bill themselves and bring annual inspections due, water heater records with age from the data plate and warranty claim tracking, Tap to Pay and text-to-pay, QuickBooks Online sync and job profit.

Not built yet: financing lender connections (monthly payment shows on options, but applications go through your lender), and deposits and progress billing for large jobs such as repipes and sewer replacements. If half your revenue is multi-week repipes billed in draws, that gap matters today.

Choosing plumbing software

Score candidates on your real jobs during a trial:

• Price book. Flat-rate tasks, easy updates from supplier price files, consistent prices across plumbers.
• Options and approval. Good-better-best on the phone, with signature and payment at the door.
• After-hours coverage. Answering, text back and on-call scheduling.
• Equipment records. Water heater age, warranty and service history per address.
• Memberships. Automatic billing and visits that come due without someone chasing them.
• Total cost and terms. Per-user price, add-ons, setup fees and contract length.

The software buyer's guide has a full checklist, and the Housecall Pro alternatives page compares the options many smaller shops start with. If you are opening your own shop, read how to start a plumbing business first.