What Should A Home Service Lead Cost You?
Why are published cost-per-lead averages so unreliable?
Because they average across things that are not comparable. A shared marketplace lead sold to four contractors and an exclusive lead from your own campaign are different products at different prices. Add variation by trade, city, season and storm activity, and a single national average describes almost nobody accurately.
- Trade: a $500 job and a $30,000 job justify completely different acquisition costs.
- Market: a dense, competitive metro and a rural county are not the same auction.
- Season: costs climb when every competitor advertises at once.
- Lead type: exclusive versus shared changes both price and close rate.
- Definition: some sources count form fills, others count qualified appointments.
If someone quotes you a cost per lead, ask what counts as a lead. A $12 lead that is an unverified form fill and a $90 lead that is a booked appointment on your calendar are not competing numbers — they measure different things.
That said, published benchmarks are useful for one thing: showing how far apart trades really are. The table below is Google Ads data from LocaliQ, covering 3,211 US home services campaigns run between April 2024 and March 2025[1]. It is their client base rather than an industry census, so read it as a shape rather than a target.
| Trade | Cost per click | Conversion rate | Cost per lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roofing & gutters | $10.70 | 3.70% | $228.15 |
| Doors & windows sales | — | — | $200.34 |
| Construction & contractors | — | 2.61% | $165.67 |
| Painting | — | — | $138.38 |
| Plumbing | $10.49 | 7.63% | $129.02 |
| Heating & furnaces | $9.30 | 7.48% | $129.02 |
| Air conditioning | $9.68 | 6.56% | $127.74 |
| Landscaping | $8.76 | 6.42% | $117.92 |
| Electricians | $12.18 | 9.08% | $93.69 |
| Handyman | — | — | $54.05 |
| Cleaning & maid services | $8.50 | 17.65% | $46.99 |
The spread is the story. A roofing lead costs roughly five times a cleaning lead, and the reason is visible in the conversion rate column: cleaning converts at 17.65% while roofing converts at 3.70%. Roofing is a considered, expensive, once-a-decade purchase, so more people enquire without being ready. That is not a failure of the campaign — it is the nature of the product, and it is why roofing can support a far higher cost per lead.
Plumbing and heating both print exactly $129.02 in the source data. We re-checked it rather than assume a typo — that really is what LocaliQ published — but two trades sharing a median to the cent is unusual enough that we would not lean hard on either figure in isolation.
How do Meta lead costs compare with search?
Meta leads are generally cheaper, and the gap is large. WordStream's 2025 Facebook benchmarks put the Home & Home Improvement cost per lead at $41.26, against $90.92 for the equivalent Google Ads category. The important caveat is that the Facebook sample is very small, so treat the direction as reliable and the precise figures as indicative.
| Metric | Facebook / Meta | Google Ads |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per lead | $41.26 | $90.92 |
| Cost per click | $2.23 | $8.33 |
| Click-through rate | 1.94% | 6.47% |
| Conversion rate | 5.22% | 8.05% |
Read those columns together and the trade-off is legible. Meta clicks cost roughly a quarter of Google clicks, but a much smaller share of them convert, because the person was scrolling rather than searching. Google's click-through rate is more than three times higher for the same reason — those users went looking. Sources: Facebook figures[2], Google figures[3].
These are two different reports, covering different periods, with wildly different sample sizes — the Facebook leads dataset states a minimum of two active campaigns per subcategory. It is a talking point about how the channels differ, not a measurement you should budget against.
How do you work out the most you should pay per lead?
Multiply your average job value by your gross margin to get profit per job. Multiply that by your close rate to get the profit an average lead is worth. Then decide what share of that you are prepared to spend on acquisition. That share, in dollars, is your ceiling — and any lead below it is profitable.
Worked example
- 1
Profit per job
A $4,000 average job at 40% gross margin gives $1,600 of gross profit.
- 2
Profit per lead
If you close one lead in five, each lead is worth $1,600 × 20% = $320 in expected gross profit.
- 3
Choose your acquisition share
Spending 25% of gross profit to acquire the work leaves 75% to cover overhead and profit. That sets a ceiling of $80 per lead.
- 4
Compare against reality
If leads are costing $45, you have healthy room and can afford to scale. If they are costing $110, either the close rate has to improve or the campaign is not viable at current job values.
Run this with your own numbers before you look at anyone's benchmark. The revenue calculator on our homepage does the same arithmetic interactively if you would rather adjust sliders than open a spreadsheet.
Why is cost per booked job the better metric?
Because cheap leads that never book are expensive. Cost per booked job folds in contact rate, close rate, and lead quality — the things that actually determine whether spend turns into revenue. Two campaigns with identical costs per lead can differ by a factor of three once you measure through to signed work.
| Campaign A | Campaign B | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per lead | $25 | $70 |
| Leads per month | 80 | 29 |
| Contact rate | 40% | 80% |
| Close rate of contacted | 10% | 30% |
| Booked jobs | 3 | 7 |
| Cost per booked job | $667 | $286 |
The campaign with leads nearly three times more expensive produces work at less than half the cost. This is the single most common misreading in paid acquisition, and it is why an agency that reports only cost per lead is reporting the wrong number.
What actually lowers your cost per booked job?
Mostly things that happen after the click. Raising your contact rate by following up faster and more persistently, and raising your close rate by improving the quote process, both reduce cost per booked job without touching the ad account. They are usually cheaper and faster than chasing a lower cost per lead.
- 1Contact speed: call within minutes, and text automatically the moment a form is submitted.
- 2Persistence: five or six attempts across a week, not one voicemail.
- 3Qualification: add two or three questions to the form so your team spends time on real prospects.
- 4Quote turnaround: a quote sent same-day closes better than one sent next week.
- 5Job value: an upsell at the quote raises profit per job, which raises the lead price you can afford.
Doubling your contact rate has the same effect on cost per booked job as halving your cost per lead — and it is almost always the easier of the two to achieve.
What have we actually seen in our own campaigns?
9xBooked's two published campaigns were both residential window cleaning. One produced 85 booked jobs from $5,640 of spend, roughly $66 per booked job. The other produced 582 leads at about $3.53 each, of which the client closed 10 percent. Those are real numbers from a low-ticket, high-frequency trade, and they should not be read as a forecast for roofing or HVAC.
We are deliberately not publishing an aggregate cost-per-lead table across trades, because we would rather show you two campaigns we can fully account for than average a small sample into a number that sounds authoritative and is not. Both are documented end to end, including the spend, the ad structure, and what changed between phases: the $34,000 campaign and the 582-lead campaign.
They are evidence that the method works: test broadly, cut hard, concentrate spend on what books jobs. They are not a benchmark for your trade. Window cleaning has low job values and high repeat rates, which produces very different economics from a roof replacement.
Want a realistic number for your trade and market?
Book a free 30-minute audit call. We will look at your job values, close rate, and service area, and give you a defensible range rather than an industry average.
Book a free audit callFrequently asked questions
What is a good cost per lead for a roofing company?
LocaliQ's benchmark data puts the median roofing and gutters lead on Google Ads at $228.15, well above other home service trades, largely because roofing converts at only 3.70%. That is a reference point rather than a target — your own ceiling comes from multiplying average job value by gross margin and close rate, then deciding what share of that profit you will spend acquiring the work.
Are exclusive leads worth more than shared leads?
Usually, because you are not competing with three other contractors who received the same enquiry minutes earlier. Exclusive leads typically cost more per lead but convert better, so the comparison should be made on cost per booked job rather than on the sticker price of the lead.
Why did my cost per lead go up this month?
The most common causes are seasonal competition, creative fatigue in a small service area, a broken conversion event, or recent account changes that pushed delivery back into learning. Check whether your conversion tracking is still firing before assuming the market got more expensive.
Should I just buy leads from a marketplace instead?
It can work as a stopgap, but you are renting demand rather than building an asset. Marketplace leads are frequently sold to several contractors, so close rates are lower and you compete on response speed and price. Owning your own campaigns costs more to set up and leaves you with data, creative, and a channel you control.
Sources
Every figure above links back to where it was published. Dates show when we last confirmed the source was live and still said what we quote.
- [1]Home Services Search Advertising Benchmarks — LocaliQ / WordStream. Verified August 9, 2026.Based on 3,211 US home services search campaigns running April 2024 to March 2025, drawn from LocaliQ's own client base rather than an industry census. Google Ads only — these are not Meta figures.
- [2]Facebook Ads Benchmarks, 2025 — WordStream by LocaliQ. Verified August 9, 2026.Directional only. The leads dataset covers 726 campaigns across roughly 20 industries, with a stated minimum of just 2 active campaigns per subcategory — so the Home & Home Improvement row may rest on very few accounts.
- [3]Google Ads Benchmarks, 2026 — WordStream by LocaliQ. Verified August 9, 2026.13,474 campaigns, data period April 2025 to March 2026. Note the published Home & Home Improvement cost per lead is unchanged to the cent from the previous edition, so treat the cost-per-click trend as the more reliable signal.
About 9xBooked
9xBooked is a Meta ads agency for US home service businesses. We build and run Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns for roofing, HVAC, plumbing, landscaping, cleaning, and remodeling companies, delivering exclusive leads that are never resold or shared with competitors. Every engagement carries a written revenue guarantee, sized to your business on a free audit call before you commit to anything.
We publish these guides because most marketing advice aimed at contractors is written to sell rather than to inform. Every statistic here links back to where it was published, and we say so plainly when the data does not exist.
Want this run for your business?
Book a free 30-minute audit call. We’ll look at your service area, job values, and current lead flow, then tell you honestly whether Meta ads will work for you — and put a revenue guarantee in writing if they will.
Book your free audit call