How Much Do Google Ads Cost for Home Service Companies

Google Search CPCs for home services climbed 45% year-over-year in 2025. Three out of four home service businesses reported higher click costs compared to the previous year. The days of $5-10 clicks for local service keywords are gone.

What you actually pay depends on your trade, your market, and how well you manage your campaigns. A plumber in rural Ohio and a plumber in Austin, TX might as well be advertising on different platforms given the cost difference.

Cost per click by trade

Plumbing

Average CPC: $20-25 nationally. Competitive markets push this significantly higher. Austin, TX plumbing keywords hit $62 per click in peak seasons. Other expensive metros include San Francisco, Miami, and Dallas.

Emergency keywords cost the most. “Emergency plumber near me” and “24-hour plumber” attract the highest bids because the homeowner is desperate and ready to hire immediately. These clicks can run $40-60 even in mid-size markets.

Maintenance keywords cost less. “Water heater flush” or “plumbing inspection” run $10-18 per click because the intent is lower and fewer contractors bid aggressively on non-emergency terms.

HVAC

Average CPC: $20-30 nationally. HVAC has some of the most expensive keywords in all of Google Ads because of high job values and fierce competition. In fact, home services accounts for 5 of the top 20 most expensive keywords across all of Google Ads.

Emergency keywords spike to $65 per click in summer heat waves and winter cold snaps. “AC not working” and “furnace repair near me” during peak season attract every HVAC company in the metro, driving costs to levels where only well-optimized campaigns stay profitable.

Seasonal variation is dramatic. January CPCs for cooling keywords might be $12. July CPCs for the same keywords can triple. Smart HVAC contractors shift budget toward shoulder seasons when competition drops and CPCs fall 30-40%.

Electrical

Average CPC: $12-18 nationally. Electrical keywords are generally cheaper than plumbing and HVAC because the market is less saturated with PE-backed competitors and fewer electricians invest heavily in Google Ads.

Panel upgrade and generator installation keywords tend to run higher, $18-25 per click, because the job values justify more aggressive bidding. Basic outlet repair and troubleshooting keywords stay in the $8-15 range.

The real cost: clicks to customers

CPC tells you what each click costs. It doesn’t tell you what a customer costs. That math requires conversion rates and close rates.

The average conversion rate for home service Google Ads landing pages is 7.33%. That means roughly 7 out of 100 visitors who click your ad will fill out a form or call your business. The other 93 leave.

At an average CPC of $25 and a 7.33% conversion rate, your cost per lead lands at $90-107. LocaliQ’s 2025 search advertising benchmarks peg the overall home services average CPL at $90.92, which tracks with that math. But averages hide massive variance by trade. Roofing and gutters sit at $228.15 CPL, making it the most expensive home service vertical. Construction and general contractors land at $165.67 CPL. Pools and spas come in cheapest at $45.15.

That’s the cost to get one person on the phone or in your inbox.

But leads aren’t jobs. If your team closes 30% of leads, you need roughly 3.3 leads per booked job. At $100 per lead, that’s $330 per booked customer in a best-case scenario.

The worst case is uglier. At a 4% conversion rate (common for contractors sending traffic to their homepage instead of a dedicated landing page), 100 clicks at $30 CPC costs $3,000 and produces 4 leads. Close one of those four and you’ve spent $3,000 to acquire a single customer.

For a $200 drain cleaning, that’s a disaster. For a $15,000 HVAC replacement, it’s a reasonable acquisition cost. The math changes entirely based on your average job value, which is why campaign structure matters so much.

A plumber on ContractorTalk reported spending $2,000/month and getting 20-30 leads in a moderate competition area. But contractors in major metros told a different story: those in Austin, Miami, and San Francisco reported needing $5,000+ per month just to stay visible in the auction. Your market dictates your floor.

Read about common Google Ads mistakes that inflate these numbers unnecessarily.

Google Local Services Ads: a different cost model

LSAs charge per lead instead of per click. You don’t pay when someone sees your ad or even clicks on it. You pay when they actually contact you through the ad.

A 2024 report from Hook Agency and 99 Calls breaks the numbers down by trade. HVAC LSA leads average $52-80 per lead. Plumbing LSA leads run $55-69. Roofing LSA leads have the widest range at $71-162, reflecting the high variance in job values and competition across markets.

At first glance, LSAs look expensive compared to the $25-30 CPC of regular Google Ads. But you’re comparing different things. With search ads, you pay for clicks that might not convert. With LSAs, you pay only for actual leads.

A plumber paying $25 per click with a 7% conversion rate spends about $357 to get one lead through regular search ads. That same plumber pays $69 per lead through LSAs. The per-lead cost through LSAs is often dramatically lower even though the sticker price looks higher.

LSAs also appear above regular search ads, which means higher visibility. And the Google Guaranteed badge builds instant trust with homeowners comparing options.

The catch: you have less control over targeting and messaging. You can’t write custom ad copy or choose specific keywords. Google decides when to show your ad based on your service categories, location, and reviews.

Read our comparison of Google LSAs vs. Google Ads for contractors and our guide to Local Services Ads in 2026 for a deeper breakdown.

Quality Score: the hidden cost multiplier

Two contractors bidding on the same keyword in the same market can pay wildly different amounts per click. The difference is Quality Score.

Google assigns each keyword a Quality Score from 1-10 based on three factors: expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience. This score directly impacts your cost per click.

A contractor with a high Quality Score pays an average of $3.01 per click. A contractor with a low Quality Score pays $7.12 for the exact same keyword. That’s a 136% cost difference for identical ad placement.

Over 1,000 clicks per month, the high-QS contractor pays $3,010. The low-QS contractor pays $7,120. Same keywords, same market, same traffic volume. The difference is $4,110 per month, or nearly $50,000 per year, in wasted spend.

How to improve Quality Score

Ad relevance means your ad copy closely matches the keyword. If someone searches “emergency AC repair,” your ad headline should say “Emergency AC Repair” not “Full-Service HVAC Company.” Create tightly themed ad groups with 5-10 closely related keywords each, and write ad copy that mirrors those keywords.

Landing page experience means the page your ad sends traffic to is relevant, fast, and useful. A search for “water heater installation cost” should land on a page about water heater installation, not your homepage. Pages should load in under 3 seconds on mobile. Include the keyword naturally in the page content.

Expected click-through rate improves when your ads are compelling. Use specific numbers (“Same-Day Service” or “$50 Off First Visit”), include your phone number with call extensions, and test multiple ad variations to find what resonates.

Why CPCs keep climbing

The 45% year-over-year increase isn’t random. LocaliQ’s 2025 benchmarks show home service CPL specifically increased 10.51% year-over-year, with 69% of businesses reporting higher costs. Some cross-industry reports show increases of 25% YoY from 2023 to 2024. Several forces are driving costs up simultaneously.

PE-backed competitors have entered home service advertising with corporate budgets. A family-owned HVAC company might spend $3,000/month on Google Ads. A PE-backed roll-up in the same market spends $20,000-30,000. That bid pressure raises costs for everyone.

Google’s auction mechanics reward higher bids with better placement. As deep-pocketed advertisers enter the auction, minimum bids for competitive positions rise. Keywords that cost $15 per click two years ago now cost $25-30 because the floor has moved up.

Reduced organic visibility pushes more contractors toward paid ads. Google’s search results page now shows 3-4 ads, a Local Pack, LSAs, and sometimes AI overviews before any organic results appear. Less free visibility means more businesses competing for paid placement.

Making Google Ads profitable

Profitability comes down to three variables: what you pay per click, what percentage of clicks become leads, and what percentage of leads become booked jobs.

Reduce what you pay per click. Improve Quality Score. Use exact match and phrase match keywords instead of broad match. Build extensive negative keyword lists to filter out irrelevant searches. Check your Search Terms report weekly and add new negatives.

Increase conversion rate. Send traffic to dedicated landing pages, not your homepage. Include one clear call to action. Make your phone number prominent. Add trust signals like reviews, licenses, and guarantees. A landing page converting at 8% versus 4% cuts your cost per lead in half.

Increase close rate. Respond to leads within 5 minutes. 78% of homeowners hire the first contractor to respond. A faster response rate turns the same ad spend into more booked jobs without spending an additional dollar. Track leads that come through paid search but don’t convert, and follow up systematically. Read about tracking PPC leads that don’t convert and recovering lost Google Ads leads.

Should you run Google Ads?

Google Ads works when the math works. If your average job value is high enough to absorb the acquisition cost, and your campaigns are optimized enough to keep that cost reasonable, paid search is one of the fastest ways to generate leads.

For emergency services with high job values ($500+), Google Ads typically makes sense. For low-value maintenance work ($100-200 per job), the acquisition cost often exceeds the profit margin.

Run the numbers for your specific situation. Take your average CPC, divide by your conversion rate to get cost per lead, then divide by your close rate to get cost per customer. Compare that to your average job profit. If there’s margin left, scale. If there isn’t, either fix the funnel or focus on channels with better economics.

Our methodology explains how we benchmark these numbers across trades and markets. Use the features page to see how PipelineOn helps capture the visitors your ads are already paying for but who leave without converting.