Is my plumbing quote fair?
We can answer this one. Water heater replacement runs $1,400 to $3,500 across all 530 US metro areas we hold wage data for — $1,500 to $3,150 at a national wage, of which $1,000 to $1,850 is parts and labour before anybody’s margin.
That is still not an answer about your quote. Your metro and your equipment sizes move it, sometimes a long way. It is the arithmetic, shown, so you can see which half of the number is the work and which half is the business. Check your own quote and we will run it against your metro rather than the country.
Where the number comes from
We price plumbing work bottom-up: a published material price for each component, a Bureau of Labor Statistics wage for your metro, a range of labour hours, and a margin band. We do not average other people’s cost guides, and we never write a figure we cannot point at.
| Jobs we can price in this trade | 9 |
|---|---|
| Metros where we give a verdict on water heater replacement | 530 of 530 |
| Spread across those metros | $1,400 to $3,500 — same job, local wages |
| Metro wage series held | 524 of 530 |
| National median wage, plumbing | $33.39 per hour |
| Margin band applied | 33% to 42% — measured for this trade, NAICS 238220 |
| Water heater replacement: inputs we measured | 2 of 4 (water heater gas, Overhead and profit) |
| Water heater replacement: inputs we had to assume | 2 (Labor, Consumables and permit) |
Margin: 2022 Economic Census, verified 2026-09-13 — Census sector 23 tables. Wages: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics. Every figure on this page is read from those files when the page is built, not typed into it — see our method and the open dataset.
Why this is a different kind of answer
Search this question and most of what comes back is written by people who sell plumbing work. A free second opinion from a contractor is a sales call with a diagnosis attached, and it is not dishonest of them — it is what they do. We take no money from plumbing contractors, run no lead marketplace, and never show your quote to a contractor. Our disclosures page names every way we could make money and what we would not do for it.
The other difference is that we will refuse. Three tests decide it: a range wider than 3.2×, measured coverage below 34%, or one unmeasured input moving the answer more than 40%. The arithmetic behind those three is published, and it is what produced the 530-of-530 figure at the top of this page rather than a number we felt comfortable with.
What makes an honest plumbing quote look expensive
Two water heater quotes can differ by half on the same house because one includes bringing the install up to current code — expansion tank, seismic strapping, pan and drain — and the other quietly does not.
What actually goes wrong in a plumbing quote
A price with no permit line. In most jurisdictions a water heater replacement is a permitted job, and the homeowner is the one left holding an unpermitted install at resale.
We price plumbing work from real material and wage data, but we have not built the plumbing compliance checks yet. Nothing here says the work itself is correct or lawful — only what it should cost. Why those are different jobs.
Questions people actually ask
- Is my plumbing quote fair?
- Water heater replacement runs $1,400 to $3,500 across every US metro we hold wage data for, $2,350 in the middle at a national wage. That is not an answer about your quote — your metro and your equipment sizes move it — but it is the arithmetic, and you can see every input.
- Who else will tell me whether a plumbing quote is fair?
- Mostly other contractors, offering a free second opinion on work they would like to sell you. We take no money from plumbing contractors, run no lead marketplace, and never show your quote to a contractor. That is a structural difference, not a claim about anyone's character — the incentive is simply not there.
- What makes an honest plumbing quote look expensive?
- Two water heater quotes can differ by half on the same house because one includes bringing the install up to current code — expansion tank, seismic strapping, pan and drain — and the other quietly does not.
- What actually goes wrong in a plumbing quote?
- A price with no permit line. In most jurisdictions a water heater replacement is a permitted job, and the homeowner is the one left holding an unpermitted install at resale.
- How much of the price is the contractor's margin?
- Gross margin across this industry runs about 37% of revenue, from the 2022 Economic Census, NAICS 238220. We price with a band of 33% to 42%. That is not profit: it pays for the office, the trucks, insurance, warranty work and unbilled time.