Plumber Hourly Rate Calculator for BC

A full schedule of service calls can still lose money. Plumbing has costs other trades don't carry: a van full of fittings and parts, drain cameras and press tools, call-outs at 10pm, and a lot of driving between small jobs. If your rate was set by looking at what the shop down the road charges, you have no idea if it covers any of that. Here's how to work out your own number.

Why plumbing rates are harder to get right

Most plumbers run a mix of work: short service calls, half-day repairs, and bigger installs like water heaters or rough-ins on new builds. Each one has a different amount of drive time, quoting time and material. Your hourly rate has to cover all of it, plus the van, the stock sitting on your shelves, your insurance and your own pay. And not every hour you work gets billed. Picking up parts, waiting on a supplier, quoting jobs you don't win, and doing paperwork are all real hours nobody pays you for.

Step 1: Add up your monthly overhead

For a one-van plumber, the usual costs are:

• Service van payment or lease, fuel, repairs and ICBC

• Van stock: fittings, valves and parts you carry so you can finish on the first visit

• Specialty tools: drain camera, jetter, press tool, pipe threader, and the payments or replacement fund for them

• Liability insurance and WorkSafeBC coverage (your rate depends on your classification unit; the 2026 average base rate across all BC industries is $1.55 per $100 of assessable payroll)

• Your gas contractor licence from Technical Safety BC, if you do gas work (regulated gas work in BC has to be done by a licensed contractor or someone working for one)

• Phone, booking and dispatch, office supplies and bookkeeping

• Shop, storage or a rented bay, if you have one

Step 2: Set the pay you actually need

Decide what you need to earn in a year before personal tax. If you run as a sole proprietor, your income tax and both halves of CPP come out of that amount, so it needs to be higher than the wage you earned as an employee.

Step 3: Count your real billable hours

There are about 2,080 working hours in a year, or roughly 1,870 after holidays and stat days. Service plumbers often bill a smaller share than other trades because so much of the day is driving between short calls and running for parts. Using 65% gives you about 1,215 billable hours a year. If you mostly do new construction with long days on one site, your share may be higher.

Step 4: Work out the rate

Rate = (yearly overhead + your pay) ÷ billable hours. Then add a profit margin, so the business has money for slow months, a new van and tax instalments. Material markup is separate, and should be on every part you supply.

Example: a one-van service plumber in the Okanagan

This is an example only, with round 2026 numbers. Your own costs will be different.

• Your pay: $88,800 a year ($7,400 a month)

• Overhead: van, fuel and repairs $2,000, insurance, licences and WorkSafeBC $650, storage bay $500, phone, booking and office $450, specialty tool payments and other $700. That is $4,300 a month, or $51,600 a year.

• Total to cover: $140,400 a year

• Billable hours: about 1,215

• Break-even labour rate: about $116 an hour

• With a 10% to 15% profit margin: about $127 to $133 an hour, plus markup on material

Now look at it from the sales side. If your gross margin after materials averages 55%, this shop needs about $21,300 in sales a month just to break even. At an average ticket of $900, that is around 24 jobs a month. Bringing in $22,000 a month feels busy, but at a 55% margin it leaves only about $400 a month after your pay. One slow week or one bad warranty callback wipes it out.

Try it with your own numbers in the calculator below. It is loaded with this example. Change any number to match your shop and it shows the monthly sales you need, the number of jobs that takes, and what happens if your margin slips by 5 points.