Job Profitability by Trade: HVAC, Plumbing, Roofing, and Landscaping

Gross margin looks different in every trade. An HVAC owner targeting 60% gross margin and a roofer targeting 60% gross margin are measuring against completely different benchmarks. Materials cost, labor intensity, and job complexity vary enough between trades that industry averages from one trade are useless in another.

This guide covers the gross margin structure, typical benchmarks, and calculation method for the 4 most common home service trades: HVAC, plumbing, roofing, and landscaping. For the general framework of job profitability calculation, see the job profitability guide.

HVAC job profitability

Service calls: 55 to 75% gross margin. Diagnostic calls, tune-ups, and minor repairs have low parts cost and 1 to 2 hours of labor. At a $300 to $500 service call with $20 to $50 in parts, gross margin runs high. The limit is labor cost: 2 hours of loaded labor at $38/hour = $76. On a $400 call with $35 in parts, gross margin = ($400 - $35 - $76) / $400 = 72.3%.

Equipment installs (furnace, AC unit, heat pump): 35 to 55% gross margin. Equipment cost is the primary variable. A $4,500 AC installation with a $1,800 unit, $200 in refrigerant and materials, and 8 hours of labor (2 techs at 4 hours each, $38/hour loaded) = ($4,500 - $1,800 - $200 - $304) / $4,500 = 49%. Equipment markup is the main margin lever: markup from HVAC wholesale at 25% vs. 40% produces a 10 to 15 percentage point swing in install margin.

Maintenance agreements: 30 to 50% gross margin on the individual visit, but 60 to 75% over the customer lifetime when repair work is attached. Price agreements to win the relationship, track the attachment rate of repair work from agreement customers vs. non-agreement customers. If agreement customers book 40% more repair work, the visit margin math is irrelevant. The HVAC KPI guide covers maintenance agreement economics in detail.

Plumbing job profitability

Drain clearing and diagnostics: 70 to 80% gross margin. High labor cost relative to parts cost. A $250 drain clearing with $15 in cable and cleaning supplies, 1.5 hours of labor at $40/hour loaded = ($250 - $15 - $60) / $250 = 70%. Drain jobs are the highest-margin per-labor-hour category in most plumbing businesses.

Water heater replacement: 45 to 60% gross margin. Unit cost is $300 to $700 for a standard 40 to 50 gallon tank water heater wholesale. A $1,400 replacement with a $450 unit, $50 in fittings and supplies, and 2.5 hours of labor at $40/hour loaded = ($1,400 - $450 - $50 - $100) / $1,400 = 57%.

Repiping and large repairs: 40 to 55% gross margin. High material cost and multi-day labor. The margin lever here is time estimation accuracy: jobs that run over budget on labor erode margin quickly. A repiping job quoted at 16 labor hours that takes 22 hours loses 37% of its planned labor gross margin.

For the full KPI breakdown and benchmarks see the plumbing business KPIs guide.

Roofing job profitability

Roof replacement: 25 to 40% gross margin. Materials are 40 to 55% of the job total in most markets. A $12,000 roof replacement with $5,500 in shingles, underlayment, and fasteners, and 24 labor hours across a 3-person crew at $35/hour loaded = ($12,000 - $5,500 - $840) / $12,000 = 47% before overhead. After overhead allocation (insurance, equipment, vehicle), net margin typically runs 20 to 35%.

The margin lever in roofing: labor efficiency, not materials. A crew that does 1.5 squares per labor hour vs. 1.0 squares per labor hour produces 33% more margin per job at the same revenue. Crew production tracking (squares installed per labor hour per crew) is the most important operating metric in a roofing business.

Supplement and insurance work: 30 to 45% gross margin, but with a longer sales cycle and more administrative overhead (public adjuster fees, supplement negotiation). Supplement revenue is real, but the time cost of documentation and negotiation needs to be allocated to these jobs or the margin overstates.

For roofing-specific KPIs see how to track estimate close rate for a roofing business.

Landscaping job profitability

Recurring maintenance (mowing, fertilization, pruning): 50 to 65% gross margin. Low materials cost, predictable labor time. The margin lever is route density: a crew servicing 8 properties in a 3-mile radius produces significantly more revenue per labor hour than a crew traveling 45 minutes between properties. Route optimization is the highest-leverage operational investment in a recurring maintenance business.

Landscape installation (hardscape, planting, irrigation): 30 to 50% gross margin. Plant and material costs vary widely. A $6,000 patio installation with $2,000 in pavers, $300 in base material, and 16 labor hours at $32/hour loaded = ($6,000 - $2,000 - $300 - $512) / $6,000 = 53%. Irrigation and complex hardscape runs lower because equipment cost and subcontractor involvement compress margin.

The margin leak in landscaping: non-billable drive time. A crew spending 2 hours per day driving between jobs at an average labor cost of $64/hour is losing $128 per crew per day in unrecoverable overhead. Mapped route planning tools reduce this by 25 to 40% in most markets.

The cross-trade calculation error to avoid

Using base wage instead of loaded labor rate. This is the most common profitability calculation error across all four trades. If a technician earns $28/hour and the loaded rate is $36/hour, using base wage understates labor cost by 29% on every job. A job that looks like 65% gross margin at base wage is actually 58% gross margin at loaded rate. That 7-point difference across a $2M revenue base is $140,000 in misattributed margin.

See the job profitability home services guide for the loaded labor rate calculation. For how the best operators track margins across trades, the pattern is consistent: they calculate at the loaded rate and review monthly by service category.

How Clint Shows Margin by Trade

Gross margin by job type requires joining CRM revenue data with actual costs from accounting. Most trade business owners know their average ticket but not their actual margin per job type, because the calculation requires data from two systems with no native join.

Connect your CRM and accounting software to Clint. Ask "what is my gross margin on HVAC tune-ups vs. equipment replacements this quarter?" or "which landscaping job types are running below 40% margin?" Clint joins the data and returns the answer without a spreadsheet.

Sources

• HVAC gross margin benchmarks, Service Nation Alliance 2024
• Roofing industry margins, RoofingContractor.com 2025
• Plumbing industry financial benchmarks, PHCC 2024
• Landscaping business profit margins, NALP 2025