Executive Summary
We scanned 65 plumbing companies websites to understand the true state of WordPress in the industry. Of the sites analyzed, 15 were confirmed WordPress sites—and the data tells a concerning story.
The average plumbing companie website has 5.1 plugins installed, creating a fragile stack that requires constant maintenance. Worse, 93% of sites received a failing grade (D or F) for mobile performance—a critical metric when homeowners with emergencies are increasingly searching on their phones.
With an estimated $169/month in hidden maintenance costs per site, plumbing companies are collectively spending over $30,480 annually just to keep their WordPress sites running. Our analysis suggests they could save $25,260/year by migrating to a modern platform.
Mobile Performance: The Ugly Truth
Google's PageSpeed Insights measures real-world performance. Here's how plumbing companies scored on mobile:
Why this matters: Emergency calls don't wait for slow websites. When pipes burst, homeowners call the first plumber whose site loads.
Plugin Fragility: A House of Cards
Every plugin is a potential point of failure—an update that breaks your site, a security vulnerability, or an abandoned project. Here's how plumbing companies stack up:
The sites with 20+ plugins face the highest maintenance burden—each update cycle risks breaking functionality, and the more plugins you have, the more likely conflicts become.
Page Builder Lock-in
Page builders promise easy editing but create vendor lock-in and performance overhead. Here's what plumbing companies are using:
80% of WordPress plumbing companies use a page builder. While these tools make editing easier, they add significant performance overhead and make future migrations more complex.
Security Concerns
Outdated WordPress installations and vulnerable plugins are the #1 attack vector for hackers. With plumbing companies handling sensitive homeowners with emergencies data, these security gaps pose significant business risk.
The Real Cost of WordPress
We calculated the true cost of ownership including hosting, security, plugin licenses, maintenance time, and developer support:
By migrating to a modern platform like Webflow, plumbing companies could eliminate plugin costs, reduce security overhead, and drastically improve performance—all while cutting their total cost of ownership.
Methodology
We compiled a list of 65 plumbing companies websites from industry directories and public sources. Each site was scanned using our automated analysis tool, which checks:
- WordPress detection and version identification
- Plugin enumeration and vulnerability scanning
- Google PageSpeed Insights API for performance metrics
- Page builder and theme detection
- Security header analysis
Of the 65 sites scanned, 15 were confirmed WordPress installations. The remaining 50 used other platforms (Webflow, custom builds, etc.) and were excluded from WordPress-specific analysis.
Scan conducted December. Individual site data kept anonymous.