How much to pay an HVAC technician is easier to answer when you can see what other employers are posting right now.
Posted pay by role
Every number on this page comes from real job listings, not a survey.
Our sister job board, HVACHires, collects HVAC openings from employer career sites and applicant tracking systems across the U.S.
On October 5, 2026, it had 3,118 live HVAC listings from 140 employers, and 26% of them stated pay.
Here's the median posted hourly pay by role.
Median posted hourly pay, by HVAC role
Here is the middle half of posted pay (the 25th to 75th percentile) for each role, with how many employers it rests on.
| Role | Median | Middle half | Employers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commercial HVAC technician* | $41.50/hr | $33.75–$50.00 | 10 |
| HVAC installer | $31.75/hr | $26.00–$37.50 | 15 |
| HVAC service technician | $31.25/hr | $27.50–$37.50 | 18 |
| Dispatcher | $22.00/hr | $20.50–$25.50 | 15 |
| HVAC apprentice or helper | $19.50/hr | $17.50–$22.00 | 15 |
Some roles post annual figures instead.
| Role | Median | Middle half | Employers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Residential HVAC sales (comfort advisor)* | $150,000 | $110,500–$187,000 | 20 |
| HVAC service technician | $100,000 | $85,000–$117,000 | 29 |
| HVAC service manager | $87,500 | $81,000–$95,000 | 9 |
| HVAC installer | $85,000 | $60,000–$100,000 | 21 |
| HVAC technician (other titles)* | $77,500 | $70,000–$87,500 | 9 |
| HVAC apprentice or helper | $55,000 | $42,000–$75,000 | 9 |
* One employer supplied more than 40% of the ranges behind this figure.
Annual figures sit well above the hourly ones: a $31.25 median on a 2,080-hour year is $65,000, against a $100,000 annual median for service technicians.
Part of that gap is what the number describes, since some listings say outright that the annual range includes bonuses or commission.
For context, the BLS put the median wage for HVAC mechanics and installers at $29.33 an hour in May 2025, measured across everyone in the job rather than new postings.
Service techs, installers and commission
Installers and service technicians post almost the same hourly base, $31.75 and $31.25.
The difference is in the variable pay: 39% of employers hiring service technicians mention commission, against 16% of those hiring installers.
Spiffs show up the same way, at 17% of employers hiring service technicians and 7% of those hiring installers.
So a service tech comparing your listing with the one next to it is weighing base, commission and spiffs together, not one hourly number.
Commercial technicians post the highest hourly median, $41.50, and their listings are the most likely to mention EPA Section 608 certification (47% of employers).
Comfort advisors are paid on what they sell
Residential HVAC sales is the most commission-heavy role in the data.
49% mention commission
Nearly half of employers hiring comfort advisors and in-home sales consultants describe commission pay.
31% say uncapped
Close to a third of those employers describe uncapped pay or unlimited earnings.
29% supply the leads
Employers promise warm or company-provided leads, often with "no cold calling".
$110,500–$187,000
The middle half of posted annual figures, which mostly describe expected earnings.
That third card matters to anyone who pays for marketing.
At 29% of the employers hiring for the role, the recruiting pitch to a comfort advisor includes the lead flow itself, so the replacement leads your marketing produces can also be part of how you hire the people who close them.
The in-home sales process is what those advisors run once the lead is booked.
Multi-location companies vs independents
We split employers into multi-location companies (36 employers hiring in five or more cities, franchise brands included) and independents (104 employers).
Multi-location companies posted 2,740 of the 3,118 listings, so they dominate what candidates see on the board.
Only three roles had enough pay data on both sides to compare.
Multi-location companies
- Service technicians: $91,000 a year median (7 companies)
- Installers: $61,000 a year median (7 companies)
- Apprentices: $19.50 an hour median (7 companies)
Independent HVAC companies
- Service technicians: $107,500 a year median (22 employers)
- Installers: $97,500 a year median (14 employers)
- Apprentices: $19.00 an hour median (8 employers)
Independents posted higher annual figures for service technicians and installers, and about the same hourly rate for apprentices.
Treat the annual gap with care: the multi-location figures rest on seven companies each, and in both cases one company supplied more than 40% of the ranges.
Independents are also more likely to state pay on a given listing (44% against 24%), but fewer of them ever do: 38% of independents stated pay on at least one listing, against 53% of multi-location companies.
Perks employers name
| Role | Company vehicle | Sign-on bonus | Tools or tool allowance | Paid training |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commercial HVAC technician | 71% | 32% | 12% | 9% |
| Residential HVAC sales | 62% | 4% | 4% | 27% |
| HVAC service technician | 54% | 23% | 15% | 24% |
| HVAC installer | 43% | 16% | 13% | 22% |
| HVAC apprentice or helper | 35% | 9% | 16% | 23% |
Shares are of employers hiring for each role whose listings mention the perk, which is how trucks, sign-on bonuses and tools compare.
Standard benefits are named more often still: 85% of employers hiring service technicians mention paid time off and 77% a 401(k) match.
The dispatch desk
Dispatchers post a median $22.00 an hour, with the middle half between $20.50 and $25.50, from 15 employers.
None of the employers hiring dispatchers mention commission, and 15% mention paid training.
Some of these listings combine dispatch with taking calls (titles like "Dispatcher/Call Taker"), and booking calls is its own subject, covered in HVAC call booking rate and HVAC CSR training.
What this means for HVAC company owners
Check your posted pay against the middle half for the role, not the median alone.
A service tech listing at $27.50 an hour sits at the bottom quarter of what candidates see, and one at $37.50 sits at the top quarter.
If you pay commission or spiffs, say so in the listing, with the structure.
39% of employers hiring service technicians already mention commission, and a base rate without it looks low next to theirs.
Post pay at all if you don't today.
58% of employers never stated pay on any HVAC listing in the data, so a stated range already sets you apart from most of them.
And when you size a hire, size the work to keep them busy, which is the capacity question in how to grow an HVAC business and the weekly numbers in HVAC KPIs.
How we did it
Source. Listings come from HVACHires, which collects HVAC openings from employer career sites and applicant tracking systems. We used every HVAC listing live on October 5, 2026: 3,118 listings from 140 employers in 47 states and Washington, D.C. The board also lists plumbing jobs, which are left out here.
Roles. Each listing is assigned a role from its title. Residential HVAC sales covers comfort advisors and in-home sales titles, with sales engineers and sales managers left out. Off-trade titles were removed.
Pay. We used the midpoint of each posted range. Each employer and range counts once per role, so a company posting the same range at 50 branches counts once. Hourly and annual pay are kept separate, ranges outside $12–$150 an hour or $25,000–$400,000 a year are dropped as parsing errors (the board's own bounds), and a figure is shown only with at least 10 distinct ranges from at least 5 employers. A figure is withheld when one employer supplies more than half of its ranges, which removed the hourly figure for the general "HVAC technician" title. Medians are rounded to the nearest $0.25 an hour or $500 a year.
Multi-location companies. An employer hiring in five or more cities in the data (36 companies). Franchise brands are counted as one employer under the brand name. Everyone else counts as independent.
Listing text. Commission, company vehicle, sign-on bonus and tools use the board's benefit detector, which ignores duties like "commissioning" or "maintain company vehicle". Spiffs, paid training, EPA 608 and provided leads are text matches we checked by hand. An employer counts if any of its listings for that role mention it.
What it can't see. Posted pay is what employers advertise, not what they end up paying. Listings without pay (74%) aren't in the pay figures, and employers that post pay may differ from those that don't.
Data. The figures by role and segment are available as a CSV download. We don't publish individual listings or employer pay.
For journalists
You're welcome to use these figures with a link to this page.
Gabe Meierotto, founder of More Booked Installs and HVACHires and former Director of CRO at LaserAway (2018–2023), can talk about what the data means for HVAC company owners.
Reach him at hello@morebookedinstalls.com.
Frequently asked questions
Where does this HVAC pay data come from?
From HVACHires, the HVAC job board run by More Booked Installs founder Gabe Meierotto. It collects HVAC job listings from employer career sites and applicant tracking systems. The figures cover the 3,118 HVAC listings that were live on October 5, 2026, from 140 employers in 47 states and Washington, D.C.
How is the median posted pay calculated?
We take the midpoint of each posted pay range. Multi-location companies often post the same range at many branches, so each employer and range is counted once per role. Hourly and annual pay are reported separately, and a figure is only shown when it rests on at least 10 distinct ranges from at least 5 employers, with no single employer supplying more than half of them.
Does posted HVAC pay include commission?
Hourly figures are mostly base pay, with commission and spiffs described in the listing text, which is why we report how many employers mention them. Annual figures are mixed: some listings say outright that the range includes bonuses or commission, so treat annual numbers for commissioned roles as expected earnings, not base pay.
How much do HVAC companies pay comfort advisors?
Residential HVAC sales listings that posted an annual figure had a median of $150,000, with the middle half between $110,500 and $187,000, from 20 employers. Nearly half of the employers hiring for the role (49%) mention commission, so most of that figure depends on what the advisor sells.
Can I use these HVAC pay figures in an article?
Yes. Please cite More Booked Installs and link to this page. The figures by role are available as a CSV, and Gabe Meierotto is available to comment on what they mean for HVAC company owners.