Buying or selling a plumbing business: what buyers pay, who is buying, how to sell

This page is for two people: a plumbing company owner thinking about selling, and a buyer who wants to own one. By the end you will know what buyers pay for, what the market is paying by deal size, who the buyers are, and the first steps on each side. It is the front door to our plumbing library; the detailed guides are linked from it.

What is a plumbing business worth?

A plumbing business is worth a multiple of its earnings, and the multiple depends more on the size of the deal than on the trade. The International Business Brokers Association (IBBA) and M&A Source publish the Market Pulse, a quarterly survey of closed deals reported by brokers. These are its average multiples for Q4 2025, across all industries.

Source: IBBA and M&A Source, Market Pulse Q4 2025 highlights. Deals under $2M are priced on SDE (seller's discretionary earnings, which is profit plus the owner's pay and perks). Deals from $2M up are priced on EBITDA, which leaves a manager's salary in the costs.

These are not plumbing-only numbers. We do not publish a plumbing multiple yet. Our own asking-multiples report, built from the listings our AI agents read on 15+ marketplaces, holds 18 plumbing listings as of 23 October 2026, with a median asking price of $1,052,500. The plumbing multiple will be published once that cell is large enough to be reliable, and it will be an asking figure, not a sale price.

What do buyers pay for in a plumbing company?

Buyers pay for earnings that will still be there after the owner leaves. In a plumbing company that comes down to a short list.

• Service and repair work. Drain cleaning, water heaters, repipes, leaks and fixture work for homeowners and property managers. Many small jobs, paid on the day, spread across hundreds of customers. Buyers prefer this to new-construction work, which arrives in big contracts at thin margins and stops when builders stop.
• Recurring work. Membership or service agreements, annual backflow testing, drain maintenance contracts for restaurants and apartment buildings. This revenue repeats and transfers to a new owner.
• Licensed plumbers who are not the owner. The Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that most states and some localities require plumbers to be licensed. If only the owner holds the master licence, the buyer is buying a problem.
• Trucks, tools and a shop. A newer fleet, camera and jetting equipment, and a stocked warehouse. Old trucks come off the price.
• Dispatch and call volume. Field-service software with job history, a tracked call count, booked-call rate and average ticket. A buyer can read these numbers; a shoebox of invoices they cannot.
• Clean books. Three years of tax returns that match the profit and loss statement, and add-backs the owner can prove.

How big is the plumbing market?

Plumbing is a large trade made of small companies. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook counted 510,600 plumber, pipefitter and steamfitter jobs in 2025, with a median wage of $63,800 a year. It projects 7% job growth from 2025 to 2035, faster than the average for all jobs. About 65% of these workers are employed by plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors, and about 8% are self-employed.

For a buyer that means two things. There is a deep pool of small companies to buy, and the hard part of running one is hiring and keeping licensed people. A company with a stable crew is worth more for that reason alone.

Who is buying plumbing businesses?

Three kinds of buyers, sorted by the size of the company they buy.

Individual buyers with an SBA loan. Under about $2M in price, the buyer is usually one person, often a plumber or an operator leaving a corporate job. The SBA's 7(a) program lends up to $5 million and lists changes of ownership as an allowed use. The buyer adds cash of their own, often a seller note, and runs the company.

Private equity platforms. From about $2M in EBITDA, platforms buy a plumbing company and keep buying nearby ones. Redwood Services, a home services platform backed by investors, announced its partnership with Hope Plumbing of Indianapolis in February 2025, its seventeenth platform investment. The owners kept a minority stake and kept running the business under its own name. The price was not disclosed, which is normal.

Strategic buyers. The best known is Roto-Rooter, owned by Chemed Corporation (NYSE: CHE). Chemed's third-quarter 2025 release reports Roto-Rooter revenue of $217.2 million for the quarter, served through company-owned branches, independent contractors and franchisees. In March 2026 it bought back two of its franchises for about $20.6 million. Makers consolidate too: Zurn paid $1.56 billion in stock for Elkay in 2022. Regional plumbing and HVAC companies also buy smaller shops to add a territory or a licence.

The full list of active buyers, with a public source for each, is in who is buying plumbing businesses.

What moves the multiple up or down?

Within a size band, the IBBA table shows the average, not your number. Four things move a plumbing company within its band.

Size matters too. IBBA's survey found sellers in the lower middle market received 3.61 offers per deal in 2025, against 2.38 for main street. More buyers competing is a large part of why bigger companies get higher multiples. Tax and legal questions in a sale are real; talk to a CPA and a lawyer before you sign anything.

How do you sell a plumbing business?

Selling takes a year or more if you want the top of your range, and the work starts before the listing. In short:

1. Get a second licence holder in place and let them run jobs without you.
2. Grow the membership base and record the renewal rate.
3. Clean the books with an outside bookkeeper so the tax returns match the P&L.
4. Have the company valued on both SDE and EBITDA, so you know which buyers to talk to.
5. Prepare the information package, go to market quietly, and take offers.
6. Expect 30 to 60 days of diligence after you accept a letter of intent, then closing.

The step-by-step guide, with documents, timeline and fees, is how to sell a plumbing business. If you want help from the start, see how we help owners sell or book a call.

How do you buy a plumbing business?

Buying starts with money and a buy box, not with listings. Decide the price range you can finance, the area you will serve and the minimum earnings you need. Then look at many companies, sign NDAs, read the numbers, and make offers on the few that fit.

The things to check are the same list buyers pay for: service mix, recurring work, who holds the licence, fleet age, call volume and clean books. Financing is usually an SBA 7(a) loan plus a seller note plus your own cash. We work on the buyer's side of the table; our buyer service finds and screens the deals, and the full process is in how to buy a plumbing business.

Moran Pober has advised buyers and sellers of small and mid-sized businesses since 2016, and plumbing is one of the home services trades we see most.