Lead Costs
How Much Do HVAC and Plumbing Leads Cost?
From client accounts I manage, pulled August 2026: HVAC leads averaged $63.16 each on Google Local Services Ads in a Texas metro. An exteriors contractor in Texas averaged $150.68 per LSA lead, ranging from $125.08 to $225.21 by month. A chimney service in Boise paid $41.03 per phone lead on Google Ads search in July 2026. These are charged prices from real accounts, not survey estimates, and your trade and market will land differently.
Charged Lead Prices by Trade and Channel
Every row is from an account we manage or an audit we ran. Trades and regions only, never client names.
| Trade and market | Channel | Cost per lead | Sample |
|---|---|---|---|
| HVAC, Texas metro | Local Services Ads | $63.16 average | 19 charged leads, $1,200.14, Sep 2025 to Jul 2026 |
| Exteriors (windows, siding, roofing), Texas metro | Local Services Ads | $150.68 average | 38 charged leads, $5,725.87, Mar to Jul 2026 |
| Chimney service, Boise, Idaho | Google Ads search | $41.03 per phone lead | 9 call leads on $369.27, Jul 2026 |
| Plumbing, Florida | Local Services Ads | Not visible to us (client-held billing) | 5 charged phone leads, Jun to Jul 2026 |
Local Services Ads charges per lead and Google bills the client directly. Prices vary by trade and market. The Boise campaign also ran 55 clicks at a $6.71 average cost per click.
The Same Account, Month by Month
The exteriors account above, every month since it started. This is why single-month numbers mislead.
| Month | Charged leads | Total charged | Cost per lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| March 2026 | 2 | $450.42 | $225.21 |
| April 2026 | 3 | $414.18 | $138.06 |
| May 2026 | 6 | $976.38 | $162.73 |
| June 2026 | 16 | $2,001.31 | $125.08 |
| July 2026 | 11 | $1,883.58 | $171.23 |
A March with 2 leads cost $225.21 each. A June with 16 cost $125.08. Nothing about the account changed except volume. Judge a channel on its lifetime average, $150.68 here, and give it months before you call a verdict. July also split 7 phone leads to 4 message leads, a mix worth watching because the HVAC account priced them differently: phone leads averaged $68.00 against $60.35 for message leads.
The Number That Should Worry You More Than Price
Low-priced leads and premium leads both hide the only number that matters: booked revenue. One plumbing company I audited paid Angi $7,783 in a single month and booked $475 in revenue from it. The same audit tracked 4,009 calls and found 131 new customers. Nobody inside the company had tied the invoice to the booked-job number, so the spend ran on autopilot.
That is the standard I hold every row in the tables above to. A $41.03 phone lead in Boise is only a good number because those calls get answered and booked. A $150.68 exteriors lead can be a bargain and a $63.16 HVAC lead can be a waste, depending entirely on what happens after the phone rings. If you want the channels behind these numbers managed that way, that is what my LSA management work is. The organic side, where the cost per call falls as rankings compound, lives on my HVAC SEO and plumbing SEO pages.
Find out what your leads actually cost
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Lead Cost Questions
Why do lead costs swing so much month to month?
Small samples distort. The exteriors account above paid $225.21 per lead in a March with 2 charged leads and $125.08 in a June with 16. Same account, same market, same trade. Judge a channel on its lifetime average, $150.68 in that account, not on any single month.
Are phone leads worth paying more for?
In the HVAC account above, phone leads averaged $68.00 and message leads $60.35, so the live caller carried the premium in that account. Whether the premium pays depends on how well your team answers, which is an operations question, not an ads question.
Are these lead cost numbers estimates?
No. Every figure is a charged price from client accounts I manage, pulled August 2026, or from an audit I ran. Local Services Ads charges per lead and Google bills the client directly, so these are the amounts the platform actually charged. Your trade and market will differ.
What about buying leads from Angi and similar sellers?
Track it before you trust it. One plumbing company I audited paid Angi $7,783 in a month and booked $475 in revenue from it, and the same audit found 131 new customers across 4,009 tracked calls. The per-lead price meant nothing. The booked revenue meant everything.