What a Google Local Services Ads lead costs by trade, and why the published numbers disagree
Pages that rank for this question put an HVAC lead at $42, $51, $70 or $80. They counted different months, different leads and different averages, and some copied each other. What each one measured, what Google says sets your price, and how to get your own number from your lead report.
TL;DR
- In SearchLight's contractor data, a Local Services Ads lead cost $67.24 on average in August 2026 (the median contractor paid $60.32) and $53 in February 2026: HVAC $70.21 and $51, plumbing $72.04 and $57, electrical $47.47 and $39. Of the pages we read, only these figures by trade state their month, sample and formula for more than one account, and the sample is SearchLight's own customers: it sells revenue-reporting software to contractors.
- Other pages that rank for the question print single HVAC figures from $42 to $80, none of them for a stated month, and several copy one another, some with the numbers changed on the way.
- The figures differ in the month, in which leads they count (charged, unique or all) and in whose average they report: everyone's spend pooled, or the middle contractor.
- None of Google's pages we read gives a price per lead or per trade. Its help pages say competing bids set what a lead is worth, and the price varies by location, job type, lead type and bid mode.
- Work out your own number from the Reports page: the money you kept paying divided by the leads that stayed charged, for a month that ended at least 30 days ago, with calls, messages and searches for your company name apart.
What does a Local Services Ads lead cost by trade?
Two reports say who was counted, in which month and how the division was done. Both come from SearchLight: one on its website, the other in a newsletter written by its chief marketing officer.
| February 2026 | August 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Published | March 9, 2026 | September 1, 2026 |
| Sample | 888 contractors, $6.72M of LSA spend, 126,650 leads | 965 contractors in the trade chart (916 in the post's text), $13.08M of LSA spend |
| Formula | Total spend ÷ total leads, gross of credits, "normalized across markets", outliers filtered | Pooled totals; the post counts unique leads |
| HVAC | $51 (409 accounts) | $70.21 (388 contractors) |
| Plumbing | $57 (230) | $72.04 (287) |
| Electrical | $39 (112) | $47.47 (110) |
| General or multi-trade | $54 (464) | $68.93 (196) |
| All trades | $53 | $67.24 |
Both reports take the trade from campaign or channel names, and the August chart calls its split "directional, not absolute". The rows overlap, too: February's six rows add up to 1,240 accounts against 888 contractors, and August's four trade rows to 981 against 965. Our reading: a shop with separately named HVAC and plumbing campaigns is counted in both rows.
HVAC went from $51 to $70.21, and the two reports can't tell you how much of that is season. The samples are different contractors, and February divides by "total leads" while August counts unique leads. The only same-contractor comparison covers the summer alone: for the 916 contractors who ran Local Services Ads in June, July and August, cost per unique lead across all trades was $63.55 in June, $65.11 in July and $67.19 in August, up 5.7%.
The two reports don't agree with each other. The August post says it is the first month plumbing's cost per lead sits above HVAC's. The February page already had plumbing at $57 and HVAC at $51. Our reading is that the two reports don't count or group leads the same way.
The sample is SearchLight's own customers, contractors who pay to have ad spend matched to revenue in their CRM: in our reading, shops that already measure and probably spend more than most. In August the price per lead rose with spend, from $42.45 for the 206 contractors spending under $2,000 a month to $80.73 for the 51 spending $50,000 or more, though the author calls it a stretch to say the bigger budget causes the higher price.
Why do the published numbers disagree?
What else ranks for the question, and where each page says its figures come from:
| Page | HVAC | Plumbing | Electrical | Period | Sample |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Media Captain, Aug 26, 2025 | $80 | $69 | not given | not stated | "over 100 clients" in 11 industries, law firms included |
| Blue Grid Media dataset, verified May 18, 2026 | $42 median | $38 median | $35 median | Jan 2024 – May 2026, US and Canada | ~7,840 accounts from others' benchmarks, "Google's LSA documentation" and its own 80+ accounts |
| Blue Grid Media, same page, guide table | ~$52 | ~$69 | ~$50 | "2025 and 2026" | not stated |
| LocaliQ, updated Aug 19, 2026 | "about $60" for all categories | "historically" | not stated | ||
| Sequoia GEO, updated Aug 2026 | ~$80 | ~$69 | ~$50 | 2026 | credits Blue Grid Media and The Media Captain; separately, one HVAC account at $63.16 over 19 leads, Sep 2025 – Jul 2026 |
| Valley Marketing Group, Aug 5, 2026 | $30–$70 | $35–$65 | $40–$75 | February 2026 | credits SearchLight |
Three differences explain most of the spread.
The month. A February HVAC lead and an August one are bought in different markets. Apart from single-account figures on Sequoia GEO, only the Valley page names a month for its trade figures, and the report it names doesn't contain them (see the next table).
Which leads are counted. Google's report counts charged leads, but its lead list also shows leads never charged, leads in review and leads credited later, and Google says "the original lead charge will still appear on your invoice" after a credit. SearchLight's February figure divides gross spend by total leads, its August figure by unique leads. The worked example below puts one account 31% apart on this choice alone.
Whose average. A pooled figure divides everyone's spend by everyone's leads, so the biggest accounts dominate it: a contractor spending $50,000 a month puts 25 times as much money into the total as one spending $2,000. A median is the middle contractor. In SearchLight's August data the pooled figure is $67.24 and the median $60.32, with the 25th percentile at $44.47 and the 75th at $77.04. Blue Grid Media's dataset reports medians, its guide table a "national average" it doesn't define, and the other pages don't say.
Then there is copying. We traced figures back to the pages they credit, as we did for home services and HVAC marketing statistics, and some changed on the way:
| Figure | Where it appears | What the credited source says |
|---|---|---|
| Electrical $40–$75, the highest of the three trades | Valley Marketing Group, "according to" SearchLight's February data | SearchLight's February page prints electrical at $39, the cheapest trade, as one figure per trade, not a range |
| HVAC $52, roofing $71, house cleaning $28 | SearchLight's February page, credited to "LocaliQ (2025)" and "50,000+ service businesses", with no link | The LocaliQ guide we read gives one figure, "about $60". The same three numbers sit in Blue Grid Media's guide table as data from managed accounts |
| HVAC ~$80, plumbing ~$69 as 2026 figures | Sequoia GEO | They match The Media Captain's August 2025 page, which gives no period and no per-trade sample |
| 6–7% of spend back in credits | SearchLight, Sequoia GEO | Both point to The Media Captain, whose page gives no method |
What sets your price, according to Google
Google's own answer to "How much does Google Local Services Ads cost?" is a budget you choose and a calculator on the program's homepage. None of the help pages we read gives a price per trade. They describe an auction and name what moves the price in it. (Our owner's manual for Local Services Ads covers the rest of the program.)
- Competing bids. "When similar local businesses bid on the same lead, those bids determine how much the lead is worth," says Google's bidding page. Your bid is the most you'd pay for a lead, and Google's About ad rankings page adds that you "may end up paying less".
- Where, what and how. "Lead prices may vary depending on your location, the job type, the type of lead, or your bidding mode," says How leads work.
- Messages. Message leads are "typically priced lower" than the matching phone lead, though not always, and priced on how likely Google estimates the customer is to book you.
- Your profile. Google's About ad rankings page says higher-quality profiles "may rank higher and may also pay lower costs per lead" (what Google counts as quality).
- Your bid mode. Maximize leads lets Google set the bid. Target cost per lead sets "the approximate average you'll pay for leads". Max per lead is a hard cap: with a $15 limit, Google says it will "never bid on leads that cost $16 USD". Google says it takes about two weeks to see accurate results as the model adjusts.
- After the move to Google Ads. Manual bidding ends and Maximize Conversions is the default. Google advises a Target CPA only if the campaign "is consistently receiving more than 15 leads per month" (what else the move changes).
- Budget. Your weekly budget and bid mode set how many leads you could get, and the month is capped at the weekly budget × 30.4 ÷ 7. The pages we read don't say the budget changes the price per lead. SearchLight's spend tiers show higher prices at higher spend. Our reading: a bigger account buys further up the same auction and probably sits in a bigger metro, and the data can't separate the two.
- Which calls count, from October 1, 2026. As reported by Search Engine Roundtable, which quotes Google's email to advertisers, a missed call during business hours will be charged if the caller stays on the line for more than 20 seconds, with a few exceptions. Our reading: a September and an October cost per lead will count different calls (our missed-calls article).
Some benchmark pages describe these mechanics differently from Google's own pages. SearchLight writes that "Google sets the lead price" and you control "your weekly budget cap, not your per-lead bid", yet the dashboard offers a per-lead limit and a target you set. SearchLight and Blue Grid Media describe credits for out-of-area leads, while Google "no longer supports credits" for "geo not serviced" leads (what Google still credits). That doesn't make their dollar figures wrong, but you can't assume they counted leads the way your Google report does.
How to work out your own Local Services Ads cost per lead
The Reports page in the Local Services Ads inbox shows, for any date range, charged leads and total lead spend (split by call, message and booking, filterable by Category or Direct Business Search), the lead credits you received, and a list of leads marked not charged, charged, in review or credited. After the move to Google Ads, the campaign shows Cost, Conversions and Cost / conv., and Goals → Conversions → Leads has a "Charge Status" column and a download.
Illustration, not client data. A plumbing shop's report for March shows $4,200 charged for 60 charged leads. The lead list shows 8 more leads that were never charged. By the end of April, 6 of the charged leads have been credited, $480 in all. The 60 charged leads came from 52 different phone numbers.
| How you divide | Math | Cost per lead |
|---|---|---|
| Charged spend ÷ charged leads (Google's average) | $4,200 ÷ 60 | $70.00 |
| Net of credits ÷ leads that stayed charged | $3,720 ÷ 54 | $68.89 |
| Charged spend ÷ every lead in the list | $4,200 ÷ 68 | $61.76 |
| Charged spend ÷ distinct phone numbers | $4,200 ÷ 52 | $80.77 |
One account, one month, and the highest answer is about 31% above the lowest. Phone numbers and charged leads can differ because a returning caller can become a new lead. As reported by Search Engine Roundtable, Google's Ads Liaison said a call or message more than 15 days after the last interaction creates a new lead, charged if it qualifies. Google's "Manage leads and jobs" page uses the same 15 days to define a recent interaction.
For your own tracking, use the second line: the money you kept paying divided by the leads you kept paying for. To compare with a published figure, redo the math the way that page did.
Four things move your own number:
- Credits arrive late. Google says credits in most cases reach your balance within 30 days, and the report's credits line counts credits received in the period, which can belong to last month's leads.
- A bid-mode change splits the month. Our reading: with about two weeks before results are accurate, that month mixes two setups.
- Searches for your name are charged differently. On a search for your business name, Google asks callers and message senders whether they are returning customers and charges only for new ones.
- One campaign gives one price. Google's pages we read show a job type on each lead but no spend by trade inside one campaign, so two trades in one campaign give you one blended price.
What the number is for
A lead price tells you what made the phone ring, not whether the call booked. SearchLight's August post ranks contractors by the revenue each dollar of their Local Services Ads returned. The top quarter paid $49.93 per lead, booked 45.0% of leads and paid $197 for each paying customer. The bottom quarter paid $73.25, booked 27.1% and paid $627 per paying customer. SearchLight counts a paying customer only when a lead matches one in the CRM, so these are not lead price ÷ book rate. The quarter just above the bottom paid the most per lead of the four, $76.18.
Mark each lead Booked in the inbox (Booked or Completed after the move to Google Ads), or match phone numbers against your CRM, then divide the same net spend by booked jobs and by sold jobs. Cost per lead is the wrong number shows how to pull sold jobs out of ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro or Jobber. For a plumbing shop, plumbing ads reported by booked and sold work shows the same count with drain, water-heater and repipe jobs kept apart.
What this doesn't cover
- Your market. A national figure doesn't price your ZIP codes. We haven't tested how Google's budget calculator estimates.
- How representative any sample is. Both multi-account reports that state their method come from one software company's customers. None of the figures we traced comes from a random sample of contractors, and none of Google's pages we read gives one.
- Exact net figures. The Google pages we read describe spend totals, lead counts, credit totals and charge status, not a price on each lead. When credits post the following month, a month's net figure is an estimate.
Do this in your account
- Pick the month. One that ended at least 30 days ago, with no bid-mode change in it.
- Write down two numbers. Total lead spend and charged leads from Reports, or Cost and Conversions for the campaign after the move to Google Ads.
- Split the lines. Calls, messages and bookings apart. Direct Business Search apart from Category.
- Take out the credits. Subtract that month's credited leads, counted in the lead list, from charged leads, and the credits from spend.
- Count phone numbers. Download the lead list and see how many charged leads are the same customer calling again.
- Follow the leads to the job board. Match charged leads to your CRM by phone number and divide net spend by booked jobs and by sold jobs.
- Check any benchmark before you use it. Its month, what it counted as a lead, pooled or median, how it assigned trades, and whether it copies another page. If the page doesn't say, leave it out.
FAQ
How much does a Local Services Ads lead cost for HVAC? In SearchLight's data, $70.21 in August 2026 across 388 contractors and $51 in February 2026 across 409 accounts. Other ranking pages print single figures from $42 to $80, none of them for a stated month.
What is the cost per lead for plumbing Local Services Ads? SearchLight reported $72.04 for August 2026 and $57 for February 2026. Other pages print $38 or $69 without a month, or a range credited to a report that doesn't contain it.
Are message leads cheaper than calls? Usually. Google says message leads are typically priced lower than the matching phone lead, though not always.
Can I control what I pay per lead? In the Local Services Ads dashboard, yes: Max per lead caps each lead and Target cost per lead sets an average. After the move to Google Ads, manual bidding ends, and Google suggests a Target CPA only for campaigns getting more than 15 leads a month.
Why did my Local Services Ads cost per lead go up? Check the month first: in SearchLight's data the same 916 contractors paid 5.7% more per unique lead in August than in June. Then look for a recent bid-mode change, slower response times (Google counts average response time in profile quality) and, from October 1, 2026, missed calls charged under the reported new rule.
Sources
All read in full on September 24, 2026. Every quotation above is from these pages.
- Local Services Help, "How bidding works for Local Services Ads", https://support.google.com/localservices/answer/10125017
- Local Services Help, "How leads work", https://support.google.com/localservices/answer/7195435
- Local Services Help, "About ad rankings", https://support.google.com/localservices/answer/7527305
- Local Services Help, "About Target CPL bidding", https://support.google.com/localservices/answer/15406075
- Local Services Help, "New Bidding Option for Local Services Ads", https://support.google.com/localservices/answer/15332320. Source of the $15 and $16 example.
- Local Services Help, "How to edit your budget", https://support.google.com/localservices/answer/7434558. Source of the monthly cap.
- Local Services Help, "View reports on Local Services Ads", https://support.google.com/localservices/answer/6226265
- Local Services Help, "About Automated Local Services Ads lead credits", https://support.google.com/localservices/answer/15100654
- Local Services Help, "About direct business search", https://support.google.com/localservices/answer/14545473
- Local Services Help, "Manage leads and jobs", https://support.google.com/localservices/answer/6224859
- Google Ads Help, "Local Services Ads transition to Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals", https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/17213585
- Google Ads Help, "About goals and leads for pay-per-lead goals", https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/17325352. Source of the "Charge Status" column.
- Google Ads Help, "Best practices for pay-per-lead goals for Performance Max campaigns", https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/17326561. Source of the 15-leads-a-month threshold.
- Google Ads, "Reach Local Customers with Local Service Ads", https://business.google.com/us/ad-solutions/local-service-ads/. Source of Google's answer on cost.
- SearchLight Digital, "What Is a Good Cost Per Lead for Google Local Service Ads? (2026 Benchmarks)", https://searchlightdigital.io/google-local-service-ads-cost-per-lead/. Source of the February 2026 figures, the method and the paying-customer definition.
- The Data-Driven Trades (SearchLight), "Google LSA Benchmarks: August 2026 and Summer Trends", Jon Torrey, September 1, 2026, https://thedatadriventrades.substack.com/p/google-lsa-benchmarks-august-2026. The trade, cohort, percentile, spend-tier and quartile figures are read from the post's chart images.
- The Media Captain, "Local Service Ads Stats & Cost Per Lead Data for 11 Industries", August 26, 2025, https://www.themediacaptain.com/google-local-service-ad-statistics/
- Blue Grid Media, "How Much Does Google LSA Cost in 2026? [Real CPL Data by Industry]", https://bluegridmedia.com/how-much-does-google-lsa-cost. The page is marked verified June 3, 2026, its dataset May 18, 2026.
- LocaliQ, "Google Local Services Ads 101: Everything You Need to Know", updated August 19, 2026, https://localiq.com/blog/local-services-ads/
- Sequoia GEO, "Google Local Services Ads Statistics 2026", https://www.sequoiageo.com/local-services-ads-statistics
- The Valley Marketing Group, "Google Local Services Ads Cost Per Lead 2026: HVAC, Plumbing, Roofing", August 5, 2026, https://thevalleymarketinggroup.com/blog/google-local-services-ads-cost-per-lead-2026/
- Search Engine Roundtable, "Google To Charge For Missed & Subsequent Calls On LSAs", Barry Schwartz, August 25, 2026, https://www.seroundtable.com/google-lsa-missed-subsequent-calls-41940.html. Source of the October 1 missed-call rule, which quotes Google's email to advertisers, and of the Ads Liaison's 15-day statement.