Selling to plumbing companies: how to find plumbers and reach the owner
To sell to plumbing companies, remember that a plumber's business runs on the phone: emergency calls, drain jobs and water heaters are booked by people who call the number on the listing. That makes the phone line, the map listing and the website the things plumbers pay to improve, and it makes the owner hard to reach in the middle of the day. In our data 36 sellable plumbing companies have an email the mail server confirmed, and 385 list a website that did not load when we checked it.
Key numbers
- 12,784Sellable businesses with a phone (plumbers)
- 36Email confirmed by the mail server (plumbers)
- 385Listed website did not load (plumbers)
- 729Owner name read from the company site (plumbers)
- 4.9Median Google rating of rated listings (plumbers)
Live from the 67Leads warehouse, computed (US Central) when this page was served. Sellable means graded as the trade, with a phone, opted-out businesses removed. Methodology.
How many plumbing companies are there?
Census groups plumbers with HVAC contractors under NAICS 238220, Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors. County Business Patterns counts 111,207 employer establishments under that code for 2023, and 89% have fewer than 20 employees (US Census Bureau, County Business Patterns). Another 178,663 businesses in the same group have no payroll (Census Nonemployer Statistics 2023). Census does not split plumbing from HVAC inside that code, so treat any "number of plumbers" figure built on it as an upper bound for plumbing alone.
The 67Leads warehouse holds 12,784 sellable plumbing companies today, each graded against the plumbing trade. Plumbing supply stores and bathroom showrooms that turn up in a plumber search are withheld: 1,179 plumbing-search listings (8%) were graded as another kind of business. The plumbing lead list and the plumbing statistics page show the live counts by state and city.
Who sells to plumbers
- Cold email and appointment-setting agencies selling booked jobs or maintenance-plan customers.
- Local SEO and ads agencies. "Emergency plumber" and "plumber near me" are map searches, and the plumber who shows up gets the call.
- Answering services and call-tracking vendors. A missed call in this trade is often a lost job, which makes after-hours answering an easy story to tell.
- Web designers, especially for the plumbers whose listed site is broken.
- Field-service software vendors: dispatch, quoting and invoicing tools.
- Distributors and manufacturer reps. Census counts 6,410 plumbing and HVAC equipment wholesale establishments in 2023 (US Census Bureau).
- Insurance agents writing liability and commercial auto for service vans.
- Business buyers. Plumbing is one of the home-service trades search funds and roll-ups name when they look for owner-run firms.
The selling to plumbers use case has the filters each group uses.
What a plumbing list looks like in our data
Live figures for plumbing, as of 5 Nov 2026:
- 12,784 sellable plumbing companies with a phone number
- 1,779 (14%) list no website
- 385 list a website that did not load (3% of those with a site)
- 36 have a verified email (under 1%), and 49 more have a catch-all address
- 729 name an owner on their own site (6%)
- 87 are under 4 stars with 50 or more reviews
Plumbing set against every trade we carry:
| Measure | Plumbers | Every trade |
|---|---|---|
| Sellable businesses | 12,784 | 132,474 |
| Rated on Google | 12,636 | 125,875 |
| Median Google rating | 4.9 | 4.9 |
| Middle half of ratings | 4.7 to 5.0 | 4.7 to 5.0 |
| Median review count | 71 | 36 |
| No reviews yet | 1% | 5% |
| 1 to 9 reviews | 12% | 21% |
| 200 or more reviews | 29% | 19% |
| Perfect 5.0 rating | 35% | 42% |
| Found emails the mail server confirmed | 1% | 16% |
| Found emails on a catch-all domain | 1% | 17% |
| Found emails the mail server refused | under 1% | 2% |
| Found emails that are not a shared inbox | 52% | 58% |
The states with the most plumbing listings:
| State | Sellable | Verified email | No website | Owner named |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | 1,830 | under 1% | 13% | 7% |
| Texas | 1,012 | 0% | 16% | 6% |
| Florida | 656 | 0% | 11% | 7% |
| Arizona | 425 | 0% | 10% | 8% |
| Ohio | 368 | 0% | 13% | 8% |
| North Carolina | 335 | 0% | 13% | 6% |
| Colorado | 287 | under 1% | 7% | 3% |
| New York | 276 | 1% | 12% | 5% |
| Illinois | 266 | 0% | 12% | 8% |
| Virginia | 255 | 1% | 16% | 5% |
States with 50+ sellable businesses, largest first, live from the 67Leads warehouse.
The broken-website angle
For most trades the web designer's list is "no website". For plumbing, look at the other group too: plumbers whose listing points to a site that does not load. 3% of plumbing listings with a website failed our check. A dead link on a listing is worse than no link, because the customer clicks it, sees an error and calls the next plumber.
That gives a web designer or an SEO agency a pitch that is about the plumber's own business, not a template:
- Name the site and say what happened when you loaded it.
- Point out that the map listing still sends visitors there.
- Offer to fix it, not to sell a full rebuild in the first email.
Our free website down checker for plumbers runs the same check on any domain, and the site-down rate by trade compares plumbing with the other trades.
Reviews: high ratings, so watch the outliers
Rated plumbing listings have a median Google rating of 4.9 on a median of 71 reviews, and 35% sit at a perfect 5.0. When nearly everyone looks excellent, the useful lists are the exceptions:
- Busy but under 4 stars. 87 plumbing companies have 50 or more reviews and a rating under 4.0. They have customers and a reputation problem, which is the list a review-management agency wants. Read the recent reviews before you write, and mention the pattern you see.
- Few reviews. 13% of plumbing companies have 9 reviews or fewer. Some are new; some do commercial work that never gets reviewed. Read the listing before you pitch.
- No website but well reviewed. 1,150 plumbers have 10 or more reviews and no website: established, and still without a site.
How to reach a plumbing owner
Call outside the rush
Most plumbing companies are small, and the owner may be under a sink when you call. Mornings before the first job and late afternoons are your best chance. Leave a short voicemail with one reason to call back, and follow up with an email if you have an address. 12,567 plumbing listings show a local, not toll-free, number; many of those will be the owner's mobile, so do not text them without consent. Autodialed texts to mobiles need prior express consent under federal law, with damages of $500 to $1,500 per message (47 USC 227).
Email the verified, named addresses
64% of verified plumbing emails are not shared inboxes, which means a person, often the owner, reads them. Use the owner's name where the site gives one; our guide to finding owner names shows where to look. Keep the first email to four or five sentences, about their business, with one question.
Mail for the no-website group
A letter or postcard reaches plumbers who will never answer an unknown email. It costs more per contact, so keep it for the businesses that fit your offer best.
Plumbers and HVAC overlap
Plenty of plumbing companies also install water heaters, boilers and air conditioning. Our grading keeps an HVAC contractor that turns up in a plumbing search as adjacent rather than core: 1,419 plumbing-search listings (10%) are graded adjacent and kept, flagged. If you buy both trades, de-duplicate by phone before sending, or the same owner gets two emails. Our guide to selling to HVAC companies covers the other side.
A plan for your first 100 plumbers
- Pick one metro and pull every plumbing company there.
- Split into verified email, broken website, no website, and the rest.
- Email the verified group with a short note that names something true about the business.
- For the broken-website group, lead with the broken link itself.
- Call the no-website group, best-reviewed first, outside the morning rush.
- After 100 contacts, compare replies by group and put the next week into the one that answered.
Questions
How many plumbing companies are in the US?
Census counts 111,207 employer establishments under NAICS 238220 for 2023, a code that covers plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors together. Plumbing alone is a subset of that.
Where can I get a plumber email list?
Search by state or city on the plumbing lead list. Counts are free, and 36 plumbing companies currently have a mail-server-verified email in our data.
Is cold email to plumbers legal?
Business email is governed by CAN-SPAM in the US: honest headers and subject, a physical address and a working opt-out (FTC CAN-SPAM guide). Our guide to whether buying an email list is legal covers the details.
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