AI Guides / Plumbing
Plumbing lives or dies on who answers first. A homeowner standing in water rings two or three plumbers inside fifteen minutes and hires whoever picks up and commits to today — they are not comparing quotes. Everything below is built around that, plus the second problem nobody talks about: unlike HVAC, plumbing has no annual service visit, so every customer file goes cold the day the job finishes.
Start at step one. Stop whenever you like — nothing below is needed for anything above it to work.
Prices checked by hand 27 July 2026 · nobody pays to be listed here
The whole page, in order
If you already use Jobber or ServiceTitan and Xero or MYOB, switch on quote follow-ups, invoice reminders, and on-my-way notifications. Two afternoons, about 26 hours a month back.
Software: Jobber or ServiceTitan · Xero or MYOB
Use OpenPhone with two users plus Rosie, so a 9pm burst pipe gets a reply in ten seconds instead of a voicemail.
Software: OpenPhone with two users · Rosie
Use Jobber, ServiceTitan, or NiceJob to ask for the review before the van leaves. Use CompanyCam to file job photos automatically.
Software: Jobber or ServiceTitan · NiceJob · CompanyCam
Count after-hours calls answered against missed, and reviews gained. Only then decide whether anything needs building.
Software: OpenPhone, job-software, and review reports
Step one · start here
On Jobber, ServiceTitan, Xero, MYOB, these are settings, not another subscription — check your plan includes them. On something else, search its help centre for the same feature name.
Extra software cost
$0*
if included in your plan
Hours back per month
≈26
Why it matters for a plumber
Emergencies are never shopped. Repipes, bathroom jobs and hot water replacements are — and those are the quotes that go quiet. Three touches at day 2, 7 and 14, stopping when they reply.
What to do
In Jobber, look under Settings for Automations, then quote follow-ups. Turn on the three-touch default and leave the wording alone to start with. It is included in your plan and off until you enable it.
Open the official setup guide ↗1 hour · $0 extra if included in your current plan
Why it matters for a plumber
Built in, free, and off by default. Reminders at 7, 14 and 30 days overdue, with your builder and strata accounts excluded because those need a phone call.
What to do
In Xero, invoice reminders live in Settings and are off by default. Set the three intervals, then go through your contacts and tick "exclude from reminders" on the trade accounts you deal with personally.
Check the official pricing and plan details ↗20 minutes · $0 extra if included in your current plan
Why it matters for a plumber
Matters more in plumbing than anywhere else: the customer is standing next to the problem watching the clock. An honest arrival window stops them ringing every twenty minutes.
What to do
Enable customer notifications in your job software, then set a realistic window rather than an optimistic one. Half a day, because the work is agreeing the wording and testing it on a few real jobs first.
Open the official setup guide ↗Half a day · $0 extra if included in your current plan
Different software? The same switch usually exists under another name.
Step two · first workflow to implement
An active-leak caller rings two or three plumbers inside fifteen minutes. The first real reply wins the job outright — they are not collecting quotes, they want someone today.
Do this in order
Typical size
≈34 missed calls/mo
Setup
Half a day
What to use
OpenPhone with two users plus Rosie
Buy or build: Buy
How you know it worked
Count it in week one, then count the same thing again in week four. If the number did not move, stop spending.
Keep this implementation simple
Use the steps above with the software you already have. Test the workflow on your own phone before adding another product or paying someone to build around it.
Step three · keep going without adding complexity
One at a time. Finish it, test it on real work, then start the next.
Evenings are when hot water fails and pipes let go. Right now those calls reach a personal mobile or nothing, and after-hours work carries a 50–150% premium.
Setup effort: 1 hour
Two questions — is water still flowing, is there hot water. A genuine emergency goes straight to the on-call phone; everything else becomes tomorrow morning's booked job instead of waking you.
Setup effort: 2 hours
Gratitude peaks in the twenty minutes after the water stops, not in a Friday batch send. One message, one link, at sign-off.
Setup effort: 1 hour
Step four · only once the first three are running
The first point where paying for a build makes sense — once the earlier steps are running.
Plumbing has no annual service visit, so every file goes cold. Units fail at eight to twelve years and your job history already knows which ones you installed and when — that is a warm list nobody is calling.
Setup effort: 1 week
Compliance dates already sitting in your job records, chased automatically. The closest thing plumbing gets to recurring revenue for free.
Setup effort: 1 week
Does this look familiar?
A call rings out while you are under a house, and you ring back two hours later.
The hot water call at 9pm goes to somebody’s personal mobile, or to nothing.
You quoted a bathroom three weeks ago and never followed it up.
The customer rings four times asking how far away the van is.
You have no idea which customers you sold a hot water unit to in 2018.
Somebody spends Friday afternoon chasing invoices one email at a time.
After thirty days
Number one
Count them in week one and again in week four. This is the number that pays for everything.
Number two
Compare the month before to the month after. Should roughly triple if you got the timing right.
Number three
Your job software will tell you. Before step one it was almost none.
Number four
Ask them. They will know before any report does.
Every other figure here is a typical size. These four are yours.
Reference
All 13 jobs for plumbing, in order of what they return.Open ↓Close ↑Wins work
01
02
03
04
05
06
Saves hours
07
The customer is standing next to the problem watching the clock, so they ring every twenty minutes. An honest arrival window ends it.
08
One burst pipe reorders the whole board. A draft reshuffle with every conflict flagged, that a person still approves — the judgement stays human.
09
Reminders at 7, 14 and 30 days, with builder and strata accounts excluded because those need a phone call, not an email.
10
Repipes, bathrooms and hot water replacements are compared across three plumbers. Those quotes need three touches; emergencies need none.
11
Call-out fee, after-hours rate, service area, what you will and will not touch, whether you do gas. One place the team can ask instead of asking you.
12
Before and after on every leak, tagged with time and place, landing against the right job from the tech's phone. Your evidence when an insurer disputes water damage.
13
Jobs done, quotes out, cash in, overdue, and what needs attention — assembled and sent on Monday instead of compiled by hand.
The stack
| Tool | What it is for | Price | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phone & messagingOpenPhone | A business number with a shared inbox, so after-hours calls and texts stop living on one person's mobile. | $19/user ↗ | Start here if your on-call rotation currently means somebody's personal phone. Skip it if you already run a hosted phone system with a shared inbox. |
| AI answeringRosie | Answers the calls nobody can get to, takes the details, and books straightforward jobs. | $49/mo ↗ | Best value of the small-business answering tools. Check whether your phone provider already includes one before adding a second bill. |
| AI answeringGoodcall | Same job as Rosie, with tighter control over exactly what it may and may not say. | $59/mo ↗ | Worth the extra ten dollars specifically because you can forbid it from quoting an after-hours rate. Otherwise Rosie does the job. |
| Job managementJobber | Quotes, scheduling, invoicing and customer history for a small field team. | $29/mo ↗ | The quote follow-up automation is included in your plan and almost nobody switches it on. Do that before you buy anything new. |
| Job managementServiceTitan | The same, built for larger field businesses with real dispatch and reporting. | On quote ↗ | Only if you are already on it or past about fifteen staff. Below that the cost is hard to justify — but its notification features are the cheapest win in this table. |
| AccountingXero | Invoicing, reconciliation, and the overdue-payment reminders nobody enables. | $35/mo ↗ | You almost certainly have this already. The reminders are free and off by default. Twenty minutes in settings, no new spend. |
| Job documentationCompanyCam | Photos filed against the right job automatically, tagged with time and location. | $29/mo ↗ | Unglamorous and pays for itself the first time a customer or insurer disputes water damage. Skip it if your job software already handles photos properly. |
| AutomationMake.com | Connecting two tools that will not talk to each other, without writing code. | $9/mo ↗ | The engine behind the water-heater-age and inspection-reminder rows above. Powerful, and very easy to build something fragile that breaks quietly. |
| AssistantChatGPT Team | Answering the questions your team asks each other all day, from your own rates and process documents. | $25/user ↗ | Useful once you have fed it your real prices and service areas. Out of the box, with nothing loaded, it will not move a single number in your business. |
Do not bother
Nobody types a form while water is coming through the ceiling. They ring. Every dollar here belongs on the phone instead.
You cannot price a leak you have not seen. A number given over the phone becomes an argument on the doorstep, and you will wear it.
Those notes are your evidence in an insurance or warranty dispute over water damage. Get them consistent on paper first, or you will automate inconsistency.
Sources
Nearby trades
Common problems this covers
How every other industry fixes the same thing, and what they pay.
Price rechecks only. Leave any time.
Do it yourself
Use the official links, do one card at a time, and count the result after thirty days.
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