How to Price a Whole-Home Water Filtration System | Reddit & LinkedIn

You cannot price a filtration system honestly until you know what is in the water. A home on hard municipal water needs a softener and maybe carbon for chlorine taste. A well with iron, sediment, and bacteria needs a very different, more expensive train of equipment. Quoting before testing is guessing, and the guess is usually wrong in the customer favor or yours.

Run a test or review a recent lab result for hardness, iron, sediment, chlorine, pH, and contaminants. The results tell you the system type, the media, and the sizing. They also give you something concrete to show the customer, which turns a vague want into a specific, justified quote they are far more likely to sign.

Sizing is about flow rate, not just house size. If the system cannot pass the home peak demand, showers and fixtures starve when several run at once. Size to the simultaneous flow the household actually uses, with headroom, so the filter is not the bottleneck.

For softeners, sizing also means grain capacity matched to the hardness and household water use, so the unit does not regenerate constantly or run out between cycles. Undersizing is the most common mistake on these installs and leads to callbacks and unhappy customers. Price the right size, explain why, and do not let a customer talk you into an undersized unit to shave the quote.

The equipment is one line, but the install labor depends heavily on the tie-in. If the main water line is accessible with space nearby, the job is clean. If you are tying in behind finished walls, in a tight crawl space, or far from a drain, labor climbs. Backwashing systems need a drain line, and some units need a nearby electrical outlet.

Walk the mechanical space before you quote. Note the main entry point, available space, distance to a drain, and whether electrical is present. These determine whether the install is three hours or a full day, and they are the difference between a profitable quote and one where the labor line was wishful thinking.

Markup on plumbing and equipment installs commonly runs 20% to 30% for a small contractor, set by your overhead and target profit. Remember markup is not margin: a 25% markup is a 20% margin. Price the install from the margin you need, not the margin you hope for.

Filtration systems also create a recurring revenue line most contractors underuse: media, resin, and filter changes. Note the replacement schedule on the quote as a future service, and offer a service agreement. It is honest, it keeps the system working, and it turns a one-time install into a customer relationship worth more than the first job.

The fastest path from site visit to signed quote is to draft against your own templates. ContractShield lets you photograph the mechanical space and the water test, say or type the scope, and get an AI draft of equipment, media, plumbing, and labor in about 25 minutes total. You approve each line, and every line shows where its price came from, so the numbers stay yours.

Once the customer accepts online, milestone payments are built in, with automatic reminders and collections if a balance goes past due. You can also set the media-replacement reminder so the follow-up service does not slip, turning one install into recurring work.