How much should you pay a drain and sewer technician, and on what pay plan?

Start with the honest frame: BLS publishes no drain-technician wage.

Drain Technician is one of O*NET's sample job titles for Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters (SOC 47-2152) — the one combined occupation that also holds plumbers, pipefitters, steamfitters, sprinkler fitters and gas fitters — and BLS publishes a single wage for it, with no drain-versus-plumber split.

In May 2025, the latest federal wage data (released May 15, 2026), that occupation counted 465,840 wage-and-salary jobs nationally, with a median of $30.67 an hour, $63,800 a year.

The middle half earned between $24.13 an hour ($50,190 a year) and $40.92 ($85,110); the 10th percentile was $21.22 ($44,150) and the 90th $52.13 ($108,420).

Know what those figures measure before you anchor on them.

OEWS includes base pay, commissions, production bonuses and incentive pay — so a commissioned stoppage tech's commissions sit inside the federal band — but it excludes overtime pay, shift differentials, non-production bonuses such as sign-on bonuses, and benefits.

Where you hire moves the band.

Ranked by annual median wage, the top five states in May 2025 were District of Columbia $101,020 — BLS counts DC as a state — then Illinois $99,950, Oregon $97,050, Minnesota $94,410 and Alaska $93,920.

The volume sits elsewhere: the states with the most wage-and-salary jobs in this occupation were California (47,660), Texas (44,090), Florida (29,260), New York (23,210) and Illinois (16,750).

The national figures are on our drain technician salary page; because the drain title has no SOC of its own, the state-by-state tables live under the occupation's primary role on our plumber salary page.

To see the postings you are bidding against, browse current drain technician jobs.

Who employs the tech matters too.

In 2025, 65% of the occupation's jobs were with plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors and 8% of its workers were self-employed.

Median wages by top industry: government (excluding education and hospitals) $71,660; manufacturing $65,770; heavy and civil engineering construction $63,270; plumbing/HVAC contractors $63,010 — and within that contractor industry BLS counted 330,570 of these jobs.

For a residential drain shop, that last figure is the closest federal employer-type proxy — plumbing and HVAC contractors combined, because BLS does not split them.

BLS has no starting-pay statistic and no drain-specific ladder — the occupation is published as one band.

What you can read is the ladder BLS does measure: the trade's helper occupation, the percentile spread, and the drain-registration ladder Texas runs — the one state our research covers.

Helper stage.

Plumbers' helpers have their own occupation (SOC 47-3015): a national median of $20.36 an hour, $42,360 a year, with the 25th percentile at $17.76 and the 75th at $22.94.

At plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors specifically, the helper median is $42,210.

If you would rather grow your own stoppage tech than buy one, this is the entry band — the sourcing and screening playbook is our guide to how to hire a drain and sewer technician, and this page sets the pay.

Apprentice stage.

Most plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters learn the trade through a 4- or 5-year apprenticeship with 2,000 hours of paid on-the-job training plus technical instruction in a typical year.

Apprentices earn less than fully trained workers, and their pay increases as they learn to do more — BLS publishes no apprentice wage figure.

Federal rules for registered apprenticeship programs (29 CFR 29.5(b)(5)) require a progressively increasing schedule of wages with an entry wage not below the FLSA minimum where applicable (or higher where another law or a collective bargaining agreement requires), but federal law does not set apprentice pay as a fixed percentage of the journeyman rate: the familiar "50% rising to 90%" steps come from each registered program's standards or a collective bargaining agreement, not from the Department of Labor.

The registered drain ladder, a state example.

Where the state structures drain work, the registration ladder is an experience ladder you can pay against.

Texas's plumbing board defines a drain cleaner-restricted registrant who clears obstructions through existing code-approved openings under a responsible master plumber's supervision; the full drain cleaner registration requires at least 4,000 hours in that restricted role and adds installing cleanouts and removing and resetting P-traps — still under a responsible master plumber's supervision.

The drain-cleaner registrations cost $18 each, and renewal requires at least six hours of approved training a year.

What a registrant can legally bill follows the registration they hold, not the hours alone — which is exactly what a pay step should track.

Our research covered Texas only; verify your own state's registration titles and hour rules with your state plumbing board, or the city or county where licensing is local, before you build tiers on them.

Established tech.

The median of $30.67 an hour ($63,800) is the center of the combined occupation, and a quarter of the occupation earns more than the 75th percentile, $40.92 ($85,110).

Because the 75th percentile was $85,110 and the 90th $108,420, somewhere between 10% and 25% of the occupation earned $100,000+ in OEWS-measured pay — BLS does not publish the exact share.

What puts one of your techs in that top band — and what your pay plan has to do with it — is the next section's subject.

The dollar band answers "how much"; the plan answers "paid for what."

Drain and sewer work sharpens the question: two calls with the same drive time can bill at completely different prices — a short cable clear versus a camera run that documents the line and leads you to quote a spot repair or a full replacement.

Per-job pay layers, commissions and spiffs exist to share exactly that spread with the tech who produces it.

The four blocks.

Hourly pays for process: diagnostics, camera-and-report work, the slow hours — you carry the idle time, the tech carries the care.

Flat rate (book rate) pays per defined job and rewards the tech who beats book time.

Commission pays a share of what the ticket sells — on this trade, that can be a replacement or excavation job rather than the clear.

Hybrid puts an hourly base under a commission or per-job layer, which is the structure that fits the mixed shape of drain work: unknowable-duration clears and priced-to-sell replacements on the same route sheet.

The full hourly-versus-flat-rate-versus-commission comparison — cost structure, behavior and compliance — is our HVAC technician pay plan guide.

What the data does not give you.

Our research found no primary government or credential-body source that publishes typical commission percentages, flat-rate multipliers, spiff amounts or the share of shops running any of these plans, and no BLS wage split by pay plan either.

Treat every split you hear on the street as shop-specific, and write your own numbers into the offer letter.

The floor under every plan.

Per-job and commission pay change the math, not the duty.

A flat-rate tech is still owed FLSA overtime: the regular rate is total job pay divided by hours actually worked, plus half-time for each hour over 40.

Commissions are pay for hours worked and belong in the regular rate.

A weekly commission is added to the week's other earnings and divided by total hours, and the tech is owed an extra half of that rate for each overtime hour.

A commission paid monthly or later must be apportioned back over the weeks it was earned — a monthly amount can be spread by multiplying it by 12 and dividing by 52 — with extra overtime paid for each week that had overtime hours.

And the floor is policed directly: a workweek in which a required tool purchase cuts into minimum wage or overtime owed violates the FLSA (29 CFR 531.35), whatever the plan sheet says.

Spiffs are bonuses, not gifts.

A spiff schedule announced in advance — a bonus per jetting package or per membership sold — is a promised, non-discretionary bonus, and bonuses announced to make employees work faster must be included in the overtime regular rate.

Calling the plan "discretionary" does not make it one; the facts decide.

A bonus covering several weeks can stay out of the math until the amount is known, but then it must be apportioned back, with extra half-time paid for the overtime weeks.

The mechanics of running them — timing, eligibility, what behavior to reward — are our HVAC spiffs guide, and the full structure design is the HVAC commission pay plan guide.

The one commission exemption is narrow.

FLSA section 7(i) lifts the overtime duty only for commissioned employees of a retail or service establishment whose regular rate is more than 1.5× the minimum wage and who earn more than half their pay as commissions over a representative period of at least one month — and a "retail or service establishment" is one where 75% of annual dollar sales of goods or services is not for resale and is recognized as retail in the industry.

Whether a drain service shop qualifies is decided case by case: the Department of Labor withdrew the old list of businesses that courts had read as excluding air-conditioning contractors from the exemption, which removed the easy answer without creating a safe harbor.

Budget as if overtime is owed on every commissioned tech until your employment attorney says otherwise; the full math is in our guide to overtime for flat-rate and commissioned techs.

The upsell-pressure risk is a design problem.

A plan that pays only on ticket size quietly pays techs to quote replacements where a clearing might do — and on this trade that decision is also a licensing question: in Texas, for instance, a restricted registrant works under a responsible master plumber's supervision, and no pay plan widens what a registration legally allows.

The controls are structural.

Require camera evidence on file before a replacement is quoted, keep the diagnostic call's pay separate from what it sells, track callback and re-clear rates by tech, and audit a sample of high-ticket invoices.

Pay for work that survives scrutiny, not just work that sells.

Our research found no federal premium figures — nothing for licence tiers, standby or lead duty — so the numbers come from your market and your tickets.

The structures below are what you are pricing.

Registration and licence premium.

Price the rung by what it lets the tech legally do and sell, not by tenure.

The Texas ladder shows the shape: a registrant holding the full drain cleaner registration can install cleanouts and pull and reset P-traps — billable work a restricted registrant cannot perform — so the premium tracks scope.

Camera credentials: NASSCO runs PACP, LACP and MACP pipeline, lateral and manhole assessment classes plus ITCP-CIPP inspector training — course content sits on NASSCO's class pages — and if a certified condition report becomes part of what you sell, price the credential that produces it.

Our research found no published source that ties a certification to a specific pay premium — set the number from what the credential earns on your tickets, and verify current registration titles and requirements with your state plumbing board, or the city or county where licensing is local.

On-call premium.

BLS says most plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters work full time including nights and weekends, and plumbers are often on call to handle emergencies — availability is part of this hire.

Our research found no national on-call premium figure to copy: the federal wage data exclude overtime pay and shift differentials entirely.

Decide the mechanics before you post — a standby rate for held evenings, a minimum callback payment for a run night call, premium hourly after a cutoff — and put whichever you choose in writing; the policy details are our on-call pay policy guide.

Lead premium.

When your senior tech starts training the new hire, holding the route sheet and owning callbacks, you are paying for supervision.

The federal neighborhood is first-line supervisors of construction trades and extraction workers (SOC 47-1011) — all construction trades, not drain techs only — at a $79,920 national median, and $93,320 within plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors.

Set the premium as the gap between your best solo tech and what running the stoppage side is worth to you, and label the benchmark honestly in your budget: it is the broader supervisor category, not a lead-drain-tech occupation.

The wage figures in this guide are base pay as BLS measures it: commissions and production bonuses in; overtime, shift differentials, non-production bonuses — and benefits — out.

Two techs at the same median can cost their employers very different amounts, and on a trade where the truck is the workshop, the non-wage lines carry extra weight.

Benefits are where small shops lose and can choose not to.

In BLS's Employee Benefits survey for March 2026, 75% of private-industry construction and extraction workers — the group plumbers sit in — had access to employer medical care and 66% to retirement benefits; the installation, maintenance and repair group that holds HVAC techs came in at 81% and 78%.

Establishment size drives the gap you can exploit: at establishments with 1–49 workers, 55% of workers had access to medical plans and 55% to retirement benefits, versus 90% and 91% at establishments with 500 or more.

Paid leave among construction and extraction workers: 71% had paid sick leave, 77% paid vacation and 82% paid holidays.

The BLS benefits tables we read break out establishment size and occupation group, not plumbing contractors — so match your size class rather than a national average; that is the cheapest way to stop losing offers on the benefits line.

The truck is compensation with tax rules attached.

A marked service van of 14,000 pounds or less with driver-only (or driver plus one) seating and permanent shelving is a qualified nonpersonal-use vehicle, so personal use such as commuting is not a taxable fringe; the regulations' list also covers cargo vehicles over 14,000 pounds loaded, bucket trucks and flatbeds; a plain pickup or an unmodified van is not on that list.

When the commuting rule applies instead, commuting in the company vehicle is valued at $1.50 per one-way commute and included in wages.

And driving the company vehicle between home and the first or last job is not paid work time when it stays within the employer's normal commuting area and is covered by an agreement — work done before leaving, such as loading parts or taking dispatch, is a different question, so set the sequence in writing.

Tools and machines.

The cable machine, the jetter and the camera are the expensive assets of a stoppage operation — budget them as shop costs, not tech costs.

Where you require techs to supply hand tools, reimburse them through an accountable plan with receipts; without substantiation, or where the tech can pocket the excess, the payments are wages.

And the floor from the pay-plan section applies here too: a required tool purchase that cuts into minimum wage or overtime owed in any workweek violates the FLSA (29 CFR 531.35).

Budget the drift.

The Employment Cost Index shows private-industry wages and salaries for construction and extraction occupations up 3.9% in the 12 months ended June 2026, and for installation, maintenance and repair occupations up 3.7%.

A band set on last year's numbers is a band you re-post within the year.

This page is employer career and business information, not legal or tax advice. Pay-plan, overtime and commission treatment depends on your pay mix and state — confirm specifics with an employment attorney or the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division, and registration and licence questions with your state plumbing board or the local authority where licensing is local.