Drain Cleaning Cost Guide
What drain work typically costs, in ranges, and why. A drain price depends on which line, how it is reached, and what is actually inside it, so this guide gives you the range for each service and the factors that place a job inside it. When you call, you describe the problem and hear the likely range for your job from the contractor before anything is booked.
Ranges at a glance
Every range on this site, drawn to the same scale. The wider the bar, the wider the spread between a simple job and a hard one.
Typical ranges by service
| Service | Typical range | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Drain Cleaning | $99-$450 | The core service: mechanical cleaning that clears the clog and scrapes the pipe walls, not just a hole poked through the blockage. |
| Clogged Drain Repair | $120-$550 | For the drain that is already blocked: diagnosis first, then the right fix, so the same clog does not come back next month. |
| Main Line Cleaning | $200-$650 | When every drain in the house slows at once, the problem is the main line. Heavier cables, bigger blades, full-bore cleaning. |
| Sewer Line Cleaning | $250-$900 | The buried line from your house to the street: root cutting, scale removal and jetting, with camera proof of the pipe's condition. |
| Hydro Jetting | $300-$900 | High-pressure water that scours pipe walls clean - the answer for grease, scale and lines that keep re-clogging after cabling. |
| Drain Camera Inspection | $125-$500 | See inside the pipe before you spend on the fix: roots, cracks, bellies and blockages located precisely, with footage to decide on. |
| Kitchen Drain Cleaning | $99-$400 | Grease, food sludge and dishwasher backflow: the kitchen line cleaned properly, with the habits that keep it clear explained. |
| Bathroom Drain Cleaning | $99-$400 | Hair, soap scum and toothpaste: tubs, showers and bathroom sinks cleared at the trap and the branch, not just at the surface. |
| Floor Drain Cleaning | $110-$450 | Basement, laundry and garage floor drains: the house's safety valve, cleaned and trap-checked before it is needed in a flood. |
| Emergency Drain Cleaning | $150-$700 | Sewage backing up, water rising, guests arriving: what counts as a drain emergency, what to do in the first ten minutes, and how the visit works. |
| Commercial Drain Cleaning | $250-$1,200 | Restaurants, rentals, offices and multi-unit buildings: scheduled cleaning and jetting that keeps drains off your problem list. |
Cost by severity
A single slow or blocked fixture - one sink, tub or shower, no other symptoms - is the lowest-cost category in drain work, typically inside the $99-$450 standard cleaning range. The blockage is close, the equipment is light, and the visit is short.
A line-level problem - a kitchen branch coated with grease, a recurring clog, a line that needs jetting - sits in the middle: the $200-$650 territory of main and branch work, and $300-$900 where hydro jetting is the right tool. A camera inspection at $125-$500 often belongs in this category, because severity here is exactly what needs diagnosing.
A main or sewer problem - several fixtures affected, roots in the line, a backup - is the highest cleaning category: $200-$650 for the main line, $250-$900 for the sewer line, and $150-$700 for emergency visits. Repairs to the pipe itself, where the camera shows damage, are a separate category and are always scoped and ranged separately after the evidence is in.
What moves the price
- The line: a bathroom branch is quick work; a 100-foot sewer run is not.
- Access: a clean, reachable cleanout saves time on every job. Buried, seized or hidden access adds it.
- The cause: hair and grease clear faster than root masses and descaling.
- The method: cabling is the baseline; jetting and camera work add equipment and time, and usually subtract repeat visits.
- The hour: after-hours and holiday emergency work carries the premium you would expect. Slow problems booked in daylight are the cheapest version of themselves.
- Repetition: the second and third clearing of the same line cost more in total than one diagnosis - the arithmetic that makes camera inspections pay.
How to talk price on the call
Describe the fixture, the symptom and the history. Ask which range the contractor expects your job to fall in, and what would move it. Agree the range before the visit. If the job changes on site because the pipe holds a surprise, expect the contractor to stop, show you, and agree the new range before continuing. That sequence - range first, evidence for any change - is the working pattern this site is built around, and it protects you far better than any exact figure quoted blind.
Hear the range for your exact job
Two minutes on the phone: describe the drain, get the likely range from a local contractor, then decide. No work begins before you have agreed it.
(866) 555-0134 Tap to call nowA live person answers, day or night. Describe the problem, hear the likely range, then decide.
Questions, answered
Why are drain prices always ranges?
Because nobody can see inside your pipe from a web page. The same symptom - a slow drain - can be a trap full of hair or a main line full of roots, and those are different jobs. A range tells you honestly where your job is likely to land; the contractor confirms the range for your specific job on the call, before work begins.
What moves a job up inside its range?
Access (a cleanout that is easy to reach versus one buried behind a finished wall), line length, how established the buildup is, whether a camera inspection or hydro jetting is needed, and timing - after-hours emergency work typically costs more than the same work in daylight.
Is a camera inspection worth paying for?
For a first simple clog, usually not needed. For anything recurring, anything in the main or sewer line, and before any digging or replacement, yes: it is the difference between paying for the right fix and paying for a guess, and its range of $125-$500 is small next to a wrong repair.
How do I keep the price at the low end?
Act at the slow-drain stage, keep the work area and cleanout accessible, describe the problem accurately when you call so the right equipment arrives first time, and book non-urgent work in normal hours. Those four things, together, are most of the difference between the bottom and the top of any range on this page.
Will the contractor change the price on site?
The range should hold for the job as described. If the contractor finds something materially different - a collapsed line behind a simple clog, for example - the honest pattern is to stop, show you the evidence, and agree a new range with you before doing anything further.