Some ranges come from city permit records. When a contractor pulls a permit, they declare a job value, and cities use it to set the fee. We call these permit values. They are not receipts, and each city's values are checked against the Census survey before we use them. We never call them what you paid.
Other ranges come from the Census American Housing Survey, where homeowners report work done on their homes and what they paid. For those, we do say paid.
The fair zone and the tape
The fair zone is the middle half of the observed values. The tape on each calculator covers everything except the lowest and highest tenth. The sample tiers table below gives the exact percentiles. A quote below the zone is low and above it is high. Neither is automatically wrong; each comes with questions worth asking.
Every dollar figure is adjusted to today's dollars with the Consumer Price Index. We rerun each range with the producer price index for the matching materials and flag any range that moves more than a tenth.
Regions and cities
We compare your quote with permits from your own city when we have them. Otherwise we use the cities in your Census region and name them on the page. We never present a city's numbers as local data for another place.
What we leave out
Commercial jobs, new construction, mobile homes and multi-unit buildings.
Amendments, renewals, re-issues and inspection-only permits.
Permits that bundle other work, like a remodel, an addition or several systems.
Repairs, relocations and prep-only work.
Values that look like a fee schedule entry rather than a job, only through an adjustment Matt approves and lists below.
Sample tiers
Permits or survey jobs
What the page shows
30 or more
Low, Fair or High verdict. Zone: 25th to 75th percentile. Tape: 10th to 90th percentile.
15 to 29
Early read: 20th to 80th percentile, labeled "limited sample". No "Fair" headline.
Under 15
Range only, no verdict.
Calibration by city
City
Region
AC permit median
AC permits
Census AHS 2023 regional median paid
Gap
Result
Cleveland
Midwest
$6,620
481
$5,830
+13.6%
Pass
Buffalo
Northeast
$7,040
297
$8,790
-19.9%
Pass
Pittsburgh
Northeast
$7,150
178
$8,790
-18.7%
Pass
Seattle
West
$8,880
1,026
$9,160
-3.1%
Pass
Baltimore
South
$8,530
204
$7,550
+12.9%
Pass
New Orleans
South
$10,110
1,243
$7,550
+33.9%
Fail: excluded from every class
San Francisco
West
$12,410
56
$9,160
+35.5%
Fail: excluded from every class
Limit: within 20% of the Census AHS 2023 central air median for the city's region.
Excluded after calibration: New Orleans and San Francisco. Their permits are not used in any range on this site.
Cleaning thresholds
Values under $500 and over $75,000 are dropped.
Permits issued in the last 3 years.
Matt's field adjustments
These are Matt's calls, shown as his. Each removes one exact declared value that is not a real job price, for one city and one class.
City
Class
Declared value removed
Permits removed
Reason
Approved
Cleveland
AC only
$1,400
27
likely labor-only or homeowner permits
Matt, October 2026
Buffalo
Heat pump
$12,800
20
single contractor template value
Matt, October 2026
Seattle
Standby generator
$2,475
14
electrical portion only; the generator is billed separately
Matt, October 2026
Buffalo
Panel replacement
$1,200
227
fee-schedule value, below any real service replacement
Matt, October 2026
Buffalo
Panel replacement
$1,100
111
fee-schedule value, below any real service replacement