What plumbers, HVAC companies, and electricians actually charge for a service call

The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes median hourly wages for plumbers, electricians, and HVAC technicians, sourced and current. What it does not publish, and what nobody else has published with a real method either, is the billed service-call fee: the flat charge a homeowner pays for a technician to show up and diagnose a problem, before any repair begins.

Search for it and the same range appears everywhere: '$75 to $150, typically.' Trace any one of those pages back and it cites another blog, which cites another, until the trail runs out at a field-service-software company's marketing content with no disclosed sample size, no date range, and no method. We did not want to add another link to that chain. So instead of estimating, we read the actual pricing pages of 42 real companies ourselves, one at a time, and recorded exactly what each one says, in its own words. Each company is named in the tables below, and Sources links the pages we re-confirmed.

Nine companies stated a specific fee. The spread is the widest of the three trades, mostly because of one non-waivable emergency fee at the top end.

Hiller shows the same pattern from a different angle: one page on its own site states an $79 diagnostic fee for a specific city; a separate page on the same domain states the company does not charge diagnostic fees at all. Both statements are live at the same time.

Fourteen companies stated a specific fee, the largest sample of the three trades, with a tighter range than plumbing.

360 HVAC Pro disagrees with itself too. Its service pages now state a flat $150 diagnostic fee with $20 off if the repair is approved the same day, while its blog posts, including one dated August 2026, say a flat $89 diagnostic fee credited toward the repair. We report both.

Ten companies stated a specific fee. This trade produced the most inconsistent terminology of the three.

Mister Sparky's own promotional page uses 'service fee' and 'dispatch fee' in the same sentence for the same charge. Mr. Electric's San Antonio location uses 'trip charge' and 'call-out fee' interchangeably on its own page. Across all three trades, we found no company that consistently distinguishes these four terms from one another; they function as synonyms, chosen by branding rather than by any industry convention.

Dunbar's Electric's homepage gives its service call fee as $85.00 in one section and as $75.99 in three others. It also says the fee cannot be waived in most situations, and that it will consider waiving it only when the quote is over $749.99 net.

Ten companies across all three trades make a specific, stated policy of charging no service call, dispatch, or trip fee, and lead with it as a differentiator. The table has eleven rows because Home Therapist is listed for two trades, and Three Rivers Electric also appears in the electrical table because it charges a flat diagnostic fee.

There is no single right number, and anyone telling you there is a $75-to-$150 industry standard is repeating a figure with no real source behind it. What the range does show is that the fee itself is a genuine pricing decision, not a fixed cost of doing business: real companies in the same trade, sometimes the same metro area, land anywhere from under $50 to nearly $400, and roughly a quarter of the companies we found charge nothing at all and market that choice directly.

The inconsistency inside individual companies' own websites is the more useful finding. If a homeowner reads two pages on your own site and gets two different answers about what a service call costs, that is not a pricing strategy, it is a website that has not been kept current. Whatever number you land on, it should say the same thing everywhere it appears.

Fees were first read in September 2026 and the pages below were re-read on November 7, 2026. A link means we saw the figure again on that page; where a page says something different from, or more than, the table, the note says so. Plumb Pros Inc was in an earlier version of the no-fee table and has been removed: its pages say 'no diagnostic fees' but also give a typical service call price, and list 'no service call fee' only as a membership perk.

• Plumbing: Hiller (its service pages call it a service call fee), Michael & Son (coupon page), Rocket Plumbing (FAQ page; its About page states $25 and its footer a $199 emergency dispatch fee), Call-Us Plumbing.
• HVAC: Texas Discount Air, Denver's Best (the site calls itself Denver's Best Heating & AC Repair), 360 HVAC Pro (service page; the older figure is on a blog post), UniColorado (its repair pages now say repair visits are reserved for existing customers), Rabbit Heating & Air, Georgia Home Heating & Air, Mauzy (blog post; other Mauzy pages say members pay no dispatch fee), The Cooling Company, We Care Air, JC Heating & Cooling, Buenos Aires AC & Heating.
• Electrical: Innovative Electrical Contracting (emergency rates page), Alemar Electrical, Electric Company of Seattle, Damyans Electric, Three Rivers Electric, Coffin Electric (blog post; it lists separate diagnostic levels of $285 to $609), Dunbar's Electric (homepage), Black Rhino Electric (blog explainer giving the $100 to $200 range).
• No-fee policies: Home Therapist, Zest Plumbing & Drain, Plumbing Masters, Golden West Plumbing (it also lists $89 assessment charges that are free for VIP members), Elite Rooter (Tampa page). Home Therapist's page says it used to charge a $49 service call fee and dropped it.
• Not re-confirmed on November 7: Innovative Home, Perfect Flush PDX, Da Vinci's Best Plumbing, Service Experts, Blue Line Electric, Beacon Plumbing, Goettl, Standard and Mr. Electric (San Antonio), whose sites would not load for an automated read; Drain Pro Solutions, Home+ Air & Heat and A+ HVAC and Refrigeration, whose own sites we could not identify with confidence; 1-Tom-Plumber, whose page still says the dispatch fee is waived when you proceed but no longer gives an amount; and Mister Sparky (Charlotte), whose $39 promotion page is now empty. Their figures are as we read them in September and are not linked.