What is the median contractor bill rate in Ohio?

The modeled median contractor bill rate in Ohio is $86/hr, with the 75th percentile at $108/hr and the top 10% at $132/hr. That compares to a $79/hr national median. State bill rates are modeled from Level's rate-card research (blended across HVAC, mechanical, plumbing, and electrical, and skewed commercial), so treat them as directional market estimates, not a precise per-state distribution.

How much roofing, HVAC, and cleaning work is there to win in Ohio?

About $5.7B a year combined: Commercial Cleaning $2.1B, HVAC $898.1M, Roofing $2.7B. National market totals tie to published figures and are split to Ohio by Census housing and commercial floorspace (method below).

How many competitors am I really up against in Ohio?

About 3,519 employer firms (businesses with employees) across the three trades. The ones that bid against you for $1M-plus work are a smaller tier: Commercial Cleaning has 191, HVAC has 464, Roofing has 331. The total employer-firm counts are from US Census SUSB, excluding no-payroll sole proprietors. The revenue-tier allocations are modeled estimates, not direct state-level SUSB counts of your actual competitors.

How do Ohio contractor bill rates compare to the national average?

Ohio's median bill rate runs about $7/hr above the $79/hr national median. The national collection-rate median is 85.1%, but it is a cross-company comparison, not a state-specific estimate or a promised result. Compare your own contract mix, invoice age and collected population before treating the gap as actionable.

OH92+ Ohio contractors in market

Ohio contractor benchmarks and market size

Everything for a Ohio contractor in one place: bill rates and margins versus the national median, how big the roofing, HVAC, and cleaning market is here, how crowded your revenue tier is, and what skilled labor costs locally.

Industry Benchmarks Operating Benchmarks State & Metro Market Data

Service Demand by State Building Opportunity by State Building Opportunity by Metro

Key Finding

Ohio's modeled rate-card reference is $7/hr above the national reference

The median reference is $86/hr, while the top-decile reference is $132/hr versus $148/hr nationally. The median gap does not establish the same premium at the upper end. These modeled rate cards mix customer bill rates, loaded costs and wages; compare like-for-like definitions before using them to set a price.

Illustrative arithmetic: 10 technicians × 2,000 billed hours each × $7/hr = $140K higher gross billings. This assumes the same billed hours and comparable customer rates. It is not observed revenue, a forecast or a profit difference.

For your quote, use productive hours you can actually recover, separately from paid hours, travel and callbacks. Then deduct your local labor burden and operating costs. A higher market reference cannot rescue an estimate that leaves those costs out. Compare the three labor-hour denominators.

Ohio Bill Rates

Median Bill Rate

$86/hr

National reference: $79/hr+$7/hr

75th Percentile

$108/hr

National reference: $116/hr-$8/hr

Top 10%

$132/hr

National reference: $148/hr-$16/hr

Editorial clarification: October 7, 2026. Rate-card and public-data observation dates are unchanged. How we measure: state bill rates are modeled from Level's rate-card research across 1,770 contractors, blended across HVAC, mechanical, plumbing, and electrical, and skewed commercial. One caveat we surface openly: the underlying rate field is entered inconsistently, some firms record customer billing rates, others record loaded labor cost or base wages, so a state median blends both. Treat these as directional market estimates, not a precise per-state distribution. National operating metrics below are measured; see the contractor benchmark JSON for definitions and sample sizes.

Ohio market size: how big is the pond?

About $5.7B in combined annual services demand across roughly 3,519 employer firms. Here is how the demand splits and how many competitors sit at each revenue tier.

Commercial Cleaning

$2.1B

work available per year

$0 residential / $2.1B commercial

1,566 employer firms

143 at $1-5M · 38 at $5-10M · 10 at $10-25M

HVAC

$898.1M

work available per year

$493.9M residential / $404.1M commercial

1,203 employer firms

359 at $1-5M · 77 at $5-10M · 28 at $10-25M

Roofing

$2.7B

work available per year

$1.6B residential / $1.1B commercial

750 employer firms

265 at $1-5M · 44 at $5-10M · 22 at $10-25M

State employer-firm counts and receipt-size tiers are modeled allocations of national Census SUSB-based references using retained state shares, not directly observed state-by-tier Census counts. HVAC additionally uses an analyst-estimated share of combined plumbing, heating and AC NAICS 238220. Employer and no-payroll business populations differ; these counts do not enumerate every competing business.

Download the Ohio dataset (JSON), free to cite with attribution

Commercial building stock in Ohio

We count about 139,089 commercial buildings over 4,000 square feet. This building stock is relevant to HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, and fire protection.

Counts are by structure, not parcel, and are a coverage floor rather than a complete census. We do not attach one generic all-trade revenue total. The property calculator combines this stock with a separate method for each trade, labels project and partial scopes, and keeps every planning assumption editable.

Serviceable buildings

139,089

commercial structures over 4,000 sqft

Largest building segment

63,129

multifamily

Plumbing and HVAC context

buildings per NAICS 238220 location, not an all-trade rival count

Building type	Buildings	Share of counted stock
Multifamily	63,129	45.4%
Office	20,625	14.8%
Education	14,783	10.6%
Government	12,178	8.8%
Worship	8,848	6.4%
Warehouse / distribution	8,698	6.3%
Healthcare	6,692	4.8%
Industrial / manufacturing	2,293	1.6%
Hospitality	1,843	1.3%

How this is countedSources, filters, and the scope of the competitor benchmark.

Buildings are counted per structure inside Ohio, from FEMA/ORNL USA Structures, filtered to commercial occupancies over 4,000 square feet and excluding structures under 3.2 meters tall. Counts are a floor because coverage varies by place. USA Structures source catalog. A small-count flag is displayed below 25 retained structures or 0.5% of captured stock; it is a review cue, not an independent estimate of missing buildings.

Competitor counts and employment are Census County Business Patterns for NAICS 238220, plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors. They are retained as a clearly labeled mechanical-market comparison, not presented as roofing, electrical, or fire-protection competition. Census CBP methodology. Source observations remain available in the full geographic dataset.

Property opportunity by trade

What one property, and the local building stock, can represent

A consistent planning view across 15 trades in Ohio. Annual service scopes add across the measured local inventory. One-time projects stay per property unless a defensible event rate exists.

HVAC / mechanical

$25,139

mix-weighted standard property / year

about $6,058 gross profit at 24.1%

$3.5B at 100% local stock capture

Scenario population: 139089 supported captured buildings.

Trade	Median wage (BLS)
Roofers	$27.13/hr
HVAC mechanics and installers	$29.08/hr
Janitors and building cleaners	$16.69/hr

Ohio contractor benchmarks and market size

Ohio's modeled rate-card reference is $7/hr above the national reference

Ohio Bill Rates

Ohio market size: how big is the pond?

Commercial building stock in Ohio

What one property, and the local building stock, can represent

The Ohio housing base behind the demand

National Benchmarks

Ohio labor market and licensing

Top Trades in Ohio

Three tiers, one ladder.

Where does your Ohio business fall?

Benchmarks by State