Which Plumbing Lead Sources Are Worth It?

By Ryan Goering, founder and CEO of BaaDigi. We sell plumbing marketing, so weigh the ranking advice with that in mind; the figures below are our own client aggregates, labeled where they appear.

Last updated: September 2026.

A drain-cleaning call and a commercial repipe inquiry should not compete on raw cost per lead alone. One may be ready for dispatch; the other may require a site visit, scope development and purchasing approval. Compare the work you intended to attract, then examine what happened after the phone rang.

What belongs in a useful source scorecard?

How should you compare paid and unpaid channels?

Google Ads, Local Services Ads, lead marketplaces, organic search, referrals and customer reactivation have different billing arrangements. Organic clicks have no Google advertising charge, but content, website work and staff time still cost money. Referral rewards and follow-up also belong in the appropriate cost column.

Lead type changes the office work too. On the four LSA accounts we track, 627 of 900 leads (69.7%) were phone calls and 273 were messages, and 243 of those 273 messages got a logged reply from the contractor (BaaDigi client data, Jun–Sep 2026). A call needs someone on the phone; a message needs someone on the inbox. Cost the labor accordingly.

Read the LSA versus Google Ads plumbing comparison before treating both products as equivalent. For purchased calls, use the pay-per-call purchasing checklist. A provider can bill a legitimate inquiry even if it does not become a job: Google explains valid-lead billing, and each marketplace has its own terms.

Which calculations make the ranking defensible?

Cost per suitable inquiry = attributed acquisition cost ÷ suitable unique inquiries. Define suitable before reviewing results. Otherwise it is too easy to excuse a weak source by changing the label.

Cost per new paying customer = attributed acquisition cost ÷ new customers with a completed, paid first job. Use a sufficiently mature inquiry cohort and keep unresolved opportunities visible. With no new paying customers, report the spend and zero outcomes; do not present an invented finite acquisition cost.

For profitability, subtract acquisition cost from the cohort’s contribution only if that cost is not already included. Document the treatment with your bookkeeper. See the plumbing lead-generation plan for how those records fit the broader operating process.

What can make a promising source look worse than it is?

• Different response coverage: one campaign runs while the office is closed.
• Unfinished sales: a project inquiry is judged before the proposal decision.
• Duplicate credit: an ad platform, referral and organic visit each claim the same customer.
• Different service mix: maintenance inquiries are compared with installations.
• Missing costs: office time and management fees appear in only one channel.

Attribution models allocate credit; they do not establish that every reported conversion is a different customer. Reconcile the source reports to one customer record and retain an unknown-source category.

When should you keep, repair or stop a source?

Keep a source when its observed economics, fit and workload meet your written criteria. Repair a clear problem, such as an advertised service you do not provide, before judging the corrected campaign. Stop or limit a source when cost exposure or unsuitable inquiries exceed the boundaries you set and the supplier cannot resolve the issue.

Write the decision, evidence, owner and next review date beside each source. You do not need a universal ranking; you need a record that explains why your next marketing dollar belongs where you put it.

What does BaaDigi charge a plumbing company?

The Stability Engine runs $497 per month plus $995 setup and covers the website, business profile, content, reporting and Google ads management, with ad spend up to $1,600 per month paid straight to Google. That is a service fee for the channels above, not a price per plumbing call.