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

About $466.0M a year combined: Commercial Cleaning $178.3M, HVAC $72.9M, Roofing $214.9M. National market totals tie to published figures and are split to South Dakota by Census housing and commercial floorspace (method below).

How many competitors am I really up against in South Dakota?

About 242 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 11, HVAC has 43, Roofing has 23. 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 South Dakota contractor bill rates compare to the national average?

South Dakota's median bill rate runs about $1/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.

SD30+ South Dakota contractors in market

South Dakota contractor benchmarks and market size

Q: What is the median contractor bill rate in South Dakota?

The modeled median contractor bill rate in South Dakota is $80/hr, with the 75th percentile at $102/hr and the top 10% at $126/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.

Everything for a South Dakota 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

South Dakota's modeled rate-card reference is $1/hr above the national reference

The median reference is $80/hr, while the top-decile reference is $126/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 × $1/hr = $20K 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.

South Dakota Bill Rates

Median Bill Rate

$80/hr

National reference: $79/hr+$1/hr

75th Percentile

$102/hr

National reference: $116/hr-$14/hr

Top 10%

$126/hr

National reference: $148/hr-$22/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.

South Dakota market size: how big is the pond?

About $466.0M in combined annual services demand across roughly 242 employer firms. Here is how the demand splits and how many competitors sit at each revenue tier.

Commercial Cleaning

$178.3M

work available per year

$0 residential / $178.3M commercial

89 employer firms

9 at $1-5M · 2 at $5-10M · 0 at $10-25M

HVAC

$72.9M

work available per year

$40.1M residential / $32.8M commercial

99 employer firms

35 at $1-5M · 6 at $5-10M · 2 at $10-25M

Roofing

$214.9M

work available per year

$124.6M residential / $90.2M commercial

54 employer firms

19 at $1-5M · 3 at $5-10M · 1 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 South Dakota dataset (JSON), free to cite with attribution

Commercial building stock in South Dakota

We count about 7,155 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

7,155

commercial structures over 4,000 sqft

Largest building segment

2,281

multifamily

Plumbing and HVAC context

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

Building type	Buildings	Share of counted stock
Multifamily	2,281	31.9%
Education	1,195	16.7%
Warehouse / distribution	1,109	15.5%
Office	898	12.6%
Government	636	8.9%
Healthcare	437	6.1%
Worship	346	4.8%
Hospitality	188	2.6%
Industrial / manufacturing	65	0.9%

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

Buildings are counted per structure inside South Dakota, 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 South Dakota. Annual service scopes add across the measured local inventory. One-time projects stay per property unless a defensible event rate exists.

HVAC / mechanical

$24,220

mix-weighted standard property / year

about $5,837 gross profit at 24.1%

$173.3M at 100% local stock capture

Scenario population: 7155 supported captured buildings.

Trade	Median wage (BLS)
Roofers	$23.23/hr
HVAC mechanics and installers	$28.59/hr
Janitors and building cleaners	$16.32/hr

South Dakota contractor benchmarks and market size

South Dakota's modeled rate-card reference is $1/hr above the national reference

South Dakota Bill Rates

South Dakota market size: how big is the pond?

Commercial building stock in South Dakota

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

The South Dakota housing base behind the demand

National Benchmarks

South Dakota labor market and licensing

Top Trades in South Dakota

Three tiers, one ladder.

Where does your South Dakota business fall?

Benchmarks by State