What Do Contractor Lead Costs Look Like by Trade?

By Ryan Goering, founder and CEO of BaaDigi.

Last updated: September 2026.

BaaDigi manages Local Services Ads for the accounts quoted here, so we see the invoices; the worksheet is the process we use with clients.

What counts as a lead in your comparison?

Write the definition before recording a cost. A submitted form, a connected phone call and an accepted sales opportunity are not interchangeable. Google Ads lets advertisers track different conversion actions; the number labeled conversions therefore needs to be checked against the action configured in that account.

Keep the original inquiry count and add a separate qualified count. If you remove wrong-area requests from the qualified group, retain their associated cost in the spending total. Otherwise the report rewards a source for the waste you edited out. Record duplicate inquiries without treating each submission as another new customer.

Which trade differences belong in the worksheet?

The table identifies comparison variables, not average prices. Use the same geography and observation period where possible. A vendor's advertised starting fee belongs in a terms column; your actual invoiced cost belongs in the results column. Neither establishes how many sales you will make.

What do our own Local Services Ads numbers show?

Google Local Services Ads is the one channel where we can publish real per-lead costs, because Google bills per lead and marks which ones it charged. The table is BaaDigi client data, 2026-06-11 to 2026-09-22.

Of the 900 leads, 627 (69.7%) were phone calls and 273 were messages. The trade rows are single accounts in single markets; they show how far the cost can move between businesses, not what your trade should pay. Google’s uncharged leads are disputed, credited or declined ones, which is why the per-delivered-lead figure ($36.48) sits below the per-charged figure.

How do you calculate your own spending ceiling?

Choose an acquisition allowance per completed sale after reviewing delivery costs, overhead needs and cash. Then multiply that allowance by the observed share of comparable inquiries that become completed sales. The result is a planning ceiling per inquiry, not a guarantee that an advertising auction or lead seller will supply volume at that price.

Planning ceiling per inquiry = acquisition allowance per completed sale × observed completion rate for comparable inquiries. If that allowance also pays for sales labor, agency fees or software, reserve those costs before treating the result as a media or lead-purchase budget. Enter your own records; the formula supplies no market price or guaranteed volume.

Do not use the percentage from a different trade to fill a missing input. Start with a limited test, record the outcomes and report uncertainty. If no sales have completed, show spend and zero completed sales; the cost per completed sale cannot be calculated by dividing by zero.

What belongs in your next purchasing decision?

Write down the work category, the source of the completion-rate record, the costs included in your allowance and the cash limit for the test. If an input is missing, mark it unknown. The budget should reflect what your business can carry while gathering evidence, not a fictional close rate that makes a quote look affordable.

For specific applications, use the plumbing booking-cost worksheet or roofing source-cost guide. Keep their definitions aligned with your own records before comparing departments.

What evidence should a quoted benchmark provide?

• Who supplied the data and which accounts were included?
• What dates, countries and regions does it cover?
• Is it a mean, median, range or advertised starting price?
• What event counts as a lead, and are duplicates included?
• Does spending include fees, credits, software and sales labor?
• Were unsuccessful campaigns included, or only selected examples?

A report can still be useful without answering every question. Label what is missing and avoid treating it as a spending requirement. A broad home-services average should not become a precise roofing or plumbing price merely because the article needs a table.

How should you compare purchased leads with your own channels?

Give both sides the same accounting treatment. Purchased leads have charges and possibly credits or subscriptions. Direct channels can have advertising, SEO delivery costs, website work and staff time. Neither is automatically free, exclusive in the customer's shopping behavior or guaranteed to improve after a fixed number of months.

Keep a profitable source while you test another. If the source you are questioning is a marketplace, the HomeAdvisor alternatives for contractors guide walks through the replacements. Our cost-per-job comparison explains the denominator choices; paid advertising management is an implementation service, not a published national lead-price table.

What should your monthly report contain?

Use one row per source and work type: spend, raw inquiries, qualified inquiries, signed agreements, completed sales, collected revenue and delivery costs. Include open opportunities so recent campaigns are not judged against fully matured older campaigns. Record the assumptions used to allocate shared fees.

If you need to connect these records, BaaDigi's Custom CRM service publishes Starter builds at $1,500 plus $147 per month and itemized usage. That is a software-service price, not a lead-cost estimate. Confirm the necessary integrations and scope before comparing it with an existing system.