How to Price Plumbing Jobs

Start with what a billable hour costs you

Every plumbing price, flat rate or hourly, comes from one number: what it costs to put a plumber and a stocked truck in front of a customer for one billable hour, plus profit. Supply-house runs, drive time, permit paperwork and callbacks eat into the day, so you bill fewer hours than you pay for. How to set your labor rate walks through the math.

Plumbing also has drain and sewer equipment to pay for. Recover what a camera, locator, drain machines and a jetter cost to own through the prices of the tasks that use them, not through your rate on every faucet repair.

Flat-rate price book or hourly

Use flat rates for work you can see before you start and have done many times. Bill by the hour, with a cap, for work whose size you can't know until you open a wall or run a camera.

With flat-rate pricing, the customer approves a price for the task, not a clock. You carry the risk of a slow job and keep the gain from a fast one, so it works only when your time on the task is predictable, as with a fill valve, a faucet cartridge or a disposal swap.

Time and materials fits work where one problem leads to another, like old galvanized pipe, where loosening one fitting can start a leak at the next. Give the customer a not-to-exceed figure and call before you pass it.

Building a price-book line

1. Start with your average time for the task from your own job records, not your fastest plumber's quickest job.
2. Include setup and cleanup: protecting floors, shutting water off and on, leak testing and haul-away.
3. Multiply by your hourly rate and add the parts at your selling price.
4. Round, and compare the result with recent jobs of that type.

Example: Your records say a toilet replacement takes 2 hours. At $150 an hour, labor is $300. Add the toilet at your selling price ($350) and the wax ring, bolts and supply line ($50): the book price is $700, or $350 if the customer supplies the toilet. All numbers are made up for illustration.

Give the surprises their own lines

In older homes, the trouble often sits next to the task. Make these separate book tasks so they never come out of a flat rate:

• an angle stop that won't close, or that leaks once you turn it
• a corroded supply line or a closet bolt that snaps
• a main shutoff that won't close
• a rotted toilet flange (exclude subfloor repair in writing)
• access adders for crawl spaces, attics and ceilings that must be opened

The tech shows the customer the problem and gets approval before doing the extra work.

Service-call fees

Charge a service-call fee on every visit, say what it is before you book, and decide in advance whether it is credited toward the repair.

The fee covers the drive, dispatch and a first look: enough to diagnose a running toilet, a dripping trap or a water heater that won't light. Diagnostics that take equipment or real time, such as a camera inspection, leak detection or a pressure test, are separate book tasks the tech quotes on site.

Two decisions to write down:

• Credited or separate. Crediting the fee toward an approved repair folds it into the job; keeping it separate keeps book prices the same. Either works if stated up front.
• Free or paid estimates. Decide which visits are free sales calls (bidding a water heater, a repipe or a sewer replacement) and which are paid diagnostics.

State the fee when the customer books and repeat it in the confirmation text. A trip charge first heard about at the door invites a dispute, even when it is fair.

After-hours and emergency rates

Set after-hours rates from what answering at night costs you, publish them before anyone calls, and offer a choice between making it safe tonight and fixing it tonight.

Write down the windows (evenings, overnight, weekends, holidays) and price what those hours cost:

• overtime, when a night call pushes a tech past the hours where you owe it
• whatever you pay the person carrying the on-call phone
• the next morning's schedule, when the tech who worked until 2 a.m. starts late
• parts, since the supply house is probably closed: the truck has to carry them, or the tech pays retail

Offer a make-safe visit

A night call doesn't always need the full repair at night. Shutting off a fixture or zone, capping a broken line or getting a sewer line flowing can stop the damage until morning. Price that visit as an after-hours call plus time, and quote the permanent repair at standard rates for the next business day: the customer pays less, and you get daylight, parts and a rested tech. How to invoice plumbing jobs covers showing after-hours rates on the invoice.

Example: Standard rates are a $100 call fee and $150 an hour. After hours (6 p.m. to 7 a.m. and weekends), the call fee is $250 and the hourly rate is 1.5 times standard, or $225. An hour at 11 p.m. to shut off and cap a burst pipe costs $250 + $225 = $475; the permanent repair the next morning is at standard rates. Made-up numbers.

If a storm, flood or hard freeze leads to a declared state of emergency, ask your state attorney general's office whether price-gouging rules cover repair work before you change any rates.

Mark up parts on a sliding scale

Mark up inexpensive parts by a larger multiple and expensive ones by a smaller one, then check the result against the margin you need.

One percentage fails at both ends. On a cheap part, it doesn't pay for stocking, finding and tracking it. On a water heater or faucet whose retail price the customer can look up in a minute, it makes you look expensive. And a markup that sounds healthy on a big-ticket item can leave a thin margin; markup vs margin covers the conversion.

The markup has to pay for truck stock that sits for weeks (plus what gets damaged or lost), mid-job supply-house runs and returns, and the labor to replace a part that fails under warranty, since a parts warranty may not cover your trip. On flat-rate work, parts sit inside the task price. On hourly work, list each part at your selling price.

Example: A sliding scale might sell parts that cost you under $10 at 3 times cost, $10 to $100 at 2 times, $100 to $500 at 1.5 times and over $500 at 1.3 times. A $4 flapper sells for $12, and an $800 water heater sells for $1,040. That water heater's 30% markup is only about a 23% margin, so check the top bracket against the margin your overhead needs. Made-up brackets for illustration.

Customer-supplied parts

When a customer buys their own faucet, toilet or water heater, apply a written policy: labor-only pricing, a warranty on your workmanship but not the part, a return-trip charge if the part arrives damaged or wrong, and the right to decline anything you wouldn't install from your own stock.

Price water heater replacements as a whole install

A water heater replacement is more than a tank plus labor. Price everything the site and your local code require around the tank, and show those items as their own lines so the customer sees why two replacements of the same tank cost different amounts.

Before you quote, ask for photos of the data plate, the area around the tank, the vent, the connections and the floor under the tank. Note the fuel, type and capacity; the location and access (stairs, door widths, the attic opening, a two-person carry); the vent type and condition on gas units; and the breaker and wire size on electric ones.

The code items around the tank

The plumbing and fuel gas codes your jurisdiction has adopted, with its local amendments, decide what the new install must include. If the job needs a permit, expect the inspector to look at the whole new installation, so items the old one lacked can become part of your job. Check and price:

• Thermal expansion control. Water expands as it heats. A pressure-reducing valve, check valve or backflow preventer on the supply can keep it from pushing back into the main, so pressure can climb each time the tank heats. If your code requires expansion control in that case, price the expansion tank, sized to the manufacturer's instructions, and its labor.
• Drain pan. Where a leak would damage the building, such as an attic or a closet over a finished room, check your code's rules on pans and pan drains. The pan is cheap; the drain run can be the expensive part.
• Relief valve discharge. The new tank's temperature and pressure relief valve may sit higher or on another side, so the discharge pipe may need extending or rerouting to end where your code allows.
• Gas and venting. A new shutoff or connector, any sediment trap your code requires, and vent parts or a new vent route when the unit type changes. If a furnace that once shared the vent now vents on its own, check the water heater's vent against your code's sizing rules.
• Seismic strapping, where state or local rules require it.
• Permit and haul-away. Pass the permit fee through as a line, and price disposal of the old tank.

Price options as complete installs

Offer a like-for-like replacement plus one or two upgrades, each priced as a complete install with its own code items. Two upgrades change the job itself. A heat pump water heater needs a location and air space that meet the manufacturer's instructions, a condensate drain and often new electrical work. A gas tankless unit needs the gas piping checked against its input rating and the venting its manufacturer specifies, which may not match the old tank's vent.

Show rebates or tax credits only once you have confirmed the program is current and the customer qualifies, label them conditional, and send tax questions to the customer's tax professional.

Example: A gas tank replacement in a basement, with round, made-up numbers. Water heater at your selling price, $1,100. Install parts (gas connector, water connectors, fittings, vent connector), $150. Expansion tank installed, because this house has a pressure-reducing valve and the local code calls for one, $200. Pan and drain line to a nearby floor drain, $100. Labor, 4 hours at $150, $600. Permit fee passed through, $100. Haul-away, $50. Total: $2,300. In an attic, a long pan drain run and a two-person carry would each add a line.

Drain cleaning and drain repair are different jobs

Clearing a stoppage and fixing what caused it are two jobs with two prices. Price the clearing as a flat-rate task, and price the repair only after you have seen the pipe.

Vary your drain-cleaning lines by:

• Line. A fixture branch takes a small machine and little time; a main line takes more of both.
• Access. A cleanout you can reach is the quick case. Pulling and resetting a toilet, removing a trap or going through a roof vent takes longer and carries more risk.
• Method. Price jetting separately from cabling, and decide whether a line can take jetting after you have seen it on camera.

Write down what the cleaning price doesn't include: broken pipe, roots growing through joints, a sag that holds water or a collapsed section. Tie any guarantee on a cleared line to a camera inspection that shows no structural defects, or you will clear the same roots for free every time they grow back. If the customer can't take on a repair yet, offer scheduled cleaning at a set price per visit, described plainly as managing the problem, not fixing it.

Repairs (a spot repair, a section, the whole line, or trenchless lining or bursting if you or a partner offer it) each carry their own costs for digging depth, restoration, permits and disposal. Before you quote work near the street, check with the city where the owner's responsibility for the sewer lateral ends.

Price the unknowns after you look

When you can't see the problem, sell the diagnosis first as its own task, then price the repair from what you found.

• Sewer and drain lines. Make a camera inspection a book task. Record the run, locate and mark problems and their depth, and attach video or stills to the estimate, as how to write a plumbing estimate explains.
• Hidden leaks. Price leak detection under slabs and behind walls as a diagnostic, then quote each repair option (a spot repair through the slab, a reroute) with flooring and drywall repair included or excluded in writing.
• Digging. Request utility locates through your state's call-before-you-dig system, build the wait into the schedule, and price lawn, walkway and driveway restoration or exclude it in writing.

If you can't fully diagnose before starting, price in stages (a fixed price to open up and assess, then a written repair price) or bill hourly with a not-to-exceed figure. Put a concealed-conditions clause in the agreement and handle later finds with a written change order before the work; see how to handle change orders.

Example: A main line backs up twice a year. You clear it for your $250 flat rate and run a camera for $200, credited toward a repair approved within 30 days. The camera shows roots at a cracked joint 40 feet out and 5 feet deep. You quote three options: cleaning every six months at $225 a visit, a spot repair at that joint for $3,500 including lawn restoration, or a new line to the property line for $9,000. Made-up numbers.

Check your prices against finished jobs

A price book is only right if it matches what jobs actually cost. After each job, compare the hours and parts with the book line. If water heater swaps run long because of attic installs, add an attic adder instead of raising every swap. A task that keeps causing callbacks needs a better part, a different procedure or a higher price. Update part costs when your supply house changes prices, and review the whole book on a set schedule, such as every quarter.