Plumbing costs
Plumber hourly rates, water heaters and common plumbing job prices. Every guide shows the low, typical and high price from published national data, what drives the price, and how your region changes it.
Plumber Hourly Cost
Hourly rates by licence level, service call fees, and when flat-rate beats hourly.
Typical: $100/hr · Range $45–$200/hr🚿Water Heater Replacement Cost
Tank, tankless, gas and electric replacement prices, plus the extras that inflate quotes.
Typical: $1,350 · Range $880–$1,830How pricing works in this category
Plumbing is priced two ways — by the hour and by the job — and most confusion in this category comes from comparing one against the other. Our plumbing guides publish both: the verified hourly bands by licence level (apprentice, journeyman, master), the service call fee that sits on top of them, and the flat-rate totals that common jobs actually land at, so you can compare a quote in whichever form it arrives.
We also separate diagnosis from repair. Finding a leak is skilled work with its own price; fixing it is another. Guides in this category state what a call-out normally includes, when an emergency premium is legitimate, and the point at which an ageing fixture or water heater is cheaper to replace than to keep repairing.
Every figure in these guides is an estimate drawn from published data and checked against at least two sources — see how we research, and the disclaimer for what these numbers can and cannot do.