What is my plumbing business worth

Plumbing is priced on how emergency-led your work is and on whether the phone rings without you. Service and repair companies with a name in one metro sell for more than project plumbers with the same profit.

2.4x–3.9x
Multiple we apply: 6
Questions: $0
Cost to you

Applied to profit before your own pay, then moved inside that range for the size of the earnings and the years you have traded. It is a range, not an appraisal.

Your range, in six questions

What moves the number in plumbing

Service and repair against new construction

Emergency and repair work repeats and prices itself. New-construction contracts are lumpy, thinner and tied to builders, so buyers pay less for them.

Where the calls come from

A buyer checks whether the calls come from your name, your reviews and your van wraps, or from you personally. The first transfers, the second does not.

Licence holder

If the master licence walks out with you, the buyer has a problem to solve before they can trade. Say up front who holds it and whether it stays.

Commercial contracts

Recurring commercial or municipal work with a real contract behind it lifts the multiple. Handshake arrangements do not.

Questions owners ask us first

What multiple do plumbing businesses sell for: We use 2.4x to 3.9x profit before the owner's pay, and move inside that range for size and track record. Larger earnings clear higher, businesses under five years old clear lower.
I am the licence holder. Can I still sell: Yes, and most sellers are. Buyers plan for it: either they hold a licence themselves, they hire a qualifier, or they ask you to stay on for a few months. Say which you would accept and it stops being a surprise late in the deal.

Before you trust the number

We publish the arithmetic in full: the earnings a buyer prices, the multiple for each trade, the two adjustments, and the things we deliberately leave out. How buyers value a trades business.

Other trades