How AI assistants choose who to recommend for plumbing work

We asked ChatGPT, Claude and Google AI Mode for plumbing work recommendations 13,431 times. Here is what they looked for on a plumber’s pages, across every plumbing job from a running toilet to a repipe.

October 15, 2026Research data through October 14, 2026

By Patrick

The short answer

Across plumbing jobs, assistants first checked whether a plumber listed the exact job the customer asked about. Then they told customers to confirm the Florida plumbing license, ask for the trip or diagnostic fee, and find out what the quote covered, such as removing the old fixture or pulling the permit.

What people actually asked
What your plumbing page has to explain
What the assistants looked for before recommending anyone
Your plumbing page checklist
Questions owners ask
How we got these numbers
See it on your own website

What people actually asked

We asked 156 different questions about plumbing work between September 2 and October 14, 2026. These are the six asked most, word for word, with how many of the 13,431 answers each produced:

“Plumber near me — I'm in 33713. Who do you recommend?”128 answers
“I just moved to Clearwater, FL (33755) and I don't know anyone here. Who's the go-to plumber around here?”127 answers
“Water is leaking under my kitchen sink and I had to shut off the supply valve. I'm in Palm Harbor, FL and I need someone out first thing tomorrow. Who should I call?”127 answers, asked with five different timings: within the next few hours, first thing tomorrow, tomorrow morning, tonight and today
“Looking for someone to do a drain cleaning in 33781 in the next few weeks. Any recommendations?”120 answers, asked with five different timings: before the end of the month, in the next few weeks, in two weeks, sometime this month and next month
“Toilet installation near me — I'm in 34698. Who do you recommend?”119 answers
“Who should I call for sewer-line repair in 33770?”118 answers

The other 150 questions asked for other jobs or worded the request differently. Together, the 13,431 answers covered 16 towns in Pinellas County, including St. Petersburg, Largo, Tarpon Springs, Seminole and Pinellas Park. Each town came up in 42 to 1,648 answers. By assistant: ChatGPT 5,575, Claude 4,642 and Google AI Mode 3,214.

The questions covered 41 specific jobs. Each has its own post:

The question underneath all of them

“Which plumber near me actually does this job, is licensed, and will tell me the price before starting?” Across every plumbing job, answers first checked that a plumber did that exact job, then asked about the license, the first-visit fee and what the quote covered.

What your plumbing page has to explain

Plumbing covers very different work, from a dripping faucet to a septic pump-out to a whole-house repipe. The point assistants raised most often was whether a plumber did the specific job at all. When a listing only said plumbing, or named repairs but not installs, answers told customers to call and ask. A plumbing site needs a page for each job it does, named the way customers say it.

Groups of jobs drew different questions. For repairs, such as a toilet, a disposal or a water heater, answers asked about the trip fee, flat-rate or hourly pricing, and repair against replacement. For installations, they asked what the quote included: removing the old unit, hauling it away, new supply lines and the permit. For drains and sewer lines, they told customers to ask for a camera inspection first.

Some advice held for every job. Assistants told customers to get the Florida plumbing license number and check it on the state DBPR site, and to confirm insurance before work began. Claude in particular often could not find a phone number it trusted, and left numbers out rather than guess. A plumbing page that names the jobs, the license and one working number answers what was missing most.

What the assistants looked for before recommending anyone

We read all 13,431 answers to see what the assistants looked for before naming a company for plumbing work, what they told the customer to ask, and what they said they couldn’t find.

What the assistants told customers to ask

Most common first:

Can the customer check the plumbing license?

Answers across the trade told customers to get the Florida plumbing license number and look it up on the state DBPR site. Some explained that a certified plumbing contractor’s number starts with CFC, and also told customers to ask for proof of insurance.

26% of the answers (3,553 of 13,431) brought this up.

Ask whether the contractor is eligible to work in Pinellas County and whether their insurance certificate is current.
— ChatGPT, asked “How do I check that a plumber in Clearwater, FL 33755 actually holds a valid plumbing contractor license and is insured? And which ones near me genuinely check out?”, September 3, 2026

What does the first visit cost, and is it flat-rate?

For repairs, answers told customers to ask for the trip, service-call or diagnostic fee before anyone came out. They also asked whether the job was priced flat-rate or by the hour, and whether the fee counted toward the repair.

13% of the answers (1,726 of 13,431) brought this up.

Ask for a not-to-exceed quote or diagnostic fee over the phone before they come out.
— Claude, asked “Water is leaking under my kitchen sink and I had to shut off the supply valve. I'm in Largo, FL and I need someone out today. Who should I call?”, September 3, 2026

Will the plumber look with a camera first?

For drains, sewer lines and hydro-jetting, assistants told customers to ask for a camera inspection before paying for clearing or digging. Several also said to ask for the video and whether the camera fee was included.

13% of the answers (1,688 of 13,431) brought this up.

Ask if they do a camera inspection first — a good sign of a company that diagnoses before quoting, rather than guessing.
— Claude, asked “Who should I call for sewer-line repair in Clearwater, FL?”, September 7, 2026

What does the quote include?

For installations, assistants told customers to ask whether the price covered removing the old unit, hauling it away, new supply lines and small parts. Some warned that a low install price can be labor only.

12% of the answers (1,611 of 13,431) brought this up.

Ask if the quote includes removal/haul-away of the old toilet and a new wax ring/supply line — some "installation" quotes are labor-only if you're supplying the toilet.
— Claude, asked “Toilet installation near me — I'm in Palm Harbor, FL 34683. Who do you recommend?”, September 5, 2026

Does the plumber actually do this job?

Answers often noted that a listing covered repairs but not installs, or wells but not sump pumps. They told customers to ask before booking, and some left out plumbers whose pages never named the job.

4% of the answers (600 of 13,431) brought this up.

Ask whether they handle simple toilet repairs like running toilets, leaks at the base, wax ring replacement, fill/flapper valve replacement, or full toilet replacement, depending on what you need.
— ChatGPT, asked “Looking for someone to do toilet repair in Palm Harbor, FL 34683 in the next few weeks. Any recommendations?”, September 5, 2026

Who pulls the permit, and is it in the price?

For repipes, water heaters, water lines and backflow work, assistants told customers to ask whether the plumber pulls the permit and whether it is in the quote. Some named the county or city permit by name.

4% of the answers (518 of 13,431) brought this up.

Ask each company for their FL plumbing license number and insurance, and confirm they'll pull the required county/city permit — repipes require one in Pinellas County.
— Claude, asked “A plumber in Palm Harbor, FL 34683 quoted me $11,000 for a whole-house repipe. Is that a fair price, and who else should I be calling for a comparison in the next few days?”, September 4, 2026

What the assistants couldn’t find

In 2,080 of the 13,431 answers, the assistant said it couldn’t find or confirm something it needed about a company. By assistant: Claude in 1,953 of its 4,642, ChatGPT in 117 of its 5,575 and Google AI Mode in 10 of its 3,214. As we asked it, Claude usually says what it couldn’t confirm; ChatGPT and Google AI Mode seldom do, so these counts mostly show what Claude couldn’t find. Most often:

A phone number or other way to reach the company: 1,180 answers
Reviews it could check: 510 answers
When the company could do the work: 377 answers
A price or how the job is priced: 237 answers
Whether the company serves the customer’s town or ZIP code: 223 answers
A license or insurance it could check: 218 answers
A warranty: 12 answers

Claude most often could not find a phone number it trusted for a plumber, and often could not verify reviews or say who could come soon. Every plumbing page can answer those with one working number, links to current reviews and how soon a plumber can usually come.

I can’t honestly say which Dunedin plumbers “genuinely check out” without checking each business’s current license and insurance records by name/license number.
— ChatGPT, asked “How do I check that a plumber in Dunedin, FL actually holds a valid plumbing contractor license and is insured? And which ones near me genuinely check out?”, September 3, 2026

Where the assistants sent people

Each answer linked to the pages the assistant relied on. Of the 10,217 ChatGPT and Claude answers about plumbing work, this is how many linked at least once to each kind of site:

A contractor’s own website: 97% (9,941 answers)
A directory or review site such as Yelp, Angi or the BBB: 54% (5,540 answers)
A manufacturer or home-improvement guide: 12% (1,186 answers)
An official license lookup: 5% (504 answers)
A Google search or Maps page: 1% (105 answers)

A contractor’s own website was the page linked most often, so your site is usually what the customer is sent to read.

Google AI Mode works differently. In 72% of its 3,214 answers, the links opened Google’s own listing for a business rather than a website. There, your Google Business Profile is the page the customer sees, so it needs the same facts as your site.

The checks behind every recommendation, applied to plumbing work

Can you come out when the customer needs you?

Plumbing questions ranged from a leak that needed someone tomorrow morning to a repipe planned weeks out. Assistants could not see anyone’s schedule, so they told customers to call and ask for the earliest confirmed arrival.

377 of the 13,431 answers about plumbing work, 343 of them from Claude, said the assistant couldn’t confirm this. In our July–August study across eight trades, it cost a business its place in 185 of the 657 conversations where it came up.

Can the customer reach a person?

A phone number was what assistants, mostly Claude, could not find most often for plumbers. Several left numbers out rather than guess, and sent customers to a website or a listing instead.

1,180 of the 13,431 answers about plumbing work, 1,170 of them from Claude, said the assistant couldn’t confirm this. In our July–August study across eight trades, it cost a business its place in 147 of the 290 conversations where it came up.

What do recent customers say?

Assistants often could not verify plumbing reviews and told customers to read recent Google reviews themselves. Some said to look for reviews that mention the same job, not general plumbing.

510 of the 13,431 answers about plumbing work, 508 of them from Claude, said the assistant couldn’t confirm this. In our July–August study across eight trades, it cost a business its place in 139 of the 569 conversations where it came up.

Source: How we research what AI assistants recommend.

Your plumbing page checklist

Work through this list on your plumbing page. Each item answers something the assistants looked for above.

Use “plumbing” in the page title, the main heading and the first paragraph.
Show your Florida plumbing license number with a link to the DBPR lookup, and say what insurance you carry.
State your service-call or diagnostic fee, whether repairs are flat-rate or hourly, and whether the fee is credited toward the work.
Say when you run a camera before drain or sewer work, what it costs, and whether the customer gets the video.
For each install, list what the price covers and what costs extra, including whether you supply the fixture.
Give each job you do its own page, and say plainly which related jobs you do not take.
Say which of your jobs need a permit, that you pull it, and whether its cost is in the quote.
Say how soon you can usually come for urgent repairs, and how far out you book planned installs.
Put one working phone number on every plumbing page, matching your Google listing.
Link to your Google reviews, and point to recent ones for each kind of job you do.

Going further: let assistants see real openings

For an urgent job, “open now” doesn’t answer the customer’s real question: can the right technician get to this address within the next few hours?

Merchant Context builds custom integrations with scheduling software so customers and AI assistants can read your current availability. Where your system records the job type, service area, duration and crew capacity, the integration can show those details with each opening, so an assistant can match it to the request instead of guessing.

We scope each connection to the software and data you actually have. A displayed opening is not a confirmed booking: the customer still confirms through your normal booking process, and the information is only useful while it is fresh.

Source: Merchant Context: custom integrations in the AEO service · checked 2026-10-14.

Questions owners ask

What should a plumbing company’s website show for each job?

Answers looked first for whether a plumber did the exact job asked about. Then they asked for the license, the first-visit fee and what the quote covers. A page for each job, naming it as customers do and stating these points, answers what customers were told to ask.

Should a plumber post a service-call fee online?

Assistants rarely found one, so they told customers to ask for the trip or diagnostic fee before booking. They also asked whether it is credited toward the repair. Stating the fee, or how it is set, answers that question before the call.

Do repair jobs and install jobs need different pages?

The answers treated them differently. For repairs they asked about the visit fee and repair against replacement. For installs they asked what the price covers, such as removing the old unit and pulling the permit. Answers also flagged plumbers whose pages named repairs but not installs.

Which AI assistants did you test?

ChatGPT, Claude and Google AI Mode. Between September 2 and October 14, 2026, they answered 13,431 questions about plumbing work: ChatGPT 5,575, Claude 4,642, Google AI Mode 3,214.

Will these changes guarantee a recommendation?

No. Nobody can promise that. These changes supply what the assistants were looking for in our research. Whether they move recommendations for your business is something to measure after they go live.

How we got these numbers

The questions, counts and quotes on this page come from the 13,431 answers ChatGPT, Claude and Google AI Mode gave between September 2 and October 14, 2026. We asked for plumbing work in 16 towns in Pinellas County, Florida. We collected them with software rather than the consumer apps, which can answer differently. We counted what each answer mentioned, what it said it couldn’t find and where it linked. Quotes never name a business.

The study figures come from an earlier set of assistant conversations in July and August 2026 across eight trades, coded for the reason each business was included or left out. Counts overlap and are never added together.

Read the full research method

See it on your own website

Send us your website address and we’ll make a free preview of your homepage, rewritten so customers and assistants can find your plumbing answers. You pay only if you accept it: $2,000 a month, month to month, with no build fee.

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Source: Merchant Context: the current website offer · checked 2026-10-14.