Depending on business size, you could be looking at anywhere from £114,000 ($217,455 AUD) to £1,987,000 ($3,789,805 AUD). This is the first thing most aspiring plumbing business owners want to know. But it's not the full picture. Revenue is one thing, profit is another.
Tradify’s recent Top-Earning Trades reports explores the potential of plumbing businesses in today's modern market:
Curious as to what you should charge as a plumbing business?
A plumbing business owner’s pay is what’s left after the business covers its costs and tax, so revenue alone doesn’t tell you much. Wages, the ute, materials, insurance and tools all come out before you get paid.
2. Plumbing business revenue by team sizeBefore we talk about what a plumbing business owner takes home, it helps to know what the business brings in. Here’s what plumbing and gas businesses typically invoice in a year, from solo operators through to big crews.
Keep in mind that’s not your pay. Materials, wages, van running costs and other overheads all come out first. Think of these as a guide to the kind of turnover businesses your size are doing before those costs hit.
|
Country |
Sole trader (1 person) |
Small team (2 to 4 people) |
Medium team (5 to 12 people) |
Large team (13+ people) |
|
Australia |
A$334,000 |
A$693,000 |
A$1,559,000 |
A$3,210,000 |
|
United Kingdom |
£114,000 |
£278,000 |
£715,000 |
£1,987,000 |
|
New Zealand |
NZ$563,000 |
NZ$472,000 |
NZ$827,000 |
N/A |
These are average yearly invoiced revenue figures for Plumbing & Gas businesses using Tradify, rounded to the nearest thousand and shown in local currency. A handful of high-volume businesses lift the averages, so plenty of plumbers will invoice less than what’s shown.
In Australia and the UK, the bigger the team, the more revenue comes in. New Zealand breaks that pattern, with solo plumbers (NZ$563,000) out-invoicing small teams (NZ$472,000). The NZ numbers come from a small sample of 34 sole traders, 23 small teams and 13 medium teams, so don’t read too much into that gap yet.
Revenue is what a business invoices, not what the owner keeps. Before a cent reaches your pocket, a few things get paid first:
Tradify’s reports show revenue only, with none of these costs taken off. That’s why two plumbing businesses can invoice the same amount and still pay their owners very different wages. One might be burning through materials and paying a big crew, while the other runs lean.
Work your prices out from what the job costs you, not from what it feels like it should earn. Before you lock in a rate, tally up:
Then factor in the time you can’t bill. Quoting, driving between jobs, paperwork, time off and the quiet patches between jobs all go unpaid, so a full diary doesn’t mean a full week of billable hours.
Your own wage is a cost of the business too, so put it in once with everything else. Once every cost is covered, whatever’s left over is the profit the business makes from the work.
Each source uses its own period and method, so the three rows aren't a like-for-like snapshot.
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Thinking about selling one day? Try our business valuation calculator for a starting estimate.