As of mid-2026, a home services contractor buying leads through Google Ads pays somewhere between roughly $104 and $130 per lead in HVAC and plumbing, around $94 in electrical, and around $228 per lead in roofing, depending on which published dataset you trust. Agency management fees mostly hide behind discovery calls, but the few published numbers cluster between $2,000 and $3,000 per month for paid ads management. This page collects the benchmarks we consider citable: published, dated, with named sources and sample sizes, and nothing else.
We update this page as new datasets publish. Last reviewed July 2026.
What does a lead cost in home services right now?
Two current datasets publish per-trade cost-per-lead figures with real sample sizes behind them.
| Trade | Cost per lead | Source and window |
|---|---|---|
| Air conditioning / HVAC | ~$128 | LocaliQ, 3,211 US home services campaigns, Apr 2024 to Mar 2025 |
| Plumbing | ~$129 | LocaliQ, same dataset |
| Electrical | ~$94 | LocaliQ, same dataset |
| Roofing | ~$228 | LocaliQ, same dataset |
| HVAC + plumbing blended | $104 | Searchlight Digital, 816 contractors, $14.9M in tracked Google Ads spend, published Jan 2026 |
One definition matters before you compare your account to any of these: a lead is not a booked job. These figures count form fills and calls that the advertiser’s tracking recognized as leads. If your close rate is one booked job per four leads, a $128 lead is a $512 booked job before you count the truck roll. And if your conversion tracking is missing calls or double-counting forms, your dashboard’s cost per lead is not comparable to anyone’s benchmark, including these.
Not every trade has a citable figure. Fencing and deck work, for one, has no published per-trade cost-per-lead dataset with a credible sample size behind it. For any trade without a row above, skip the market comparison entirely and work out your own maximum affordable cost per lead with the method further down this page.
Why do the two datasets disagree?
Because they measure different populations with different methods. LocaliQ aggregates thousands of campaigns across every spend level, including small accounts with rough tracking. Searchlight’s figure comes from contractors on its own attribution platform, which skews toward accounts where the measurement is tighter. Neither number is wrong; they bracket the range.
That is the honest way to read every benchmark on this page: as a range check, not a target. An account can beat the benchmark with bad tracking (by counting junk as leads) and trail it with great tracking (by counting only real ones). The number only means something once you trust what your account reports to Google as a conversion.
Want your real numbers instead of the market’s? The free audit reviews your Google Ads, Meta Ads, and conversion tracking, and puts a dollar figure on what is being wasted. Request a Free Audit. Five business days, no cost, no commitment.
What do agencies charge to manage home services ads?
Published pricing is rare in this market. Most incumbents, including the largest home services agencies, publish no prices at all and quote after a sales call. The numbers that are public:
- Hook Agency publishes its prices: PPC management starting at $2,000 per month, local SEO at $2,800 per month, Meta ads at $3,000 per month, and websites at $12,000 to $24,000 split over 12 months.
- RYNO Strategic Solutions publishes its Local Services Ads management fee: 20 percent of LSA spend with dispute handling, 15 percent without.
- SE Ranking’s December 2024 survey of 260 agencies (cross-industry, not trades-specific) found 64 percent charge SEO retainers under $1,000 per month, which is useful mostly as a reminder that “agency pricing” spans an enormous quality range.
- Superior Marketing publishes prices too: ad management from $2,500 per month tiered by ad spend, and a one-time $2,500 conversion-tracking build. The full breakdown is on our services page.
For what those fees should include at each level, and the three pricing models behind them, see our guide on what a home services marketing agency costs.
What contract terms are standard, and which should you accept?
- Long contracts are common; they should not be. The largest home services agency runs 12-month terms on its marketing technology and SEO products, with ad management month-to-month. Month-to-month arrangements for everything exist in the market, and an agency confident in its work can live with earning the next month every month.
- Ownership carve-outs are the expensive fine print. Proprietary website platforms and agency-held ad accounts mean that leaving costs you the website, the data, or both. Before signing anything, get in writing what you keep the day you leave.
- Minimum-size gates are real. Several prominent agencies state or enforce revenue minimums: published best-fit thresholds at $3 million, stated targets of $2 million and up, and minimum project sizes of $10,000. If your shop is under $2 million to $3 million in revenue, much of the market is not built for you, whatever the sales page says.
- Delivery is the gap, not tooling. Revenue-attribution tools have existed at the top of this market for years, yet research commissioned by Scorpion, the industry’s largest agency, found in February 2026 that 67 percent of home services leaders still cannot connect marketing spend directly to revenue. Whoever you hire, make them show you the connection in your own dashboard, not a slide.
How should you use these benchmarks?
Work out your own maximum affordable cost per lead first, then use the market figures as a sanity check. The math takes three numbers you already know: average ticket by job type, gross margin, and close rate. Our free Lead Value Calculator runs that math for you and checks the result against the benchmarks on this page. Illustrative example, not client data: at a $6,000 average ticket, 50 percent gross margin, and a 25 percent close rate, a lead is worth up to $750 at break-even; paying $130 for it is comfortable, and paying $228 still works. At a $300 tune-up ticket, the same math collapses, which is why what you spend matters less than what job types your ads are pointed at, and why ads optimized toward real job revenue beat ads optimized toward any lead that fills a form.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good cost per lead for HVAC?
The two current published datasets put HVAC at roughly $104 to $128 per lead on Google Ads. A “good” number for your company depends on your average ticket and close rate: an installer closing high-ticket replacements can profitably pay far more than a shop selling tune-ups.
Why is my cost per lead higher than the benchmark?
Three usual reasons, in order of likelihood: your tracking undercounts (phone calls that never register as conversions make real cost per lead look worse than it is), your campaigns target low-intent searches, or your market is genuinely more expensive. Recovering the missed conversions is usually the cheapest fix of the three.
How much should a contractor spend on ads per month?
Enough to generate statistically meaningful data for the trade and metro, which for most of the trades means a floor around $1,500 per month. Our marketing budget guide walks through the ranges by revenue size.
Do these benchmarks include Local Services Ads?
No. The figures above are standard Google Ads campaigns. LSA pricing works differently (you pay per lead directly, at rates Google sets by trade and market), and published LSA benchmark data with credible sample sizes is thin. We will add LSA figures when a dataset worth citing exists.
Your account’s numbers beat the market’s numbers, every time. The free Superior Audit reads your actual Google Ads, Meta Ads, and conversion tracking, then reports what a lead really costs you, what a booked job really costs you, and where the waste is. Request a Free Audit. Written report, video walkthrough, five business days.