City
What India actually pays its plumbers.
Six months of HelpRush invoice data, mapped against the published rate cards of every major incumbent. The gap is wider than anyone admits.
By Editorial, HelpRush · 16 April 2026 · 8 min read
We pulled six months of HelpRush invoices in Srinagar — every plumbing job, every electrical fix, every AC service — and lined them up against the published rate cards of the three incumbents most often quoted in the Indian press.
The gap was uncomfortable for everyone.
What customers actually paid
Median plumbing visit on HelpRush in February: ₹387. Median plumbing visit advertised by Urban Company in the same month: ₹599. Median plumbing visit demanded by an unaffiliated local pro found on JustDial: ₹450, with no visibility into the line items.
The ₹212 gap to UC is not a margin we keep — our commission is 20% on Basic, 12% on Pro, 8% on Elite. The customer keeps the difference. The pro keeps a higher share of the ticket.
What pros actually earned
Median net per pro per month for our top quartile: ₹38,400. Reported median for full-time UC pros in comparable categories (per The Ken, 2024): ₹22,000–28,000 after platform deductions.
“I keep more of every job, and the customer pays less. Where does the difference come from? Their take rate.”
The methodology
We sampled 4,382 jobs across plumbing, electrical, AC repair, and locksmith categories from October 2025 through March 2026. Outliers above the 95th percentile and below the 5th were excluded. UC and competitor figures are from publicly available rate cards and customer reviews; we cite each in /vs/urban-company.
Republish freely with attribution. Email hello@helprush.in for the full dataset.