What can an HVAC lead cost after the truck comes back?
A collected job has to pay for the work, the unsuccessful visits and the shop. Calculate the advertising allowance that remains.
What can one acquired lead cost?
Start with the example, then replace every input with your records.
Average collected amount per completed job, after known refunds.
Variable labor and parts for a completed job.
Per collected job. Enter only costs excluded from direct job costs.
Your required contribution toward fixed overhead and profit.
Booked appointments divided by all purchased, deduplicated inquiries.
Completed, collected jobs divided by all booked appointments.
Total cost of visits without collected work, divided by all acquired leads.
Exclude the ad cost being solved for. Label allocations of fixed fees.
Advertising ceiling per acquired lead
30% of acquired leads become collected jobs under these assumptions.Planning arithmetic, not a market benchmark or a Google Ads bid recommendation. Future customer value, job displacement and taxes are excluded. Inputs stay in this page and are not submitted.
The formula
Advertising ceiling per acquired lead = booking rate × collected-job rate among bookings × (collected ticket − direct job costs − extra travel and callbacks − required retained amount) − unsuccessful-visit costs per acquired lead − additional acquisition fees per acquired lead.
Convert both percentages to fractions. For the example: 0.60 × 0.50 × ($420 − $145 − $35 − $85) − $12 − $3 = $31.50. Raising extra travel and callbacks to $80 makes the ceiling $18.00.
Keep the denominators consistent
An acquired lead means a purchased, deduplicated inquiry, including those that never book. The collected-job rate uses all booked appointments. Follow one group to a stated cutoff rather than mixing this week's calls with last quarter's invoices.
Unsuccessful-visit costs and additional fees are divided by all acquired leads. Do not include advertising in those fees: advertising is the amount being solved for. Avoid counting travel or variable labor twice when it is already in direct job costs.
What this calculation leaves out
The result depends on the costs and rates you enter. It does not estimate future customer value, the work displaced on a full dispatch board, taxes or the incremental effect of advertising. The retained amount is your contribution requirement toward fixed overhead and profit; it is not a full business accounting model.
A zero or negative result means the entered jobs cannot support positive ad spend while meeting the entered costs and reserve. A positive ceiling is a planning limit under those inputs. It is not a forecast of auction prices or a recommended bidding target.
Take the calculation to your next review
Download the plain-text worksheet, or read the worked example comparing two service areas. The calculator requires no account, and does not submit or save your inputs.
For the operating context, see HVAC marketing and sold-job measurement.