Profit Margin
4.5%
Net income ÷ total receipts (IRS SOI)
Wholesale Trade ·NAICS 4237
NAICS 4237 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers - Industry Benchmarks
597 SBA loans on record, $563M in volume, for NAICS 4237.
- 4.5%
- Net margin
- N/A
- Workers employed
- N/A
- Avg payroll / employee
- $563M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 4237
Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers runs a 4.5% pre-tax net margin - below the national median - across 20K establishments employing N/A workers.
- 4.5%
- Pre-tax net margin (IRS SOI)
- N/A
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- N/A
- Avg payroll / employee
- $563M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers
Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers sits inside Wholesale Trade at a 4.5% net margin (below the national median), $100.9B in aggregate receipts across 12,551 returns, averaging $8.0B per establishment.
20,116 establishments employ N/A workers. California leads employment, followed by Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Total Receipts
$100.9B
Annual revenue (IRS SOI)
Net Income
$4.5B
Pre-tax net income
Employment
N/A
Total employees (Census CBP)
Avg Payroll / Employee
N/A
Annual compensation
Establishments
20,116
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
establishment count decreased by 160. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.
Where each dollar of Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers revenue goes
Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers margin vs national reference points
Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers net margin 14.8%
Cross-industry median (5%)
p25/median/p75 = 3%/5%/8%
Business Structure Breakdown
How businesses in this industry are legally structured (IRS SOI)
C Corporation
12,551 returns 100%
Margin: 4.5% · Receipts: $100.9B
Financial Detail
- Total Tax Returns Filed
- 12,551
- Avg Receipts per Business
- $8.0B
- Annual Payroll (Total)
- $25.0B
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| Hardware Merchant Wholesalers NAICS 42371 | N/A |
| Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies (Hydronics) Merchant Wholesalers NAICS 42372 | N/A |
| Refrigeration Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers NAICS 42374 | N/A |
| Warm Air Heating and Air-Conditioning Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers NAICS 42373 | N/A |
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| California | 31,084 |
| Ohio | 13,943 |
| Pennsylvania | 11,199 |
| Michigan | 9,138 |
| New Jersey | 8,222 |
| Wisconsin | 8,089 |
| Indiana | 7,435 |
| Washington | 5,722 |
| Minnesota | 4,934 |
| Connecticut | 3,946 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
597
Total Loan Volume
$563M
Avg Loan Size
$942K
Jobs Supported
5,001
Program Breakdown
7(a) 482 (81%)
504 115 (19%)
Top SBA Lender
The Huntington National Bank
39 loans in this industry
New Business Share
18.1% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 80
2021 110
2022 90
2023 95
2024 113
2025 95
2026 14
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the average revenue for Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers?
$100.9B in total annual receipts across all Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers businesses. Average per business: $8.0B.
How profitable is Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers?
4.5% net profit margin, below the national median.
How many businesses are in Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers?
20,116 business establishments.
What is the average payroll per employee in Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers?
Average payroll data for Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers is not available in the current Census CBP dataset.
Which states have the most Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers employment?
California leads with 31,084 workers. Ohio (13,943) and Pennsylvania (11,199) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers receive?
Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers businesses received 597 SBA loans totaling $563 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $942K. These loans supported 5,001 jobs at origination. Most lending (81%) came through the SBA 7(a) program.
Comparable industry benchmarks
These links are calculated from the current national dataset. They are comparison paths, not recommendations or evidence that businesses operate alike.
How this ranks: Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers reports a higher net margin than 42% of the 126 IRS-tracked industries at the same NAICS detail level. Calculated by ranking this industry's reported value against every other industry at the same NAICS digit-level, not the whole dataset: comparing a 6-digit detail industry to a 2-digit sector would mix incompatible scales.
Closest reported net margins
Same NAICS detail level, ordered by the smallest difference in reported IRS pre-tax margin.
Benchmarking Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers
- Net margin: 4.5% vs sector. Browse Wholesale Trade
- 20,116 establishments, N/A workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 597 SBA loans on record. SBA lending rankings
Disclaimer: Public IRS/Census data, not financial or tax advice. See our full disclaimer.
Sources: IRS Statistics of Income (SOI) Business Tax Statistics · Census Bureau County Business Patterns 2023
NAICS 4237 · Data year: 2023
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, which released its 2023 County Business Patterns dataset in June 2025, PlainBizBench benchmarks 2,002 U.S. industries against Internal Revenue Service Statistics of Income data. See our methodology for the full compilation process.
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns / SUSB Industry employment scale, payroll, and firm-size benchmarks · 2023
Every figure on PlainBizBench is rendered directly from federal source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page aggregates profit-margin, payroll, entity-type, and SBA-lending benchmarks for this industry, live from the dataset. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.
Disclaimer: Public IRS/Census data, not financial or tax advice. See our full disclaimer.