A good cost per lead is whatever still leaves you profit after the leads that never book, so it depends on your job size, your margin and how many leads you close. As a rough guide, LocaliQ's 2025 data on US search ads put the median around $91 a lead across home services, from about $45 for pools to about $228 for roofing. Your numbers will differ, and cost per booked job tells you more than cost per lead. A $30 lead that rarely books can cost more than a $90 one that often does.
What's a good cost per lead for a home service business?
One that's under the most you can afford to pay, which you work out from your own numbers and not from a benchmark. A benchmark tells you whether you're in the normal range. It can't tell you whether you're making money, because a $150 lead is cheap for a $25,000 roof and expensive for a $200 drain clearing. Start with what a booked job is worth to you, then work back to what a lead can cost, which I go through two sections down. Then compare what you're paying against that ceiling. If you're under it and the jobs are booking, the cost per lead is fine even when it looks high next to someone else's. The number I'd watch alongside it is cost per booked job, which I went through in what a booked job costs you.
How much do leads cost in roofing, HVAC, plumbing and renovation?
On US search ads, a median of roughly $90 to $230 a lead for those trades, according to LocaliQ's 2025 benchmarks. The study covered 3,211 search campaigns on Google and Microsoft from April 2024 to March 2025, and these are its median figures:
- Roofing and gutters: about $228
- Doors and windows: about $200
- General contractors: about $166
- Painting: about $138
- Plumbing: about $129
- Heating and air conditioning: about $128 to $129
- Landscaping: about $118
- Electricians: about $94
These are US numbers, and I couldn't find a Canadian study with the same breakdown. GTA costs can run higher or lower depending on the trade, the season and how many competitors are bidding in your area. Treat the list as a rough range and go by what your own account shows.
What's the most you can afford to pay for a lead?
Take your gross profit on an average job, decide what share of it you'll spend to win the job, then multiply by the share of leads that book. Say an interlock patio averages $7,000 and you keep about 30% after materials and labour, which is $2,100. If you'll spend up to a quarter of that to win the job, you can pay about $525 per booked job. If one in four leads books, your ceiling is about $131 a lead. Now a small job. A $350 service call at a 50% margin leaves $175, and if you'll spend half of that and half your leads book, the ceiling is about $44 a lead. That's below the search median for most trades, which is why small-ticket work only pays for itself when the customer comes back for the bigger job later. Customer lifetime value is one of the five numbers every service business should know for that reason.
Why can a cheap lead cost you more than an expensive one?
Because what you pay for is the booked job, and cheap leads often book at a much lower rate. Say one ad brings in leads at $30 and one in fifteen books, which costs you $450 for each job. Another brings leads in at $90 and one in four books, which costs $360 a job. The expensive leads were cheaper by $90 a job, and your office spent less time chasing people who were never going to buy. Cheap leads tend to come from forms that are too easy, offers that attract price-shoppers, or ads that reach people outside your service area. Before you call a batch of leads junk, check how fast they got a call back, since a slow first response kills a lot of decent leads, which I covered in why your Facebook leads are junk.
Are leads from search cheaper or more expensive than leads from social?
Search leads usually cost more, and they're usually closer to booking. Someone typing "furnace repair near me" has a problem today, while someone who taps an ad on Facebook or Instagram was scrolling and saw your work. LocaliQ's 2026 Facebook benchmarks, built with WordStream, put home and home improvement around $43 a lead, against LocaliQ's roughly $91 search median for home services. Those come from different studies, so read the gap as rough. What usually happens is the social lead costs less up front and takes more follow-up to book, while the search lead costs more and books faster. The cost per booked job can come out close, which is why I don't pick a channel on cost per lead alone. Which one fits depends on your trade and whether people search for it in an emergency, which I went through in Google Ads or Facebook ads.
Why does your cost per lead go up when you spend more?
Because the platform finds the cheapest leads first and has to reach further for each extra one. At $50 a day it can show your ads to the homeowners most likely to respond. Double the budget and it has to reach people who are less ready, or who see your ad more often, so the average cost climbs. That's normal, and a higher cost per lead at a higher budget can still be the right call if the extra jobs are worth more than they cost. There's still a point where an extra dollar stops paying for itself, and finding it is part of setting your ad budget. Costs also drift up over time. LocaliQ found cost per lead rose year over year for 69% of the home services businesses in its data, by about 10.5% on average.
How do you know if your cost per lead is too high?
When your cost per booked job is above the ceiling you worked out, measured over enough time to mean something. In a local account I'd want about 90 days of steady spend before calling it, because the first few weeks swing a lot while the platform learns and a single week can look great or terrible by chance. If cost per booked job is too high, check the cheap fixes before blaming the ads. Look at how fast leads get a call or text back, how many get a second and third follow-up, and whether the quotes going out match what the ad promised. Then look at the ads themselves, the offer and the area you're targeting. If you're not sure what your budget should look like across a whole year, home services marketing budget covers how to set one.
What I measure in place of cost per lead
I track cost per lead, but I don't judge an account on it. The numbers I report to a client are cost per booked job, the share of leads that book, how fast leads get a response, and what the booked jobs are worth. Cost per lead tells me something is changing, and cost per booked job tells me whether it's working. I won't promise you a cost per lead before an account runs, because it depends on your trade, your area, your offer and how your team follows up, and anyone who quotes you one up front is guessing. If you want to work out your own ceiling, book a call and bring your average job size and roughly how many leads you closed this year.
