Paste in your HVAC or plumbing quote and get a plain-language reading — benchmarked against real equipment catalog pricing, regional labor rates, and MEP trade standards.
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| Job type | Location | Quotes | Quoted range | Median per unit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full system with an air handler, reusing ductwork | Various | 29 | $10,345 – $27,920 | $5,303/tonfrom 26 that state a size |
| Ductless mini-split, complete system | Various | 17 | $3,600 – $24,750 | $455/kBTUfrom 14 that state a size |
| Full system with a furnace, reusing ductwork | Various | 45 | $9,620 – $25,981 | $4,151/tonfrom 39 that state a size |
| Water heater, indirect | PA, WY | 2 | $4,650 – $7,100 | too few to say |
| Full system, home over 3,000 sq ft | Various | 4 | $24,300 – $52,000 | too few to say |
| AC condenser / coil replacement | Various | 11 | $5,450 – $14,900 | $3,500/tonfrom 9 that state a size |
Ranges are the highest and lowest quote received for that job, not an average. Median per unit divides those same quotes by what they actually buy — tons of cooling, thousands of BTU, or gallons — which is usually why a range looks wide: it is a range of sizes as much as of prices. Only quotes that state a size can be counted that way, so where fewer did, the number of them is shown. Permit records are public filings and are never mixed into quote figures.
Median price per ton, so a brand cannot look dear merely by selling larger systems. It moves the number by 92%.
Equipment that can throttle costs more than equipment that is only ever on or off — here by 41%.
Every group with at least 3 quotes on record. The figure beside each bar is how many it rests on.See what else moves a quote →
There's a real moment of unease right before a contractor hands you a proposal for HVAC or plumbing work — you're about to make a five-figure decision on the word of someone who does this every day, and you don't. That gap, not the contractor, is the actual problem. Pricing varies for real reasons — how busy a contractor is, how complicated the job is, the time of year — and a rushed estimate often becomes a quick per-ton or per-fixture number instead of a real one. Read the Nameplate exists to close that gap and put you, the homeowner, on level footing.
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See where your money is going
Equipment
$4,516
details on hover
Piping (refrigerant, gas, condensate)
$2,000
Source: an MEP rule of thumb, not this quote
Labor
$5,084
Source: an MEP rule of thumb, not this quote
Overhead and profit
$2,900
Source: an MEP rule of thumb, not this quote
No comparable equipment pricing exists in the catalog for this scope yet.
This proposal accounts for its whole total in its own line items — which is more than most do.
A worked example, not a real customer's proposal — built from a real matched furnace-and-AC system in the equipment catalog, run through the site's own pricing logic exactly the way a pasted quote would be.
Where this is going
What your neighbor paid for the same furnace is not written down anywhere you can reach. Public permit records and quotes homeowners send in are the closest thing that exists, and nobody had put them together.
Every furnace, boiler and condenser carries a metal plate stating what it is, when it was built and what it is rated for. It is the closest thing your house has to a VIN, and most homeowners have never looked at one.
There is nothing to buy here. No lead generation, no referral fee, no contractor paying to be recommended. That is the only reason this site's reading of your quote is worth anything.
We are building the largest independent database of what homeowners actually pay for HVAC and plumbing work.
The permits are what applicants declared their work was worth, which is not the same quantity as what a contractor charges — so they are read as a separate second opinion and never averaged into the rest. The only source for what a job was actually quoted at is homeowners sending in the quote. That is the part being built, and it is why the tool is free.
Recent reading, and real prices to check yours against
Article
Three government permit datasets, six years, and the same finding in all of them: the middle half of one job shape spans more than double. Here is what that means for the quote on your kitchen table.
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The equipment this site helps you price — water heaters, boilers, air handlers — is also the most common thing in a house to flood it. The moment to add leak protection is the moment that equipment is being replaced, and it is almost never on the quote.
Browse all 11 articles → · the dataset behind the comparisons
Get each new piece when it goes up -- what the line items mean, what is usually missing, and what to ask before you sign. No sales pitch, because there is nothing here to sell you.
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