How much is a plumbing business worth?

Short answer: most small plumbing shops change hands on SDE — the cash the business throws off for one working owner — and realized sales put that multiple at 2.61× SDE. Size moves the multiple more than almost anything else, and a shop with service agreements and a second licensed plumber is a different asset from a one-truck operation with the same revenue. Below is the math, shown line by line. Start with the Plumbers page, then run your own numbers in the valuation calculator.

The number

Here is the best realized data we have. BizBuySell's industry valuation multiples, from closed sales over the trailing five years (Q3 2021 through Q2 2026), put plumbing businesses at 2.61× SDE and 0.69× revenue. That is trade-specific data, not a category average. Around it, the IBBA Market Pulse (Q2 2026) size ladder shows why two shops with identical earnings get different prices: 2.0× SDE for prices under $500K, 2.8× at $500K–$1M, 3.1× at $1M–$2M, then 4.8× EBITDA at $2–5M and 5.8× EBITDA at $5–50M. Bigger, better-documented businesses are simply easier to finance and safer to own. The ceiling anchor: public companies in Business & Consumer Services trade at 14.26× EBITDA (Damodaran Online, January 2026). No public plumbing companies exist — this is a proxy, the anchor buyers measure opportunity cost against, not a price anyone pays for a shop.

Worked example. Assume, as an assumption you should replace with your own books: revenue of $1,200,000 and an SDE margin of 22%. Line by line: $1,200,000 × 22% = $264,000 of SDE. Apply the realized multiple: $264,000 × 2.61 = $689,040. Call it roughly $689K as a starting estimate — before trucks, inventory, debt, and the adjustments the next sections cover.

How buyers actually value a plumbing business

Buyers split your revenue before they price it. Service and repair — the $450 call, the $1,800 water heater, the $12,000 sewer line — is worth the most: it repeats, it is needed in any economy, and it comes from your customer list, your phone number, and your reviews. New construction is worth the least: it is bid work for general contractors, it vanishes when building slows, and the GC, not you, owns the relationship. Drain and sewer work, camera inspections, and repipes sit in between — high tickets, still relationship-driven.

Then buyers check the license. In most states the business runs on a master or contractor license. If another licensed plumber on your team can hold it, the business transfers. If you are the only license, the buyer is pricing a problem. They also count service agreements and property-management accounts, look at your flat-rate pricebook, and ask whether dispatch, estimating, and the customer history live in software — or in your head.

What raises the price — and what kills it

Raises it:

• Service agreements and repeat commercial or property-management accounts that renew without you selling them again.
• A second licensed plumber, plus journeymen who stay — buyers are buying your crew as much as your list.
• Owned sewer cameras, jetters, and excavating gear in working order, with clean titles.
• A documented pricebook and job history in your dispatch system, so a buyer can verify margins job by job.

Kills it:

• You are the sole master license, the estimator, and the best tech. That is a job with trucks, priced like one.
• One GC or one builder is 40% of revenue.
• Cash jobs off the books. Earnings a buyer cannot verify are earnings they will not pay for.
• Aging trucks with deferred repairs — the buyer subtracts the fleet they have to replace.

Move your number

Three levers, in the order buyers notice them. First, margin: card fees on $12,000 sewer jobs, keyed-in rates when a reader dies, and slow invoicing all come straight out of SDE — and every SDE dollar is worth 2.61 more at sale. The Finix payments team works on exactly that: deposits on big jobs, ACH on the largest tickets, and text-to-pay the day the work finishes. Second, recurring revenue and less of you: membership plans, drain-care programs, and follow-ups that run without you — the ClaroPro team builds that AI and operations layer. Third, systems: a customer history, pricebook, and agreement base that live in software a buyer can audit, not in your memory — that is the kind of build a Nova engineering team does. Run your number first: the calculator, prefilled for plumbers.

This is an educational framework with the math shown, not an appraisal, and it is not a statement of fair market value. A real price is set by a real buyer, on a specific day, after they read your actual books. The caveats here exist to protect you, the owner — so you do not overpay for a shop, undersell your own, or sign a deal built on numbers nobody checked. That is the point: never invent, show the math, and stay on the owner's side.