We Audited 1,893 Plumbing Websites. Here's What We Found.

A plumber in Gilbert, Arizona scores 78 out of 100 on our website audit. Three states over, a plumber in Sugar Land, Texas scores 28. Both run licensed, insured operations. Both have Google reviews above 4.5 stars. Both serve suburban homeowners willing to spend $445 or more per service call. The difference is not their trade skills — it is their website. And that gap is costing one of them thousands of dollars every month in leads that never convert.

We spent four months auditing 1,893 plumbing company websites across 13 states and 69 cities. We scored each site on security, trust signals, conversion elements, local SEO fundamentals, and mobile usability. The results paint a picture of an industry that is excellent at its craft and consistently poor at its digital presence. The average plumbing website scores 57 out of 100. That is not a passing grade.

This is the full data dump. Every state. Every city. Every gap. If you run a plumbing company and you have a website, your score is somewhere in this data — and so is your competitor’s.

The National Picture: 1,893 Sites, 57 Average Score

The plumbing industry generates an estimated $191.4 billion in annual revenue across more than 132,000 businesses in the United States. That scale makes the web presence gap even more striking. When we scored all 1,893 sites, the distribution revealed a long tail of underperformers dragging the average down.

The median score landed at 55, meaning more than half of all plumbing websites fall below even our modest benchmark. Only 6% of sites scored above 80. The bottom quartile — roughly 473 sites — scored below 40, putting them in a range where basic trust signals like HTTPS, a visible phone number, and a contact form are often missing entirely.

The average customer rating across these businesses is 4.79 stars, which tells you something important: these are good companies with bad websites. The disconnect between service quality and web quality is the defining characteristic of plumbing’s digital presence in 2026.

The Seven Biggest Gaps in Plumbing Websites

Our audit measured 14 trust and conversion signals on every site. Seven gaps appeared with alarming frequency, and each one directly impacts whether a homeowner calls or bounces.

No pricing information: 79% of plumbing sites show zero pricing — not even ranges. In an industry where the average ticket runs $445, homeowners want ballpark numbers before they call. Sites that display pricing ranges convert at measurably higher rates because they pre-qualify the lead. You do not need exact quotes. You need ranges that set expectations. We covered this in detail in our pricing page guide.

No HTTPS: 60% of sites still run on insecure HTTP connections. Chrome has been flagging these as “Not Secure” since 2018. That warning alone kills 85% of potential conversions according to browser behavior studies. An SSL certificate costs nothing on most hosting platforms. There is no excuse in 2026. See our security fix guide for the 15-minute solution.

No service area pages: 53% are missing dedicated pages for the cities and neighborhoods they serve. This is the single biggest local SEO failure in the industry. Google cannot rank you for “plumber in Chandler AZ” if the word “Chandler” does not appear anywhere on your site. Our service area page guide walks through the template.

No license or certification info: 48% do not display their license number, bonding information, or insurance details anywhere on their website. Plumbing is a licensed trade in every state. Showing your credentials is the easiest trust signal to add, and nearly half the industry skips it.

No schema markup: 47% lack structured data entirely — no LocalBusiness schema, no service schema, no review schema. Schema is how you communicate with Google’s algorithm in its own language. Without it, you are hoping Google figures out what your business does. Our schema markup guide has the code you can copy.

No contact form: 45% of sites have no web form at all. The only way to reach these companies is by phone. When 78% of consumers research plumbing services online before calling, forcing a phone-only pathway loses everyone who is not ready to talk. Build a proper contact form and watch your lead volume climb.

No trust badges: 43% display zero trust indicators — no BBB seal, no manufacturer partnerships, no association memberships, no satisfaction guarantees. Trust is the currency of home services. Our trust stack framework shows what to display and where.

State Rankings: Arizona Leads, Mississippi Trails

We audited plumbing websites in 12 states (plus scattered data from one additional state). The results show that geography matters more than you would expect. Where you operate appears to correlate with how seriously local plumbing companies invest in their web presence.

State	Sites Audited	Avg Score	Notable Finding
Arizona	132	68	Highest average score by 2 points
Oklahoma	58	66	Small market, strong fundamentals
South Carolina	61	65	Greenville punches above its weight
Nevada	55	61	Las Vegas raises the average
Georgia	60	60	Atlanta (55) drags down the state
Alabama	57	60	Mobile (71) is a standout
Florida	415	59	Huge market, middling quality
North Carolina	90	56	Charlotte and Raleigh lag
Tennessee	90	55	Nashville (44) is surprisingly weak
Louisiana	51	55	New Orleans (44) underperforms
Texas	466	54	Biggest market, lowest score tier
Mississippi	20	48	Smallest sample, weakest scores

Arizona’s lead is not an accident. The Phoenix metro area — including Gilbert, Chandler, Mesa, and Tucson — consistently produces plumbing websites with higher scores across every category we measured. We break down exactly why in our Phoenix vs Houston comparison.

Texas is the elephant in the dataset. With 466 sites — the largest sample — its average of 54 tells a story of a massive market where competition has not yet pushed web quality upward. The state employs 42,290 plumbers, more than any state except California, yet the digital presence lags badly. See our full Texas plumbing breakdown.

City-by-City: The Top 10 and Bottom 10

The city-level data reveals the most actionable patterns. The spread between our highest-scoring city and our lowest is 50 points — Gilbert at 78 versus Sugar Land at 28. That gap represents the difference between a website that actively generates leads and one that actively loses them.

Top 10 Cities:

Rank	City	State	Score
1	Gilbert	AZ	78
2	Chandler	AZ	71
3	Mobile	AL	71
4	Tucson	AZ	70
5	Tulsa	OK	69
6	Houston	TX	68
7	Mesa	AZ	68
8	Greenville	SC	68
9	Boca Raton	FL	66
10	Arlington	TX	65

Bottom 10 Cities:

Rank	City	State	Score
60	Conroe	TX	48
61	Savannah	GA	47
62	Nashville	TN	44
63	New Orleans	LA	44
64	New Braunfels	TX	41
65	Irving	TX	40
66	The Woodlands	TX	35
67	Sugar Land	TX	28

Five of the bottom eight cities are in Texas. That is not a coincidence — it is a pattern we explore in depth in our Texas analysis. The other pattern worth noting: smaller cities often outperform metros. Gilbert beats Dallas. Mobile beats Nashville. Greenville beats Atlanta. We analyzed this trend in our small-city scoring analysis.

What Separates a 78 From a 28

We compared the top-scoring sites (70+) against the bottom-scoring sites (below 40) to isolate the specific features that separate winners from losers. The gap is not about design aesthetics or flashy animations. It comes down to foundational elements that most plumbing companies overlook.

HTTPS adoption: 94% of top-scoring sites use HTTPS. Only 31% of bottom-scoring sites do. This single factor accounts for the largest scoring difference. A free SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt takes 15 minutes to install and immediately removes the “Not Secure” browser warning that kills trust.

Contact forms: 89% of high-scoring sites have at least one web form. Among low-scoring sites, that drops to 22%. The form does not need to be complex — name, phone, service needed, and a submit button. Every site needs one, and we lay out the exact setup in our contact form guide.

Service area pages: 81% of top sites have dedicated city or neighborhood pages. Only 18% of bottom sites do. These pages are the backbone of local SEO for plumbing. When someone searches “plumber near me” or “plumber in [city],” Google looks for content that matches. No page, no rank.

Schema markup: 76% of top sites include structured data. Only 12% of bottom sites do. Schema is invisible to the visitor but critical for search engines. It tells Google your business name, phone number, service area, hours, and review rating in a format the algorithm can parse instantly.

Review display: 82% of high-scoring sites show Google reviews or testimonials on the homepage. Only 29% of low-scoring sites do. With an industry average rating of 4.79 stars, most plumbing companies have great reviews. The high-scoring sites display them. The low-scoring sites hide them. Our review display guide shows how to embed them without slowing your site.

The After-Hours Problem: 39% of Sites Go Dark at 5 PM

Plumbing is a 24/7 industry. Pipes burst at midnight. Water heaters fail on Sundays. Sewer backups do not wait for business hours. Yet 39% of the sites we audited have no after-hours lead capture mechanism — no emergency page, no after-hours booking, no answering service integration, not even a simple form that says “We’ll call you first thing in the morning.”

The average emergency plumbing call is worth $850 or more when you include the diagnostic fee and repair. Missing one after-hours lead per week costs a plumbing company roughly $44,200 per year in lost revenue. That number alone should justify every investment you make in your website.

We found that sites with a dedicated emergency page scored 12 points higher on average than sites without one. The emergency page works because it matches intent — when someone searches “emergency plumber near me” at 2 AM, they need a page that says “We’re available now” and gives them a way to reach you.

The Florida Paradox: Big Market, Middling Scores

Florida contributes 415 sites to our dataset — the second-largest state sample. Its average score of 59 sits right at the national average, which is both surprising and revealing. You would expect the nation’s third-largest state by population, with heavy seasonal demand and hurricane-driven plumbing emergencies, to produce better websites.

Jacksonville leads Florida at 64. Boca Raton follows at 66. But Tampa (53), Miami (53), and Lakeland (51) drag the average down. The pattern in Florida is a tale of two markets: coastal cities with higher competition tend to score better, while inland and suburban cities lag behind. We analyze this in full in our Florida marketing breakdown.

The Texas Problem: 466 Sites, 54 Average

Texas is the largest market in our audit with 466 plumbing websites scored. It is also one of the lowest-scoring states at 54. The state employs 42,290 plumbers — licensing exam volume has surged 111% since 2022, from 4,953 exams to 10,447 in 2024. The market is booming. The websites are not keeping up.

The Texas data is a study in extremes. Houston scores 68 — competitive with the best cities in our audit. But Sugar Land, a Houston suburb, scores 28. Arlington hits 65 while neighboring Irving drops to 40. Plano reaches 64 while nearby The Woodlands sits at 35. Proximity to a strong market does not guarantee quality — often, it masks the need for it. Our full Texas analysis digs into every city.

The Booking Gap: 39% of Sites Cannot Take an Appointment

Online booking has become table stakes in home services. 73% of consumers prefer booking home services online, and 45% of online bookings happen between 6 PM and 8 AM. Yet 39% of the plumbing sites we audited — 741 companies — offer no way to book or request service online.

Among the top-scoring sites (70+), 68% had some form of online booking. Among bottom-scoring sites (below 40), that number dropped to 11%. The correlation between booking capability and overall site quality is one of the strongest in our dataset. See our booking options breakdown for the exact tools that work.

The Review Display Disconnect

Plumbing companies have strong reviews. The industry average across our 1,893 sites is 4.79 stars. That is higher than dentists, lawyers, and most other local service categories. Yet 36% of the sites we audited do not display reviews anywhere on their website.

This is the easiest fix in our entire dataset. You already have the reviews. You already have the stars. You just need to put them on your site where homeowners can see them. Sites that display reviews scored 9 points higher on average than sites that do not. Our review display guide covers embedding without performance impact.

The License Credibility Gap

Plumbing is a licensed profession. Every state in our audit requires some form of plumber licensing. Yet 48% of plumbing websites — 909 sites — do not display their license number anywhere. In Texas, where licensing exam volume has more than doubled, this gap is especially stark. You passed the exam. You earned the license. Put the number on your website.

The fix takes 30 seconds. Add your license number to your footer, your about page, and your trust stack. Sites that display licensing information scored 7 points higher on average. It is the lowest-effort, highest-impact trust signal in our scoring model.

What the Data Tells Us About 2026

This audit captures the plumbing industry at a specific moment: digital-first homeowners searching for service providers whose websites were built for a phone-call era. The $191.4 billion industry is growing at 3.1% annually, adding new companies and new customers every month. But the digital infrastructure has not kept pace.

The companies that will win in 2026 and beyond are not the ones with the fanciest websites. They are the ones that nail the fundamentals — HTTPS, contact forms, service area pages, schema markup, review display, license numbers, and after-hours lead capture. Our data proves that these basics alone separate top performers from the bottom.

AI-powered search is accelerating the stakes. Google’s AI Overviews pull data from Google Business Profiles and structured website content when answering local queries. If your website does not have schema markup — and 47% of plumbing sites do not — you are invisible to the next generation of search. We explore this shift in our 2026 marketing outlook.

Keep Reading

The average plumbing website scores 57 out of 100. The top 6% score above 80. The gap between them is not talent, not budget, not luck — it is a checklist of fundamentals that most companies skip because nobody told them they were missing them. Now you know.