What should a contractor pay for a lead?
Compare sourced paid-search lead costs and click-to-lead conversion rates with your own contractor economics. A target CPL range comes from your allowable acquisition cost and qualified-lead-to-customer rate, not a universal trade average. Budget splits must reflect your own priorities and add up to 100%.
- Published medians below are paid-search context, not recommended ranges or performance promises.
- Click-to-lead conversion is not your lead-to-customer close rate.
- Verified first-party trade target ranges and budget percentages are not yet available. No stand-in numbers are published.
Paid-search reference by trade
LocaliQ’s 2025 study • Google & Microsoft search ads • US campaigns • median, not mean
| Publisher’s trade category | Median CPL | Ad conversion |
|---|---|---|
| Air Conditioning Installation & Repair | $127.74 | 6.56% |
| Blinds & Window Treatments | $113.30 | 6.00% |
| Cleaning / Maid / Butler Services | $46.99 | 17.65% |
| Construction & Contractors (General) | $165.67 | 2.61% |
| Doors & Windows Sales | $200.34 | 4.41% |
| Electricians & Electrical Contractors | $93.69 | 9.08% |
| Garages | $81.45 | 5.66% |
| Handyman Services | $54.05 | 13.45% |
| Heating & Furnaces | $129.02 | 7.48% |
| Landscaping | $117.92 | 6.42% |
| Paint & Painting | $138.38 | 10.80% |
| Plumbing | $129.02 | 7.63% |
| Pools & Spas | $45.15 | 10.89% |
| Roofing & Gutters | $228.15 | 3.70% |
| Storage | $120.30 | 4.65% |
| Window Cleaning | $66.69 | 13.58% |
Source: LocaliQ, 2025 Home Services Search Advertising Benchmarks. Category labels are preserved: “Garages” is not asserted to mean garage-door repair, and “Roofing & Gutters” is a combined category.
Your trade’s target CPL & budget split
Use your own acquisition allowance, close rate, and monthly budget. Calculations are private planning scenarios, not published benchmarks. Separate entries are kept per trade until you leave or reload this page.
Nearest publisher categories for HVAC: Air Conditioning Installation & Repair — $127.74 CPL, 6.56% ad conversion; Heating & Furnaces — $129.02 CPL, 7.48% ad conversion. Category context only, not a service-specific target.
Calculate an affordable lead range
Allowable acquisition cost × qualified-lead close rate = target CPL. Choose an acquisition allowance that leaves room for delivery costs, overhead, and profit.
HVAC: your calculated target CPL
Not calculated
Enter positive allowances (high ≥ low) and a close rate above 0% and no more than 100%.
Allocate your monthly marketing budget
| Channel | Share (%) | Monthly ($) |
|---|---|---|
| Website & local service pages | — | |
| Reviews & follow-up | — | |
| Local SEO & AI search | — | |
| Organic social | — | |
| Paid ads | — |
Total: 0%. Enter all five shares (0 is allowed), totaling 100%, and a positive budget.
Methodology & limits
Median figures from 3,211 US-based LocaliQ customer search-ad campaigns on Google and Microsoft, April 1, 2024–March 21, 2025. Each category includes at least 103 unique active campaigns. Exact category counts and standardized conversion-event definitions are not disclosed. This is a vendor customer sample, not a representative survey of all contractors. These are 2025 study figures, not 2026 observations or Digital Marketing Coach client results.
A conversion is an advertiser-tracked action; it is not necessarily a unique qualified lead, booked job, or paying customer. Markets, seasons, service mix, repeat customers, tracking settings, and branded searches change results. Compare like-for-like periods and count qualified leads separately. These medians do not establish target ranges, budget percentages, or expected revenue.
Definitions that make comparisons useful
- Paid-search CPL
- Paid-search spend ÷ tracked lead conversions. Do not mix media-only spend with agency fees without labeling it.
- Qualified-lead close rate
- New customers ÷ qualified leads × 100, from the same lead cohort. Define qualification and customer status consistently.
- Channel budget share
- Channel spend ÷ total marketing budget × 100. Specify whether labor, software, production, and agency fees are included.
Contribute your real figures to the first-party benchmark project
Common questions
- What is a good cost per lead for a contractor?
- Use your allowable cost to acquire a customer multiplied by your qualified-lead-to-customer rate. Compare only matching trades, services, channels, markets, and periods. Published averages are context, not a promised target.
- Is ad conversion rate the same as a close rate?
- No. Click-to-lead conversion rate is tracked ad conversions divided by clicks. Close rate is new customers divided by qualified leads from the same cohort. A phone call or form submission is not automatically a booked or completed job.
- What percentage should each trade spend on each channel?
- No verified universal trade-specific budget split is published here. Start with website and service-page foundations, reviews, local and AI search, and organic social before scaling ads. Enter your own percentages to calculate a budget; those calculations are not research findings.
- Are these Chris Heidlebaugh's client averages?
- No. External benchmark figures are credited to their original publisher. Digital Marketing Coach has not published a validated first-party CPL, close-rate, or channel-budget dataset by trade on this page.
How to cite this page
Heidlebaugh, C. (2026). Contractor Cost-Per-Lead & Conversion Benchmark Table. Digital Marketing Coach. Updated 2026-10-18. https://digitalmarketingcoach.com/research/contractor-cost-per-lead-benchmarks
For the numerical medians, credit LocaliQ’s 2025 study and link to its source. Credit Chris for the planning framework, not for collecting LocaliQ’s campaign data.
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Written & reviewed by
Chris Heidlebaugh — Digital Marketing Coach & author of Digital Marketing for DIYers
- 25+ years in marketing
- 18+ years on the job site
- 20,000+ students taught
- Home services specialist
- M.S., Computer Science
- B.S., Internet Marketing
- College professor, digital marketing
- Owner of multiple seven-figure marketing agencies
- Published author and speaker
- Published:
- Last updated:
- Reviewed for accuracy:
- by Chris Heidlebaugh (Benchmark interpretation and contractor budget planning)
Every guide here is written from real client work with contractors, roofers, plumbers, HVAC, electricians, and landscapers — then re-checked against current Google, Google Business Profile, and AI search behavior before it's updated. Meet the expert review board →
