Massachusetts · HVAC
HVAC contractors in Massachusetts: market size, permits, and job values
1,500 hvac contractors operate in Massachusetts. Median job value is $18,000 and top-quartile contractors land jobs of $85,000+. Sourced from 409M building permits (2022-2024) and 365K specialty trade contractor records.
1,500
HVAC contractors in Massachusetts
All revenue tiers
$18,000
Median job value
Trade median: $9,231
$85,000
Top-quartile job value
75th percentile
$79/hr
Median bill rate (national)
Level benchmark
Permit volume trend, Massachusetts
Building permits are the leading indicator of contractor demand. Massachusetts logged 350K permit records in 2023, the last fully reported year, up +16.7% over 2022.
2022
300K
2023
350K
+16.7% YoY
2024
240K
still reporting
2024 counts are still filling in (late-arriving records inflate prior years), so treat the raw 2024 drop as a reporting lag, not real contraction. Census data shows US permitted units were roughly flat from 2023 to 2024. Demand is expanding. Most hvac contractors who fail in growth markets fail on cash flow, not sales, get the AR collection and progress billing tight before scaling crews.
HVAC seasonality (2023, national)
Peak month: Oct. Slow month: Feb. Plan cash and crew capacity against this curve.
Competition: who you're up against
Massachusetts has 9,745 HVAC/plumbing/electrical contractors total. Of those, 2,464 are in the $1-25M revenue band, the typical ICP for fractional-CFO support. The Boston metro is the largest concentration. The average company has been in business 29 years.
24/yr
Median permits/contractor (state)
55/yr
Top 25% (p75)
140/yr
Top 10% (p90)
What this means for your P&L
The market is expanding, your books need to match.
Growing markets cover up bad finance habits. The hvac contractors who scale to $10M+ in expansion phases are the ones who keep DSO under 50 days, hold service-agreement margin above 38%, and price labor to their local top quartile. Want to see where you actually sit?
Other trades in Massachusetts
HVAC contractors in other states
Permit data from public county tax-assessor and building-permit records (73.7M property records, over 400M permit records, 2022-2024). Contractor density from public company records (494M company locations). Bill-rate benchmarks from Level's proprietary contractor benchmark research (2,242 contractors, $13.25B in job revenue, 2.5M+ invoices). All data anonymized and aggregated. See the full Level Index.