Pricing guide for plumbers
How much should a plumber charge?
Everyone wants to answer this with a national average. The honest answer is that the average is the wrong number for you - and pricing against it is how a busy plumber ends up with no money at the end of the year. Here is what the published figures say, why they contradict each other, and how to work out the rate that actually covers your van.
What the published numbers say
Here is what the widely-cited sources put on it. Read the spread, not the midpoint.
| Job | Published range | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Plumber, per hour (licensed) | $75 - $150 | National Plumber Connect |
| Plumber, per hour (full published spread) | $45 - $200 | National Plumber Connect |
| Water heater replacement, installed | $1,494 - $3,891 | Angi |
| Water heater replacement, installed | $882 - $1,825 | Homewyse |
Now notice that those numbers do not agree with each other.
Two of the sources above are describing the same job - replacing a water heater - and one of them tops out below where the other one starts. On labour, the published range runs from $45 to $200 an hour, which is not a range so much as an admission that nobody knows. An apprentice in a rural county and a master plumber in a coastal metro are both in that number.
That is not sloppy reporting. It is what happens when you average a rural county with a coastal metro, a one-truck operator with a fleet, and a straightforward job with a difficult one. Quoting against a national average is how busy contractors end up broke — it is an average of other people’s costs, and none of them pay your insurance.
The number that actually matters is yours
This is arithmetic, not opinion. Put your own costs in and it tells you what an hour has to bill.
Work out your own hourly rate
Change the numbers to yours. Nothing is sent anywhere — this runs in your browser.
What you want to actually earn, before tax.
Payroll taxes, liability insurance, workers' comp, benefits. Commonly 20-35% on top of your pay.
Van, fuel, tools, license, phone, software, accountant, advertising, rent. Everything you pay whether or not you work today.
Be honest. A 40-hour week is rarely more than 25 billable once you take out quoting, driving, parts runs and invoicing. 25 x 48 weeks = 1,200.
What the business keeps after everything, so it can survive a slow month or replace a van.
- Labor burden on your pay
- $18,750
- Total cost to operate for the year
- $117,750
- Break-even hourly rate
- $98
Your shop rate
$123 / hour
This is what an hour has to bill for you to hit 20% margin after paying yourself $75,000 and covering $24,000 of overhead across 1200 billable hours. Charge less than $98 and you are losing money on every hour you work.
Turning an hourly rate into a price
Flat rate beats hourly, once you know your hours
Hourly billing punishes you for being fast and invites an argument about how long the job took. Flat rate quotes the job, not the clock - but it only works if you know how long each job really takes you and what your hour actually costs. Work out the hourly number first, time your common jobs honestly, then convert. Your hourly rate becomes the thing you price with, not the thing you quote.
Price the callout so it survives a no-sale
A diagnostic visit that turns into nothing still cost you a van, a tank of fuel and ninety minutes. Charge for it as its own line, and decide in advance whether you credit it against the job if they proceed. Both are defensible. Not charging it is not.
Materials get a markup, not a pass-through
Passing parts through at cost means you are financing the supply house for free, carrying the warranty risk and eating the return trip. A markup is payment for sourcing, stocking, hauling and standing behind the part. Set a percentage and apply it consistently, and remember that markup and margin are not the same number: a 20% margin needs a 25% markup.
After-hours is a separate visible line
If you take the 2am call, bill the uplift as its own line on the quote rather than burying it in a bigger hourly number. Customers accept an emergency rate they can see far more readily than a mysteriously large total, and it keeps your standard rate honest for daytime work.
The lines that quietly come out of your margin
Not charging for these is the most common reason a job that looked profitable was not:
- ▸The second trip for a part - the drive, not just the part
- ▸Permit fees passed through AND your time to pull the permit and meet the inspector
- ▸Haul-away and disposal of the old unit
- ▸Drywall or tile you had to open up, and who is paying to close it
- ▸Warranty callbacks - price the risk in, or you are giving away future hours
- ▸The quote itself. Unbilled hours spent estimating have to be carried by the jobs you win.
Free download · no email required
The Plumbing Rate Book Starter (2026)
The full checklist with a blank column for your own rates, plus this worksheet in a form you can keep in the van.
Download the PDFStraight answers
What is a good hourly rate for a plumber in 2026?
There is no single right answer, and anyone quoting one is guessing. Published figures for 2026 run from $45 to $200 an hour. What matters is your break-even: total cost to operate (your pay, plus labour burden of roughly 20-35% on top of it, plus annual overhead) divided by your genuinely billable hours. Most one-truck plumbers are shocked by this number because they have been billing against their wage rather than their cost. Use the calculator above with your own figures.
Should I charge hourly or flat rate?
Flat rate for anything you have done before, hourly for genuine unknowns like chasing an intermittent leak. Flat rate removes the argument about how long it took and stops punishing you for getting faster. But it is only safe once you know your hourly cost and have honestly timed your common jobs - a flat rate set from a competitor's price list is just their guess with your name on it.
How many billable hours should I assume in a year?
Far fewer than you work. A 40-hour week is rarely more than 25 billable once you take out quoting, driving, parts runs, invoicing and chasing payment. 25 hours across 48 weeks is 1,200 billable hours. If you divide your costs by 2,000 hours because that is what a full-time year looks like, your rate will be roughly 40% too low and you will not find out until the year is over.
How much should I mark up materials?
Enough to pay for sourcing, hauling, stocking and warranty risk. The specific percentage is a business decision, but be careful with the arithmetic: markup and margin are different. If you want to keep 20% of the sale, you divide by 0.80, which is a 25% markup - adding 20% to cost only leaves you about 16.7%. Getting this backwards is one of the most common ways a job that looked profitable was not.
Do I have to show my hourly rate on the quote?
No, and often you should not. What the customer wants to know is what the job costs and what they get. Line items with prices against them answer that; an hourly rate invites a negotiation about your wage. Keep the hourly number as the tool you build prices with.
Once you know your rates, stop retyping them
That is what QuoteFlow does. Enter your rate book once, then stand at the job and say what you are doing — it comes back as priced line items from those rates. Nothing is generated or guessed, and anything it does not recognise arrives flagged with no price, so a made-up number never reaches a customer. The customer signs on their phone before you leave.
First 10 quotes free. No credit card. $29/month flat after that.
See the quoting app for plumbers