Plumbing is two phone calls, and one of them is standing in water
A plumbing business keeps its office in the truck cab and on the kitchen table. Between calls it is parts orders and supply-house runs; after dinner it is the voicemails left while your hands were wet, the water-heater quotes you promised by Friday, the permit for Thursday’s repipe, and an invoice for every drain you cleared this week. The call that mattered most tonight is not in that pile at all: the woman with water coming through her kitchen ceiling rang plumbers until one picked up, and she left no message for the ones who did not.
The second call has been put off for years. The pipe is grey polybutylene and the carrier has stopped writing around it, or the copper has pinholed twice this winter, and she wants to know whether the whole house is two thousand dollars or twelve before she books a morning off. A burst pipe and a repipe are not the same customer, and they should never meet on the same form. NapkinPrice™ runs them as separate services on one account — the repipe asks eight questions and puts a range on the screen, the service call carries your trip and diagnostic charge inside the number instead of springing it at the door, and a sewer line or a well system goes down a third path that never guesses a price at all.
The repipe flow also asks if she has a photo of the water heater and of the pipe where it comes into the house. The lead marks that she does, and you ask her for the pictures when you call; putting the image itself on the lead is still on the roadmap, so it is left off that list.
A missed plumbing call is not a lost call. It is a lost repipe.
Not answering is not rudeness in this trade, it is physics. Your hands are wet and inside a wall, or you are on your back in a crawlspace with a torch in your teeth, and the phone is in the truck forty feet away because it does not survive down there. Worse, the job you are on is somebody else’s water shut off at the main: you cannot walk out to the yard to take a call while a house sits dry with the ceiling open. Every one of those calls is ringing other plumbers at the same time, and the one you missed at ten past eight on a Tuesday evening was the polybutylene house, not the dripping tap.
| What a missed plumbing call is worth | On the demo account |
|---|---|
| A whole-house repipe in PEX, two bathrooms, ceiling made good | $6,925 – $8,295 |
| A slow drain, one fixture, ground floor, next opening | $228 – $290 |
| The same call, water running and nobody can find the stop | $308 – $392 |
| One recovered repipe pays for | 34 months of the bundle |
Once texting is switched on, CallMitt™ sends the caller you missed a text; the first one she gets from you names your business, and whatever she writes back joins the thread that holds her repipe questions. The message is picked by the hour and the day — the demo shop’s phone runs 7am to 7pm, so that ten-past-eight call gets the after-hours version instead of one that says you are out on a job — and every version but the one that runs while the shop is shut tells her the thing that matters before anybody gets there: if water is running and she can reach the shutoff, turn it. By six the next morning, four things are already waiting for you:
Last night’s calls, timed and in order
Every missed call you log is in one list: the caller, the number, the time, and the reply that was written for her. Eleven calls after a cold snap read in the order they arrived, not as eleven names on a phone with no times beside them.
The reason a reply never went
A reply a rule held back is marked blocked, with the reason written out: quiet hours where the caller lives, an opt-out, a number you suppressed. Nobody has to wonder whether the two-in-the-morning burst pipe got an answer.
One thread for the ceiling leak
Her phone number ties the repipe questions she filled in at nine last night to the call she made at twenty past six this morning, so they read as one conversation, on one screen.
Numbers without your own tests
Each send records where it came from, and the dashboard count skips the ones you sent yourself while you set things up. What you count is real customers, and nothing else.
How the texting stands today, without the polish. There is no SMS gateway on our side yet, so nothing we compose reaches a phone today: you log the missed call, and the reply is drafted, run past every compliance rule and kept in your outbox for you to read. Built and running already: the five messages, each day’s own hours, the weekend, holiday and vacation rules, quiet hours, opt-outs, and the thread her reply joins next to her quote. Two rules are permanent. Texts go out only between 8am and 9pm where the caller is, judged from her area code, so the burst pipe at two in the morning is recorded as blocked with its reason, never queued, and nothing retries it at eight. And when sending switches on, any reply that has waited more than an hour is retired, never delivered, because a “sorry we missed your call” arriving after the ceiling has dried out does more harm than good. The code that picks up a forwarded call and texts the caller back is written, deployed and tested over signed webhooks; all it is missing is a phone number to answer on, which is paperwork rather than software.
Check it on the example business. That ten-past-eight call is inside the window; move the clock on an hour and it is not. Set it to half past nine on a Tuesday evening and watch the same rules mark it blocked — try it on the demo (opens in a new tab) — or go into the example account’s own dashboard with no signup, choose CallMitt from the left menu, and read its five messages and its hours yourself.
How CallMitt Works Run Your Own NumbersThe eight things that set a plumbing number
What the job actually is
A water heater going in, one bathroom or the kitchen repiped, a whole-house repipe, the main water line from the meter, or a tankless heater with the gas and venting. She picks one, and the dollars ride on her choice — $1,850, $1,600, $4,200, $3,600 and $3,950 on the demo — added once for the job. Nothing on a pick-one multiplies, so the per-bathroom line below is where the size of the house goes.
Bathrooms the new pipe has to reach
The one genuinely per-unit line on this service — your per-bathroom rate multiplied by however many the pipe has to serve, $690 each on the demo. Zero is a real answer, and on zero this line adds nothing: no rate, no flat amount, no percentage. That is exactly what you want when she is only putting a water heater in and the bathrooms are not being touched.
What you are running it in
PEX, CPVC or copper throughout. This is a percentage on the whole job rather than a line item, because copper changes every joint, every fitting and every hour in the house at once rather than adding a part. Zero, 6 and 26 percent on the demo — set the ones your own material and labour actually cost you.
How you get at the pipe
An open crawlspace or basement, a finished basement ceiling, two storeys through finished walls, or under a slab. That is the difference between a two-day job and a five-day one, and it is priced once for the job rather than once per bathroom — $0, $780, $1,650 and $2,400 on the demo. If the house is a mix, the form tells her to pick the hardest of them.
Grey polybutylene supply pipe
A yes lifts the job minimum rather than adding a fee. It cannot be patched and no carrier will write around it, so the whole system goes: on the demo a yes means the quote never comes back under $6,400. The sum is unchanged; the finished number gets a floor, and the bottom of the published range sits flat on it.
Making the ceiling good afterwards
A yes adds your own flat amount, $1,250 on the demo, once for the job. A quote that stops at the last joint leaves her holding an open ceiling, and that is where a repipe price gets argued about at the end. Ask it on the form and the answer is in writing before anybody cuts.
How soon she needs somebody
Urgency is something the customer declares, so it is a dropdown carrying a percentage: next opening, tomorrow morning, or today with the water off at the street — 0, 0 and 26 percent on the demo. A percentage rather than a call-out fee on purpose. A flat amount is added first and is then multiplied by every other percentage, by the season and by the travel zone, so a flat figure you state stops being that figure by the time she sees it.
Travel zone
Zones of ZIPs, whole or by their first three digits, each with a flat trip charge, a percentage or both; the widget prices the trip from the ZIP she types, the most specific match first. A ZIP you mark as outside your area gets a polite note that it cannot be priced online, and her details still reach you. With a job minimum behind it, a one-fixture call 40 minutes out still pays for the drive.
A real repipe flow, start to finish
Eight questions, about a minute with the water heater in view. This is the order they run in on our plumbing demo account, and the total underneath is what the live engine returns for these answers, not a number written into this page.
| # | What she is asked | What she picks | What it does to the price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | What are we doing? | A whole-house repipe | A flat $4,200 for the job — every supply line, meter to last fixture |
| 2 | How many bathrooms does the new pipe have to reach? | Two | 2 × the per-bathroom rate — $690 each on the demo, so $1,380 |
| 3 | What are we running it in? | PEX | Nothing; copper would be a percent on the whole job, +26% |
| 4 | Where does the pipe have to run? | A finished basement ceiling | A flat $780, once for the job |
| 5 | Is the house on grey polybutylene supply pipe? | No | Nothing — the rule only fires on yes, and even then it adds nothing |
| 6 | Do you want the drywall patched and painted after us? | Yes | A flat $1,250, once for the job |
| 7 | How soon do you need us? | Next opening | No urgency percent on this one |
| 8 | Got a photo of the water heater, or of the pipe where it comes in? | Offered | Nothing. A photo never moves the price |
| The arithmetic, in the order the engine runs it | $4,200 + $1,380 + $780 + $1,250 = $7,610, and then nothing multiplies it: PEX is 0% and the next opening is 0%, so the midpoint stays $7,610.00 | ||
| She sees | $6,925 – $8,295 | ||
| What lands in your inbox, the second she submits | Name, mobile, ZIP, all eight answers, and the photo flag | ||
The per-bathroom rate, the job options and the percentages above are the demo account’s own, not a Tailgate Office™ price list. You set all of them in the dashboard, and changing the per-bathroom rate leaves your website alone. The total is the engine’s: $6,925 to $8,295 for those eight answers, which you can check on the demo in about a minute.
Prefer to try it? Our example plumbing company’s website runs NapkinPrice on a site that is not ours, quoting live with the same engine. Answer the eight questions as the table does and the same range comes back.
Try the live demo site (opens in a new tab)Three services, and only two of them ever show a price
A repipe, a blocked drain and a sewer line out to the street are three different conversations. Running them through one form is how you end up quoting a sewer replacement like a running toilet.
Repipes, water heaters and main lines — quotes instantly
No trip charge on this one: the visit sells the repipe. It carries a job minimum instead, so a single bathroom never comes back under it — $1,750 on the demo, and the low end of the band is that floor rather than 9% below it. One question raises the floor on its own: answer yes to grey polybutylene and the minimum goes to $6,400, which is a floor and not a fee. Nothing is added to the sum; the bottom of the range goes flat — the same job that quotes $2,084 to $2,496 with a no comes back $6,400 to $6,976 with a yes. Over its ceiling, $13,750 on the demo, it stops pricing and passes you the lead instead of publishing a number that size from eight answers.
Leak, drain and fixture call — quotes instantly
The trip and diagnostic charge lives in the service base fee, so it is added once however many fixtures you end up looking at and cannot be dodged by answering the cheapest thing to everything. It is $129 on the demo, inside the range she is shown, so it is no surprise when you knock. A slow drain, one fixture, ground floor, next opening quotes at $228 to $290. There is a job floor underneath and a ceiling above at $1,500, because past a certain number the honest answer is the main line or a repipe rather than another hour under the sink.
Sewer lines, well systems and commercial — site visit, never priced
Site-visit mode captures the whole spec and shows no number at all, which is the right answer for a sewer line that has to be dug up or lined out to the street, a well pump and pressure tank, or a building that has to keep its water on while you repipe it. The service still asks the building type, how many fixture groups, what the water and waste are, and whether the water can go off — that last one moves no money, it just tells you whether this is a night job. She is told plainly that a job like this needs a look first, and sees no figure; you get the building, the fixture groups and the water and waste, enough to plan the visit.
A priced service stays offline until it has a real base fee or a real minimum. That is on purpose: with neither, it could tell a homeowner $0, and one bad number on your website costs more than the day it takes to set it up right.
A plumber is hired or lost on the ticket
The water heaters, gas lines and repipes this page quotes are work you send a licensed plumber to. That is why the demo job puts the license question second, straight after age: one answer tells you which applicants are worth an afternoon.
Put “Now hiring — text CREW to your texting number” on the van and on the side of the job trailer. CrewFunnel™ asks seven short questions: is he 18 or older, does he hold a current plumbing license in your state, has he repiped a house in copper or PEX and pressure-tested it before the walls closed, how many years has he done plumbing work, how far out does he live, can he start inside two weeks, and what was the last job he worked on. Under 18, no current licence or living beyond your distance each ends it there; the other four answers come back as a weighted fit score.
Copy two of the demo job’s settings. Distance is a knockout and carries no weight, because a number answer scores higher as it grows, and a weighted mileage would rank the plumber who lives furthest away first. The last-job question carries no weight either, since any answer at all earns full marks there, and weighting it would push up everyone who typed something. Every question on the demo job also carries a Spanish translation.
Until your texting number is live, applicants answer the seven questions on your screening page rather than by text, with the same knockouts, scoring and pool. From the day your carrier registration clears, the keyword on the van does the job.
See how CrewFunnel works
A plumber is reviewed the evening the water comes back on, or not at all
The water is back on at the stop and nothing under the sink is dripping. That is the evening she would write you a review, while the relief is still fresh and the bucket is still sitting in the kitchen. By Thursday it is a tap that works, and nobody reviews a tap that works. The outfit with sixty reviews is not sixty times better than you; somebody there asks every customer, the evening the water comes back on.
HurraBell™ does the asking. Once review requests are switched on, you mark the job done — from the inbox, from your phone, or from your job software through Zapier — and the customer gets one request in your words, with your own Google review link, after a delay you pick: an hour, unless you change it. Three days later, one email reminder, unless the link has been opened or the customer has since texted you, messaged you from your website or had a call logged on her thread.
Review requests aren’t switched on for new accounts yet. When they are, the request goes by email once your Google review link is saved on the HurraBell page and your mailing address on the Account page. A text goes as well where the customer ticked the box on your quote form or visit booking agreeing to a review-request text, and only once your carrier registration clears, the same wait as every text on this site; until then it is email only.
See how HurraBell worksOne recovered repipe covers 34 months
That is one repipe at the demo’s rates; the drain and leak calls you would have missed come on top.
The Tailgate Office Bundle
Instant quotes on your website, missed-call text-back and text-to-apply hiring (texts go out once texting is switched on), and, once switched on, a review request after every job, plus customers, jobs, estimates and invoices in one place. 30 days free, no credit card, no setup fee, cancel from the dashboard.
Start Free TrialOnly need one of the tools? After the trial you can keep just that one at its own price; the office stays with the Bundle.
Plumbing questions we get asked
You keep the number your customers already have; it rings as it always has, and nothing is ported. What you add is a texting number of your own, a local number in your area code registered to your business. The design is one forwarding code, dialled once from the setup guide: a call that rings about twenty seconds with nobody picking up moves on to that texting number, a short greeting tells the caller a text is coming, and the text goes out from there. So she rings one number and hears back from another, which is why the first text she gets from you names your business. Calls you answer never forward. An answering service and the forwarding cannot share an hour, since an unanswered call goes to one place; you choose which, and a second code turns forwarding off. Until your texting number is live you log missed calls by hand, and CallMitt picks the message for that hour and day, checks your hours, the quiet hours, your opt-outs and your suppression list, and holds the reply in your outbox to read. The code that will handle a forwarded call on its own is written, deployed and tested over signed webhooks, and is waiting on a phone number.
It is marked blocked, with the reason, and that is final. No text goes to a caller outside 8am to 9pm where she is, judged by her area code, and nothing on our side lifts that, so a two o’clock reply is never queued at all. Nothing re-attempts it at eight either: a blocked record is final by design rather than by accident. A reply that did queue and then waited more than an hour is retired, never delivered, because a "sorry we missed your call" the next afternoon is worse than none. So say it plainly: if you advertise round-the-clock, a text-back is not your night shift — a human is. At six in the morning you have the list instead: who rang, when, and why nothing went out, so you ring the two o’clock caller back before she has finished ringing round.
No, it hands that one to you. Each instant service has a ceiling, $13,750 on the demo repipe, and that house goes past it, so she sees a plain note that the job is bigger than can be priced online, with your disclaimer, and no figure. The engine tests the ceiling against the midpoint before it draws any range, so the decision is about the job, not about the top of a band. Set it where you would stop quoting a repipe over the phone.
Not through the engine, and we would rather say so than fake it. The pricing engine cannot read a clock at any scale — not the hour, not the day of the week, not the weather. The only temporal thing it knows is a seasonal date range that repeats every year forever, which is why this demo carries no season at all: a burst pipe arrives on a cold snap, and a cold snap is weather rather than a calendar, so a winter premium would charge on every mild January and nothing at all for the March freeze. What does exist is a question on the form. Urgency is something the customer declares — next opening, tomorrow morning, or today with the water off at the street — and the answer carries a percentage on the whole job, 26% on the demo repipe and 35% on the demo service call. It is honest, the number is yours to set, and she agrees to it before she submits. A flat call-out fee is the thing to avoid: a flat is added first and is then multiplied by every percentage, the season and the travel zone, so the figure you typed is not the figure she gets.
You price a range, and nothing tighter. The widget shows a bracket and the disclaimer under it says the final number comes after somebody has opened a wall or a ceiling and seen what the existing pipe, the shutoffs and the drains actually are. Write that in your own words: permit and inspection in, making good out unless she asked for it, anything behind the plaster priced on the day. A homeowner who gets an honest bracket at nine at night stops calling down the list — and the person whose budget was never going to reach a repipe finds that out on your website rather than on your morning, which is a kindness to both of you.
No. Any service can run in site-visit mode, which takes the whole spec and shows no number. If you would rather see the venting and the space before you price a heater, put water heaters on a site-visit service and keep instant prices for the jobs a form can describe. She still gets a plain note that you like to see this one first, and you still get every answer she gave.
It works, and it works best if you stop pretending the software is the night shift. The moment you log a missed call the right message for that hour and that day is composed — the after-hours one at ten past eight, the weekend one on Sunday lunchtime when Sunday is a day you close, the holiday one on Christmas Day — and between 8am and 9pm where the caller is, quiet hours do not stand in its way. Outside that window it records the call and tells you why nothing went out, which is what you want a phone system to do at three in the morning rather than what a lot of them do, which is nothing. The five messages are yours to write, so the after-hours one can say when you actually start and ask whether she can reach a stop tap, and the genuine emergency identifies itself instead of going somewhere else.
Allow fifteen minutes for your five text-back messages and the hours you keep each day, a minute, once review requests are switched on for your account, to paste your Google review link on the HurraBell page and your mailing address on the Account page, and around an hour for the eight repipe questions with your per-bathroom rate, job options, material percentages and travel zones. A priced service only goes live once it has a real base fee or a real minimum, which is deliberate. No onboarding call, no setup fee and no contract: $199 a month for all four tools.
Also clear drains, or plumb new builds? Every trade page is on the list, the compliance page covers texting customers, and you can ask us the rest.
Answer the ceiling leak at ten past eight. Quote the repipe her insurer is asking for.
Set it up tonight. Free for 30 days, no card, no setup fee, cancel from the dashboard.