How Much to Pay a Plumber in 2026: Apprentice to Master

How much do plumbers make?

BLS counted 465,840 plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters in May 2025, at a median of $30.67 an hour. The distribution is wider at the top than for most trades: the 90th percentile is $52.13, about $21 above the median, because licensed master plumbers, union pipefitters and commercial specialists pull it up. In a residential service shop, most of your plumbers will fall between the 25th and 75th percentiles.

What's a fair pay ladder from apprentice to master?

Pay plumbers by what they're licensed and able to do alone. BLS says plumbers usually train through a four- or five-year apprenticeship with about 2,000 paid hours of on-the-job training a year, and most states require a license that takes two to five years of experience and an exam. A written ladder tied to those steps helps you recruit apprentices and keeps journeymen from leaving for a $2 raise across town.

Which employers pay plumbers more?

Plumbing contractors employ 349,050 plumbers, three-quarters of the total, at a median of $30.36. General builders pay more ($33.35) because much of that work is commercial. The top payers are natural gas distribution utilities at $46.19, while water and sewer systems pay $25.75, below contractors.

How much do plumbers make in each state?

Plumbing has one of the widest state spreads of any trade. Illinois, Oregon, Minnesota and Massachusetts all have medians above $45 an hour, often reflecting union scale, while Florida sits at $25.44 and Arkansas at $23.39. Use the state median as the midpoint for a licensed journeyman and build your ladder around it.

Should you pay plumbers hourly, commission or flat rate?

Service plumbing shops commonly pay hourly for apprentices and installers, and hourly-plus-commission or a share of task revenue for experienced service plumbers. Commission rewards plumbers who diagnose well and present options, but it can also reward upselling, and a slow week can leave a plumber short. Many shops use an hourly floor with commission on top, which also makes minimum-wage compliance simple.

What does a plumber really cost per billable hour?

Plumbing trucks are expensive to stock (water heaters, fittings, a camera and a jetter on some trucks), and plumbing carries a higher workers' comp rate than office work. The example below uses illustrative inputs; replace them with your class code rate and truck costs.

Use the result to sanity-check your price book: if your average labor rate doesn't cover cost per billable hour plus overhead and profit, raise prices before you add a plumber. The labor burden calculator and flat-rate pricing calculator help with that math.

What should you fix before hiring another plumber?

Make sure every emergency call already gets answered. Burst pipes, sewer backups and no-hot-water calls come in at night and on weekends, and the homeowner calls the next company if you don't pick up. Those are your highest-ticket service calls, and they're the easiest to lose.

Next: see the plumber hiring guide for licensing checks, a working-interview test and interview questions, and how to hire and pay technicians for pay plans across trades.