The Level Index, by trade
Plumbing contractor financial benchmarks
The honest benchmark for plumbing contractors, built from citable public sources. Plumber wages come from BLS, margin brackets from public MEP filings, and the reality-check net margin from CFMA. Level layers its blended contractor data (collection, billing, quote conversion) on top.
$62,970
Median plumber wage
BLS OEWS, SOC 47-2152, May 2024
21-28%
Gross margin
MEP public companies with plumbing exposure
6.3%
Net margin (before tax)
all-contractor, CFMA; top quartile ~11.9%
~$124-191B
US market size
plumbing contractors (IBISWorld)
The nuance most 'plumbing margin' numbers miss
Direct-to-owner service work carries a much fatter margin than subcontracted new construction. The public filings prove it.
Limbach, a public mechanical contractor with a plumbing/piping arm, reports its book two ways: Owner-Directed Relationships (ODR, direct-to-building-owner service) and General Contractor Relationships (GCR, subcontracted construction). In FY2024 the ODR arm ran a 31.2% gross margin versus 21.1% for GCR, a 10-point gap for the same company; management pivoted deliberately, moving ODR from 51% of revenue in FY2023 to 75% in FY2025. Limbach's revenue is mostly mechanical, so treat its numbers as the structural proof of the mechanism, not a plumbing-specific measurement. The plumbing-native read agrees: independent operator sources put plumbing service and repair around 55 to 65% gross versus 22 to 40% on new construction. Service billed straight to the owner is structurally higher-margin than being the plumbing sub on someone else's job.
If most of your revenue is subcontracted new-construction plumbing, your margin ceiling is lower by design. The mix shift toward direct service is the lever.
Source: Limbach FY2024 & FY2025 10-Ks
How to read this: Level measured a blended pool across six trades, so the numbers below are drawn from named public sources specific to plumbing contractors (SEC filings, BLS, CFMA, industry research), each tagged by confidence tier. Level's own cross-trade benchmarks (further down) apply across trades and are labeled as such. Every Tier A and B row links its primary source so you, or an AI, can verify it.
Direct-to-owner service beat subcontracted construction by 10 points, inside the same company.
Limbach gross margin: owner-direct (ODR) vs GC-subcontract (GCR), FY2024
Source / sample: Limbach FY2024 10-K, segment gross margin
Limbach, a public mechanical contractor with a plumbing/piping arm, reports its book two ways. In FY2024 its owner-directed service arm ran 31.2% gross versus 21.1% for its subcontracted construction arm, a 10-point gap for the same company. Management has been shifting deliberately: owner-direct work went from 51% of revenue in FY2023 to 75% in FY2025. Limbach's book is mostly mechanical, not plumbing, so read this as the STRUCTURAL proof, the mechanism travels to plumbing because service is the same kind of diagnostic-labor-heavy, low-pass-through work. The plumbing-specific numbers below confirm the direction.
Source: Limbach FY2024 10-K
Service and repair carries far higher gross margin than new-construction plumbing.
Gross margin by job type (directional, industry sources)
Source / sample: Directional: Build-Folio, RunClockwork (2026)
Independent operator sources put plumbing service and repair around 55 to 65% gross versus roughly 22 to 40% on new construction. Repair work is diagnostic-labor-heavy with little pass-through material, so it structurally out-earns bid new-construction. Directional industry figures, consistent in direction across sources.
Source: Build-Folio, RunClockwork 2026 (directional)
The plumber wage spans about $20 to $51 an hour; the top decile costs more than double the bottom.
Plumber hourly wage percentiles (BLS OEWS, May 2024)
Source / sample: BLS OEWS May 2024, SOC 47-2152 (n=455,940)
Employee wages, not fully-loaded cost. Add roughly 30% for taxes, workers' comp, and benefits to get true cost per hour. In high-cost metros the P90 rate is effectively the floor, which is why the same job priced off a national average quietly loses money in those markets.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment & Wage Statistics, May 2024, SOC 47-2152
Plumbing benchmarks, by source
Plumber median wage (SOC 47-2152)
Tier A$62,970/yr
Mean $69,940, ~456,000 employed, median hourly ~$30.27; 10th pct $40,670, 90th $105,150.
Source: BLS OEWS, May 2024
MEP public-company gross margin (plumbing exposure)
Tier A21% to 28%
Comfort Systems 21-24%, Limbach 26-28% (FY2024-2025). Diversified MEP with plumbing/piping.
Source: SEC 10-K filings (FIX, LMB)
MEP public-company net margin
Tier A6% to 11%
Limbach ~6%, Comfort Systems 7-11% (FY2024-2025).
Source: SEC 10-K filings
All-contractor net profit before tax
Tier B6.3% (top quartile ~11.9%)
The reality-check on what a healthy contractor nets.
Source: CFMA 2024 Construction Financial Benchmarker (n=1,290)
US plumbing contractor market size
Tier B~$124-191B, ~129,000 firms
Fragmented; no firm above ~5% share. Range reflects differing report scopes.
Source: IBISWorld, Plumbers (2026)
Service vs new-construction gross margin
Tier Cservice ~40-70%, new construction ~10-32%
Directional; service/repair carries far higher gross margin than new-construction install.
Tier A = public-company SEC filings or BLS government data (highest confidence, permanent URL). Tier B = trade-association or research-firm survey (CFMA, IBISWorld). Tier C = industry publications, directional only. Public-company figures are large scaled operators and read as an upper reference, not a typical private contractor. Where sources conflict, both are shown, never averaged.
What the public mechanical and plumbing contractors actually earn
Consolidated 10-K margins blend service and construction together. Limbach's owner-directed (ODR) vs general-contractor (GCR) split isolates the direct-to-owner service premium, straight from the filings.
| Company / scope | Gross | Operating | Net | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Limbach (LMB)ODR (direct-to-owner service), FY2024 | 31.2% | n/d | n/d | The direct-to-owner service arm. FY2023 was 29.0%. |
| Limbach (LMB)GCR (subcontract construction), FY2024 | 21.1% | n/d | n/d | The subcontract arm, ~10 pts thinner than ODR. FY2023 was 17.0%. |
| Comfort Systems USA (FIX)Consolidated, FY2025 | 24.1% | 14.4% | ~11.2% | Large diversified MEP with plumbing/piping. |
| IES Holdings (IESC)Consolidated, FY2025 | 25.5% | 11.4% | n/d | Diversified electrical + mechanical. |
n/d = not disclosed at that cut. Limbach discloses revenue and gross profit by segment; SG&A and net are consolidated only.
The Level lens, reported vs. real margin
The repair job looked like a 60% margin. After the fully-burdened plumber and the drive time, it is closer to 35%.
Where a residential plumbing repair's apparent margin goes
Source / sample: Level analysis; labor anchored to BLS SOC 47-2152 wage + statutory burden
Reproduce it on your own book: start from the quoted gross margin, subtract the fully-burdened plumber hours (BLS SOC 47-2152 median $30.27/hr times about 1.3 for taxes, workers' comp, and benefits), then the truck, drive, and dispatch time the job never gets charged for, then the callback rate on that job type. The gap between the quoted margin and what actually lands is where service plumbers quietly lose money on jobs that look great on the invoice.
Public-company anchors used
Comfort Systems USA (FIX), Limbach (LMB), IES Holdings (IESC). These are large, publicly traded operators; their audited 10-K figures are hard, verifiable reference points, not a stand-in for a typical private plumbing shop, which runs on different economics.
Level's cross-trade benchmarks (apply to plumbing too)
These come from Level's own analysis of 2,200+ contractors across six trades. They are cash and sales-process metrics that do not vary much by trade, so they apply to plumbing contractors as much as any other. Shown as the blended measure they are, not a per-trade split.
n=464 (blended). Effective cash conversion across the blended 6-trade pool; top decile 96.0%.
n=733 (blended). 1 day with progress billing included; 7 days among post-completion invoicers.
n=794 (blended). On decided quotes; 38.1% across all quotes.
n=430 (blended). Blended across trades; 91% of jobs carry revenue with no cost data attached.
Every Tier A and B figure above links its primary source, and the full tiered dataset for all six trades (public-company actuals, BLS wages, CFMA and market figures, each with its source URL) is downloadable and free to cite with attribution. Download the per-trade benchmark facts (JSON).
See where your plumbing numbers land
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Frequently asked questions
What is a good profit margin for a plumbing contractor?
It depends on whether you mean gross or net, and on commercial vs residential work. The best hard reference points are public-company actuals: 21% to 28% (Comfort Systems 21-24%, Limbach 26-28% (FY2024-2025). Diversified MEP with plumbing/piping.). CFMA puts all-contractor net profit before tax around 6.3%, with the top quartile near 11.9%. Small private shops vary widely, so use the tiered sources on this page rather than a single number.
Where does this plumbing benchmark data come from?
External, citable sources specific to plumbing contractors: public-company SEC 10-K filings, BLS wage data, CFMA's Construction Financial Benchmarker, and industry research, each tagged by confidence tier with a source link. Level layers its own blended analysis of 2,200+ contractors (collection rate, billing speed, quote conversion) on top, labeled as a cross-trade measure, because Level measured a blended pool and does not split its own dataset by trade.
Is plumbing service work higher margin than new construction?
Yes, and the public filings show it cleanly. Limbach's direct-to-owner service arm (ODR) ran a 31.2% gross margin in FY2024 versus 21.1% for its subcontracted construction arm (GCR), a 10-point gap inside the same company. Directional industry sources put residential service/repair at 40-70% gross versus 10-32% on new-construction install. Service carries more billable diagnostic labor and less pass-through material, so it structurally out-earns being the plumbing sub on a GC's job.
Why is the public-company plumbing margin lower than the 50%+ I hear about?
Different measures. The 50%+ figures are job-level or service-line gross margins on residential repair before overhead. Public MEP company margins like 21-28% are company-wide GAAP gross margins across a commercial-heavy, new-construction-heavy mix after all job costs. Both are true. Match the number to your actual work type and never compare a job-level figure to a company-wide one.