The Plumbing Profit Simulator

Where plumbing businesses leak profit

• The repairman trap: the tech fixes the one leak and leaves without inspecting the rest of the system or offering options.
• Single-number quotes that cap the ticket instead of menu pricing, good, better, best, that lets the customer choose up.
• Materials marked up 30 to 50 percent instead of doubled, which quietly starves overhead.
• Dispatch sending techs across town instead of stacking calls tight, burning the day in drive time.
• Missed calls and slow estimate follow-up. The first company to respond usually wins the job.
• Job costs never coded to the job, so nobody knows which work actually made money.
• Extra work performed on commercial jobs with no written change order and no bill.

How it works

1. Enter your numbers.

   Plug in a few basic numbers about your business. Estimates work just fine. No spreadsheets needed.

2. See your profit leaks.

   Instantly see where money is slipping through the cracks across 13 areas of your business.

3. Get your roadmap.

   Get a detailed profit report with a prioritized action plan to start recovering that money.

FAQs

What should my gross margin be on plumbing service work?

A common target among well-run plumbing service departments is 50 percent gross margin, with technician labor counted inside cost of goods sold. Below that line, overhead and owner pay live on whatever's left. Treat it as a floor to build toward, then use your own numbers to see how close you actually run.

How do I get my plumbers to offer options without feeling like salespeople?

Give them a structured menu, good, better, best, built ahead of time instead of asking them to invent pricing on the doorstep. A tech reading three prepared options off a tablet is just presenting what the system already built. The system does the persuading; the tech just presents it.

How much should I mark up plumbing materials?

Doubling material cost is the standard most profitable plumbing companies run to. A 30 to 50 percent markup feels safer, but it quietly starves overhead. The math only works if it's applied consistently, job after job, instead of getting negotiated away one invoice at a time.

How do I stop losing money on commercial change orders?

Every piece of extra work needs a written change order, priced and approved, before the work starts. Verbal extras performed as a courtesy are the single most common way commercial plumbing jobs bleed margin, because the labor and material get spent and never get billed.