How to Price Plumbing Jobs

How to price plumbing jobs: start from your real labour cost, not the rate the plumber down the road charges. Each price is your labour (fit time multiplied by your hourly or day rate), plus materials at merchant cost with a markup, plus travel, access and any notification time. Small repairs carry a call-out charge that covers the first hour; installs get a fixed price built from the same parts.

Start with your rate, not the market’s

Copying what other plumbers charge is backwards. Their rate covers their van and their quiet weeks, not yours.

Your rate has to cover the hours you can actually bill, not the hours you work. Quoting, driving, the merchant queue: none of it gets paid unless it’s in the rate. Work it out with the true labour cost calculator, then turn it into a day rate with the tradesperson day rate calculator.

Hourly, day rate or fixed price

Hourly suits fault-finding, where nobody knows how long it’ll take. The customer carries the risk.

A day rate suits longer work, or subbing to a builder. Set it from your costs, not a round number that sounds right.

A fixed price is what homeowners want for installs: a bathroom, a radiator swap, a cylinder. You carry the risk, so every overrun comes out of your wage.

Plain rule: hourly for diagnosis, fixed price for anything you can see and measure.

Small repair jobs: the call-out charge

A dripping tap can be 20 minutes on the tools. The drive and the parking take longer. Price the 20 minutes alone and the job loses money.

That’s what a call-out charge is for. A common setup includes the first hour, then charges further time in set blocks. Work out what yours needs to cover with the trade call-out charge calculator. The call-out charge glossary page has the definition.

Installs: building a fixed price

Break an install into the parts that cost you money.

Fit time. Hours on the tools, including drain-down, refill, testing and clear-up, times your rate.

Materials. Merchant price for the big items, plus a fittings allowance for elbows, clips, olives and PTFE, then a markup. The material markup vs margin calculator shows what that markup actually leaves you.

Wastage. Offcuts, the fitting you damage, the second merchant trip. Allow for it or you pay for it.

Access. Floorboards, boxing in, making good. Say in the quote whether making good is in or out. It’s the bit that turns into an argument.

Travel and parking. Parking, plus clean air zone charges if your van doesn’t meet the emissions standard.

Notification time. Gov.uk lists installing a bathroom that involves plumbing, replacing a heating system, or adding extra radiators as work needing Building Regulations approval. If you notify through a competent person scheme, price the time the paperwork takes.

Gas is separate. By law, gas work can only be done by a business on the Gas Safe Register, so gas pricing isn’t covered here.

Run the whole thing through the trade job pricing calculator before the quote goes out.

Worked example: like-for-like radiator swap

Illustrative figures only. These are not market rates. Use your own.

Say your rate is £55 an hour. The job: one radiator replaced in the same position, with new valves.

Fit time: 2.5 hours, including drain-down, refill and bleed. 2.5 × £55 = £137.50

Radiator £95, valves £22, fittings allowance £8. Materials at cost: £125

20% markup on materials: £125 × 1.2 = £150

Travel and parking: £10

Price: £137.50 + £150 + £10 = £297.50.

Now quote the same job at “about two hours” and forget the fittings allowance and the parking. The half hour (£27.50), the marked-up fittings (£9.60) and the parking (£10) come to £47.10 given away. Do that on every radiator for a year and it’s your holiday.

A price book for repeat jobs

Plenty of small plumbing work repeats. Tap washers, cistern valves, radiator swaps, outside taps. Price each one properly once and stop working it out from scratch in the customer’s hallway.

That’s a price book: fit time, materials list and markup for each regular job, updated when the merchant’s prices move. The price book video walks through building one.

Common mistakes

Pricing the tap, not the trip. A small job without a call-out is a paid favour.

Leaving making good vague. If the quote doesn’t say, the customer assumes it’s included.

Do this in FieldHive

This is half the reason I’m building FieldHive. You set your prices once in a price book, then pull them into a quote on your phone instead of rebuilding the same radiator swap every time. See how building pricing once works, or download FieldHive. For a one-off document now, the free quote and estimate builder does it in your browser.

Aid, not advice

This guide helps you structure a plumbing price and check your own numbers. The example figures are illustrative, not market rates. It is not financial or legal advice. Check Building Regulations requirements with your competent person scheme or building control body.

Rules checked 28 September 2026: Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, regulation 3(3); gov.uk Building Regulations approval guidance; gov.uk competent person schemes; gov.uk clean air zones.