Plumbing Business Valuation Checklist (Australia)
A plumbing business valuation checklist helps you work through the key factors that determine what a plumbing business is actually worth — whether you're buying, selling, or just trying to understand what you own. In Australia, plumbing businesses typically sell for 2–4x seller's discretionary earnings (SDE) for owner-operated businesses, or 3–5x EBITDA for larger multi-van operations. But those ranges hide a lot. A plumbing business with a loyal commercial client list and three licensed tradespeople is worth a very different number to one where all the work flows through the owner's mobile and collapses if they take a week off.
For a full breakdown of what drives those multiples, read the detailed guide on how much a plumbing business is worth. This checklist is the practical tool you use alongside that article — working through each factor systematically so you don't miss anything before you make an offer or accept one.
This resource is part of Module 4 of the Playbook — Valuation and Pricing.
Why most plumbing business valuations go wrong
Most buyers (and sellers, frankly) anchor too hard on the headline revenue number. A plumbing business turning over $1.2M sounds impressive. Then you find out the owner works 60 hours a week and takes home $150,000 — which, after you replace them with a licensed plumber at market rates, becomes considerably less than that. The multiple applied to adjusted earnings is what matters, and most people don't adjust properly.
A broker told me about a deal earlier this year where the seller had been using the business account as a personal expense fund for about three years — fuel, mate's ute repairs, the family holiday to Bali (claimed as a "site inspection", which would have been impressive given the location). The buyer's accountant found all of it during normalisation. The agreed price dropped by $85,000 before settlement. The seller was annoyed but had known it was coming.
The factors that affect value most in a plumbing business:
- How dependent the business is on the owner's licence and personal relationships
- The split between domestic callout work (one-off, unpredictable) and commercial contracts (recurring, defensible)
- Whether staff are licensed plumbers or unregistered assistants
- Licence transferability across state lines if the buyer is relocating
- Age and condition of the van fleet and equipment
For the benchmarks on EBITDA multiples for trades businesses, the range for plumbing is broadly in line with other licensed trades — but licence dependency is the single biggest discount factor. A business that can only operate if the current owner holds the licence is worth materially less than one with multiple licensed staff.
Also worth understanding before you work through this checklist: the difference between SDE and EBITDA, and how to normalise either one. The seller's discretionary earnings article covers that well, as does the free EBITDA Normalisation Checklist if you want a template to work through.
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