Trade guide
Plumbing Business
How you know your hourly rate is hurting you: the faster you get, the smaller your invoices get.
The numbers that matter
$90–$160 an hour. $79–$189 to show up. A state license in nearly every state.
Charge for the repair, not the minutes. Twenty years of knowing exactly which fitting failed is the thing the customer is buying.
The license is not a formality here
Plumbing is one of the most tightly licensed trades in the United States.
Nearly every state requires a documented apprenticeship, a journeyman exam, then more field hours and a second exam before you can hold a master or contractor license and pull your own permits.
The hour counts, the exam, whether the license is issued by the state or the city, and whether another state's license carries over all vary — some states reciprocate with their neighbors and some ignore them entirely.
Your state plumbing or contractor licensing board is the only source that counts. Look it up before you take a paid job, not after an inspector shows up.
Unlicensed plumbing work in a licensing state means an invoice you cannot enforce in court, a permit you cannot pull, and fines that make the job a loss.
| Job | Time | Typical price |
|---|---|---|
| Service call / diagnostic | 30–60 min | $79–$189 |
| Service labor, standard hours | hourly | $90–$160/hr |
| After-hours or weekend | hourly | $160–$310/hr |
| Toilet reset with new wax and bolts | 45–70 min | $185–$390 |
| Kitchen sink drain clear | 40–75 min | $185–$425 |
| Main line clear from cleanout | 1–2 hr | $295–$650 |
| Sewer camera inspection | 45–90 min | $225–$550 |
| Water heater, 40–50 gal, swapped | 3–4 hr | $1,450–$2,900 |
| Tankless install | 6–9 hr | $3,400–$6,200 |
| Whole-house repipe, PEX, 2 bath | 2–4 days | $4,800–$11,500 |
The 35-minute drain — Louisville, KY
One plumber clears a kitchen line from the cleanout in 35 minutes because they have run that same machine on that same 1958 cast iron a hundred times.
Billed hourly at $120, that is $70, plus a $89 trip charge. $159 for a drive across town, a machine, cable, and a floor they left clean.
Billed flat, the same job is $285.
The apprentice who takes two hours on it earns $329 hourly. Their speed was costing their $170 every single time.
They quote it on the phone in one sentence now: "Main line clear from an outside cleanout is $285 — that's the price whether it takes me twenty minutes or two hours."
The water heater that became four jobs — Spokane, WA
A 50-gallon swap: heater at $710, flex lines, pan, expansion tank and vent parts at $164, permit $92, 3 hours 20 minutes on site.
Quoted at $2,190. That leaves $1,224 for three hours and twenty minutes, or about $367 an hour before the truck and the overhead.
Then he did the thing most one-truck shops skip: while the tank drained, he checked the shutoffs, the hose bibs, and the toilet that was ghost-flushing.
$418 more in the same visit, with zero additional drive time.
What you actually need before the first paid call
- The right state license for the work you're selling. Journeyman, master and contractor are different things with different privileges — check your state plumbing or contractor licensing board.
- General liability insurance, and a bond if your license or city requires one. Water damage claims are the expensive kind.
- A flat-rate price book covering your twenty most common repairs.
- A service call fee you charge every visit, credited toward the repair if they go ahead.
- A drain machine and a camera. The camera turns a $295 clear into a $4,800 conversation, honestly.
- Written approval before you start. Text the price, get "yes" in writing.
- 25–30% of profit set aside for tax, including 15.3% self-employment tax.
The trap is the general contractor's rough-in work. It looks like real volume — a whole subdivision, weeks of booked days. Then you are net-60 behind a builder who pays when the house closes, you are financing his material, and one slow quarter takes your business down while your service customers go find someone else. Keep new-construction work under a third of your revenue, and get a deposit before material is ordered using the estimate template.
Rates across the trades are in the what-to-charge guides.
Common questions
How much do plumbers charge per hour?
$90 to $160 an hour for residential service, higher on nights and weekends. Most established shops price repairs flat instead, because hourly penalizes speed.
Do you need a license to start a plumbing business?
In nearly every state, yes — usually an apprenticeship, a journeyman exam, then more hours and a second exam for master or contractor. Hours, exams and reciprocity vary by state and sometimes by city. Your state plumbing or contractor licensing board is the authority.
Should plumbers charge hourly or flat rate?
Flat for repairs, hourly for open-ended work. Hourly means the better you get, the less you make, and it puts the customer's eyes on the clock instead of the result.
How much should I charge for a service call?
$79 to $189 to come out and diagnose. Credit it toward the repair if they go ahead and it stops feeling like a toll.
What is the most profitable plumbing work?
Drain cleaning, water heaters and repipes for a small shop. New construction rough-in is the opposite — high volume, thin margin, and a builder deciding when you get paid.
How much does it cost to start a plumbing business?
About $15,000 to $40,000 with a van: drain machine, press tool, camera, torches, hand tools, insurance, license and bond fees, plus cash to float material.
Pick the five repairs you do most often this week.
Write one flat price for each, out loud, before Monday morning.
Ranges here are compiled public ranges for residential plumbing service as of August 2026 — a starting point, not a quote or survey result.