Well drilling cost register: 180 published US prices, open data

This page publishes our well drilling cost data as an open dataset: a dated, source-cited register of published US prices for private water well work. It is the data behind the price ranges discussed in well drilling cost and complete well installation cost. You can download the CSV below, read how it was built, and cite it with a DOI.

What is in the water well cost dataset?

The register lists 180 published prices, plus 1 method note, for private (residential and domestic) water well work in the United States. Each row records what the price covers, the market it applies to, the publisher, a link to the source page, the source's own date, the date we checked it, and the price wording quoted from the source. The full record is on Zenodo, with the persistent identifier 10.5281/zenodo.23404401. [TWDG-REGISTER-ZENODO source note] [TWDG-REGISTER-DOI source note]

The cost items, by number of price rows:

Which states have well drilling prices by state?

The register covers 32 states plus rows that apply nationally: AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, FL, GA, ID, IN, KY, MA, MD, MI, MN, MO, NC, NE, NH, NM, NY, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WA and WI. Coverage is uneven. Permit and water testing rows come mostly from county health departments and state labs, while per-foot drilling prices come from the few drillers that publish them and from national cost guides. A state's presence in the list means at least one row applies there, not that its market is fully described.

Some rows apply to more than one state, for example a contractor that serves parts of three neighboring states, and those rows list every state they name. National rows, such as those from HomeAdvisor and HomeGuide, are marked US and tagged secondary. [HOMEADVISOR-WELL source note] [HOMEGUIDE-WELL source note]

How was the register built?

Sources were found by web search and from cost-source leads in this guide's research files. Each page or document was downloaded and converted to text. The rules:

1. Only prices printed on the source. Nothing is estimated, interpolated, averaged, inflation-adjusted or converted.
2. Every row carries a verbatim quote, and a script checks that each quote appears in the captured source text. All price rows pass.
3. "Starting at", "about" and open-ended "+" values are recorded as published and flagged.
4. Where a fee schedule shows two years, the current year is used and both are noted.
5. Inferred fields are flagged in the notes column.

Primary rows are a contractor's own published price or a government or university fee schedule, such as the Wisconsin DNR well construction notification page. Secondary rows are compiled ranges from cost guides and a directory profile. Rows flagged HISTORICAL (an undated price list under a 2017 upload path, 2014 lab prices and a 2002 extension survey) are kept for reference only. [WI-DNR-NOTIFY source note]

The columns include an ID, the cost item, the component priced, the scope as stated, low, high and single published values in US dollars, the unit as published, geography and state, the publisher, the independent business name where the price is a business's own, the source URL, the source's date, the retrieval date, the source type and tier, a record type, the verbatim quote and notes.

How should you use the data?

• Compare like with like: filter on cost item, scope, unit and geography before comparing rows.
• Count businesses, not rows, because one business can publish several prices.
• Don't average across rows to make a national average; sources differ in scope and method.
• Government fees change on fiscal-year cycles, so check the source date.
• Treat "starting at" prices as floors and open-ended ranges as incomplete.
• These are published prices, not quotes or completed-job data, and not a representative sample.

For your own well, use the register to see what different sources publish, then line up itemized written quotes with the quote checklist and run the numbers in the cost calculator.

What are the limits of this data?

The register is weighted toward pump work, permits and lab testing, because few drillers publish per-foot drilling prices. Several contractor pages are undated, and contractor cost pages usually describe typical local ranges rather than fixed price lists. Government fees exclude state surcharges unless stated. Alabama has no rows, and New Mexico is covered only by a national cost guide's state page.

License and citation

The compilation is released under CC BY 4.0 by The Well Drilling Guide. The underlying figures are third-party facts that belong to their publishers, so cite the original source as well as the register.