Most home services contractors pay between $1,500 and $6,000 per month for professional paid ads management, plus a one-time setup or onboarding fee that commonly runs $500 to $5,000. Where you land inside that range depends on three things: how much you spend on ads, which pricing model the agency uses, and how much real engineering work is included in the fee.
Most agencies make you sit through a discovery call to hear a number. We publish ours, so this guide can do something most cost guides cannot: walk through the whole market, then name exact prices at the end.
What are the three common agency pricing models?
Percentage of ad spend. The agency charges 10 to 20 percent of your monthly ad budget. At $20,000 per month in spend, that is $2,000 to $4,000 per month in fees. The model scales automatically, which sounds fair until you notice the incentive underneath it: the agency’s revenue grows when your budget grows, whether or not the extra spend is working. Treat every “time to scale up” conversation from a percentage-fee agency with that in mind.
Flat monthly retainer. A fixed fee, commonly $1,500 to $6,000 per month for contractors in the trades. Predictable, which is its whole virtue. The weakness is scope: many retainers are loosely defined, and you discover what is not included the day you ask for it. Creative refreshes, landing page fixes, and tracking work are the usual surprise line items.
Pay per lead. You buy leads at a unit price, which varies enormously by trade and job type: shared leads from marketplaces can run tens of dollars, exclusive leads for high-ticket work several hundred. The structural problem is the incentive to maximize lead volume, not lead quality. The practical problem is ownership: in many per-lead arrangements you never own the ad account, the audience data, or the tracking, so nothing compounds for your business.
Which pricing model is best for contractors?
A fixed fee tiered by ad spend band. The workload of managing a $60,000 per month program genuinely is larger than a $10,000 one (more campaigns, more creative, more testing), so the fee should step up with the size of the program. But inside a band, the fee should hold still, so your agency has no financial stake in nudging your budget upward. That keeps the predictability of a retainer without the percentage model’s conflict of interest.
Contract length matters as much as the model. Six and twelve month contracts are common in this market. They should not be: month-to-month arrangements exist, and an agency confident in its work can live with earning the next month every month.
Want to know what your current spend is actually producing? The free audit reviews your Google Ads, Meta Ads, and conversion tracking, and puts a dollar figure on what is being misallocated. Request a Free Audit. Five business days. No cost. No commitment.
What should be included at these prices?
Use this as a comparison checklist regardless of who you talk to:
- Both platforms. Google Ads and Meta Ads management under one fee, not one platform with the other sold separately.
- Creative on a stated cadence. How many fresh ad creatives per month, in writing. “Ongoing creative optimization” without a number is not a deliverable.
- The tracking layer. Ask directly whether conversion tracking engineering is included or billed separately, and whether call tracking is wired in. Ads optimized against broken tracking waste money no matter how good the management is; the five most common tracking gaps show how quietly it happens.
- Reporting you can check daily. A live dashboard beats a monthly PDF. You should never wonder what happened between reports.
- Ownership. You own the ad accounts, the tracking setup, and the data. Ask what leaves with you if you leave. The answer tells you how the relationship will go.
- Exit terms. If there is a long lock-in, the agency should be able to explain exactly why it needs one.
What does Superior Marketing charge?
Exact numbers, the same ones published on our services and pricing page:
- The Superior Audit: free for qualified home services contractors. A full review of your ad accounts and conversion tracking with a quantified estimate of misallocated spend.
- The Tracking Foundation: $2,500 one-time. The engineering build that pipes your real job revenue back to Google and Meta. Built once, documented, and yours forever, even if you leave.
- The Growth Engine: $2,500 to $5,000+ per month, tiered by your ad spend: $2,500 under $20,000 per month in spend, $3,500 from $20,000 to $50,000, and $5,000+ above that. Month-to-month, no long contracts.
The tiers step because the work steps. Inside a tier, your fee does not move when your budget does.
When is hiring an agency not worth it?
Below roughly $1,500 per month in ad spend, professional management fees are hard to justify: the fee would rival the media budget itself. If that is where you are, run lean yourself and grow the budget first; our guide on how much contractors should spend on marketing covers how to size it. And whatever your spend level, if your conversion tracking is broken, fix that before paying anyone to scale the ads. The same applies across every trade we work with, from HVAC to restoration.
Frequently asked questions
Is a percentage-of-spend fee ever fair?
At small budgets it can approximate a reasonable flat fee, and some percentage agencies do excellent work. The incentive problem never goes away, though. If you go this route, ask for a cap or a banded structure so the fee cannot climb without a conversation.
Should the agency own my ad account?
No. You should own the Google Ads account, the Meta Ads account, the tracking, and every byte of data they produce. Agency access should be granted, not the other way around. If an agency insists on running ads from an account they own, walk away; your performance history walks away with them when you leave.
Are setup fees legitimate?
Often, yes. Real onboarding work exists: account restructures, landing page fixes, and above all the conversion tracking build. The test is whether the fee buys something scoped, documented, and owned by you afterward. Our version is the Tracking Foundation: $2,500, one-time, and it goes with you if you ever leave.
How long should I commit to a new agency?
Sign for as little as the agency allows and evaluate on evidence. Expect an honest read on performance direction after 60 to 90 days of clean tracking. A long contract does not make an agency accountable; visible numbers do.
The fastest way to find out what you should be paying for is to see what you are paying for now. Request a Free Audit: a full review of your ad accounts and tracking, with a dollar figure on the waste. Five business days. No cost. No commitment.