Does AI recommend your Plumbing business?
When a homeowner asks ChatGPT or Perplexity "who's the best plumber near me?", the assistant answers with a short list of names. If your business isn't on it, you're invisible at the exact moment someone is ready to book — and most local plumbing firms aren't named at all.
Cited checks whether AI assistants recommend your plumber business for the searches that matter, shows you who they name instead, and hands you a plain-English fix list. The same fixes that get you recommended by AI also win you Google and your Google Business Profile — so the work pays off whether a customer finds you through an assistant or a classic search. Run the free audit below, or pick your city.
New here? Read the guide: how to get recommended by AI
Are you a contractor? How Cited works — and why it beats shared leads
Signs you need to call a plumber (homeowner guide)
How to choose a plumber (homeowner guide)
The questions homeowners actually ask AI about plumbers
- “Who are the best plumbers in Knoxville, TN?”
- “Who are the best plumbers in New Orleans, LA?”
- “Who are the best plumbing companies in Salt Lake City, UT?”
Your free audit researches these with live AI web search — with one-click links to run them in Perplexity and ChatGPT (web search) yourself.
Run your free audit
See whether AI assistants recommend your business — free, no account, no email. Three fields, and you get a personal link where your full report is published within 1–2 business days.
Check it yourself, right now
These are three questions about plumbers we put to an AI assistant ourselves, in three real markets. Open one and read today’s answer — nothing is sent to us, and we cannot edit a word of what it says — then open ours and see what the same question returned on the date we ran it. The two will not match exactly: AI answers are sampled, which is why every page we publish carries its date rather than claiming to be a live ranking.
- “Who are the best plumbers in Knoxville, TN?” Run in ChatGPT Run in Perplexity Then compare: on August 19, 2026 two independently-worded live-web-search passes named these 6 Knoxville, TN plumbers
- “Who are the best plumbers in New Orleans, LA?” Run in ChatGPT Run in Perplexity Then compare: on August 12, 2026 two independently-worded live-web-search passes named these 6 New Orleans, LA plumbers
- “Who are the best plumbing companies in Salt Lake City, UT?” Run in ChatGPT Run in Perplexity Then compare: on July 25, 2026 one live-web-search research pass named these 5 Salt Lake City, UT plumbers
How to get recommended by AI (and win Google at the same time)
- Claim and complete your Google Business Profile. AI assistants lean heavily on Google Business data. A complete profile — correct categories, service area, hours, photos, and a steady flow of recent reviews — is the single biggest lever for both AI mentions and the local map pack.
- Publish clear service-area and service pages. One page per service and per city you cover, in plain language, so an assistant can tell exactly what you do and where. Vague one-page sites are invisible to both crawlers and AI.
- Add LocalBusiness structured data. Schema.org markup for your name, address, phone, service area, and reviews helps engines parse you correctly. It is one of the cheapest, highest-leverage fixes and helps classic search at the same time.
- Earn reviews and answer common questions on-site. Review volume and recency are strong trust signals. An FAQ block that answers the real questions homeowners ask gives assistants quotable, citable text — often the exact sentence they surface.
- Get listed in the directories AI actually reads. Consistent name/address/phone across the directories and review sites that answer engines cite builds the corroboration they need before recommending you by name.
What AI visibility takes in Plumbing, specifically
The advice above is the same for every trade. These numbers are not — they are what the Plumbing category actually looks like, and they are why the work is worth doing for plumbers in particular.
Reviews behind a competitive Plumbing listing
215 (category median)
The second-highest review bar of the trades we cover — against 244 for HVAC and 56 for Electrical. Review count is one of the strongest signals both Google's local pack and an AI assistant lean on when they pick which plumbers to name, so this is the number to size your review push against — not a generic "get more reviews".
Source: Local Falcon — What 50 Million Search Results Reveal About Ranking in the Local 3-Pack
What a bought Plumbing lead costs per booked job
$37.50 shared → $1,071 per booked job
At this trade's typical 2–5% close rate on a shared lead, a $37.50 lead works out to $1,071 per booked job. An exclusive lead at $137.50 closes at 25–45%, landing at $393 per booked job — 2.7× cheaper per job. Being the business an assistant names costs nothing per lead and is exclusive by definition.
Why Plumbing is its own case
Shared leads close at 2–5%
Shared plumbing leads convert worst of the four — 3–8 shops race to call the same burst pipe first; pay-per-call typically runs $50–$150 per qualified call.
The Plumbing directory to claim: PHCC — Find a Professional — The Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors Association directory. A listing is a trade-authoritative citation confirming you’re an established plumbing professional.
Ranges are compiled from lead-vendor and industry sources (Angi, HomeAdvisor, Networx, Modernize, and contractor surveys) and re-verified against 2026 rate-card data. Most of these sources are lead vendors, who are incentivised to quote high — treat the figures as directional ceilings, not a price you should assume. Metro and urban markets run roughly 20–25% higher than smaller ones. The only real number is a written quote from the vendor for your own market and trade.
Frequently asked questions
Do AI assistants really recommend specific plumbers?
Yes. When a homeowner asks ChatGPT or Perplexity for the best plumber in their city, it answers with named businesses — drawn from Google Business Profiles, reviews, and the directories it trusts, not from ads. Most local plumbing firms are never named. If yours isn't, you're invisible at the moment a customer is ready to book.
How do I get my plumber business recommended by ChatGPT and Perplexity?
Claim and complete your Google Business Profile, keep recent reviews coming in, publish clear service-area and service pages, add LocalBusiness structured data, and keep your name, address and phone consistent across the directories AI reads. These are the same fixes that lift you in Google and the local map pack, so the work pays off no matter how a customer finds you. Cited's free audit gives you the specific list for your business.
Which cities does Cited cover for plumbers?
We publish an AI-visibility page for plumbing in 66 major U.S. metros — see the directory above — and the free audit works for any city you serve, not only the ones listed. Pick your city to see the exact questions homeowners there ask AI, or just run the audit for your own business name.
Is the AI-visibility audit free, and how does it work?
Yes, it's free and needs no account. We run the real buying-intent questions your customers ask with live AI web search (we never scrape Google) plus one-click self-run checks in ChatGPT and Perplexity, then publish your plain-English report at a personal link: whether you're mentioned, who gets recommended instead, and what to fix. Results are sampled and non-deterministic, and we show you exactly what we asked.
Do these fixes help my Google ranking too?
Yes — that's the point. The structured data, reviews, and service-area pages that make an AI assistant recommend your plumber business also lift you in Google and the local map pack. The AI metric is the hook; durable local visibility is the substance, so the value isn't hostage to how much traffic AI sends.