What it costs to reach a contractor in 2026, and what it costs the contractor to reach a homeowner
In 10 of the 11 trades measured, marketing agencies pay more per Google click to reach a contractor than that contractor pays to reach a homeowner. In plumbing the median is $76.21 against $39.45; in HVAC it is $63.60 against $38.54. The most expensive single click measured was $297.02, on an HVAC marketing search.
By Brandon Rodriguez, founder of PayOnJobs · Measured and published · Source: DataForSEO Google Ads keyword data, United States
Cost per click by trade: reaching the owner versus reaching the homeowner.
Owner-side terms are searches a contractor makes when looking for marketing help ("hvac marketing agency", "roofing leads"). Homeowner-side terms are searches a homeowner makes when looking for the trade ("plumber near me"). Median and maximum are across every term measured for that trade. Searches are monthly US volume summed across those terms.
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
| Trade | Owner-side searches / mo | Agency pays per click (median) | Agency pays (max) | Homeowner-side searches / mo | Contractor pays per click (median) | Contractor pays (max) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HVAC | 11,820 | $63.60 | $297.02 | 113,060 | $38.54 | $186.31 |
| Roofing | 13,530 | $55.17 | $149.15 | 482,460 | $25.96 | $129.50 |
| Plumbing | 5,470 | $76.21 | $266.67 | 6,464,300 | $39.45 | $80.52 |
| Pest control | 3,100 | $53.09 | $108.33 | 2,212,100 | $28.68 | $36.39 |
| Tree service | 960 | $50.68 | $75.60 | 127,410 | $12.80 | $33.45 |
| Electrical | 1,000 | $18.58 | $22.11 | 1,779,180 | $14.62 | $46.81 |
| Garage door | 390 | $24.21 | $80.22 | 883,220 | $40.02 | $77.77 |
| Landscaping | 3,210 | $35.56 | $64.03 | 1,240 | $5.34 | $18.02 |
| Cleaning | 990 | $27.94 | $60.12 | 781,480 | $9.88 | $26.06 |
| Painting | 410 | $26.44 | $26.44 | 250,520 | $14.85 | $24.70 |
| Pool service | 70 | $42.17 | $42.17 | 90,990 | $11.64 | $42.14 |
| Concrete | no data | no data | no data | 75,290 | $11.29 | $29.90 |
"No data" means Google returned no owner-side marketing or lead terms with 10 or more monthly searches and a reported cost per click for that trade. Concrete contractors, for example, are not searching for marketing agencies in measurable numbers, which is itself a finding. Painting and pool service each had only two qualifying owner-side terms, so treat those medians as thin.
The contractor is the more expensive customer.
The ratio that matters is the agency's median click cost divided by the contractor's. In Landscaping it is 6.7 to 1: an agency pays $35.56 for a click from a landscaping owner while that owner pays $5.34 for a click from a homeowner. Plumbing runs 1.9 to 1, roofing 2.1 to 1, and HVAC 1.7 to 1.
The reason is not mysterious. A homeowner click, at best, becomes one job. A contractor click, at best, becomes a retainer. Hook Agency publishes a starting price of $2,800 a month for HVAC SEO with a year commitment, which is $33,600 for one signed client. An agency that closes one client in fifty clicks can pay $150 a click and still come out far ahead. The bidding reflects that arithmetic exactly.
For an owner, the practical reading is this: the money an agency spends to find you is priced into the retainer it quotes you. When a click costs $76.21 and the agency needs dozens of them per signed client, the first several months of your fee are paying for the ads that found you, not for the ads that find your customers.
The trades with the biggest tickets attract the most expensive bidding.
Plumbing, HVAC, and roofing sit at the top of the owner-side table on median cost per click ($76.21, $63.60, $55.17) and they also have the highest maximums ($266.67, $297.02, $149.15). These are the trades where a single job can run into the thousands and where after-hours emergency work is common, so an owner who signs a marketing contract represents more lifetime revenue to the agency.
At the other end, electrical marketing terms carry a median of $18.58 and painting $26.44. Fewer agencies specialize in those trades, and the searches themselves are fewer: about 1,000 owner-side electrical marketing searches a month against 11,820 for HVAC.
Across all trades with data, owners make roughly 40,950 searches a month for marketing help or leads. That is a small number next to homeowner demand, but each of those searches is a business owner with a budget, which is why the clicks are priced the way they are.
Garage door is the exception, and it explains the rule.
Garage door is the one trade where the homeowner-side click ($40.02) costs more than the owner-side click ($24.21). Garage door repair is a high-urgency, high-margin, low-loyalty service. The likely explanation, which this data cannot prove on its own, is that lead resellers bid heavily on "garage door repair near me" searches to resell the calls. That would push the homeowner-side price up while relatively few agencies specialize in marketing to garage door companies.
The lesson carries to every trade: whoever else is bidding on your homeowner is setting your price. In roofing and HVAC, shared-lead marketplaces bid on the same searches you do and then sell the resulting inquiry to several contractors at once. The same inquiry on Angi or HomeAdvisor is sold to 3 to 8 contractors, and up to 16 for roofing, according to the LeadTruffle 2026 industry guide and the FTC's 2023 HomeAdvisor consent order.
Three questions the data lets you ask any marketing vendor.
- Question 1
What did it cost you to find me?
If the agency bought a $76.21 click to reach you, that cost is in your quote. An agency that grows through referrals and its own results carries less of it.
- Question 2
What is the cost per booked job, not per click?
Click cost, clicks per call, and close rate together give the only number that matters. A vendor who can quote clicks but not booked jobs is not measuring what you are paying for.
- Question 3
Who else is bidding on my homeowner?
If your ad account competes with a lead marketplace that will sell the same call to your competitors, your click price is being set by them. Exclusive territory removes that bidder.
How the numbers were measured.
Source: DataForSEO Labs, Google keyword suggestions endpoint, United States, English, pulled on 2026-09-21. For each of 12 trades we requested up to 80 related terms for three seed phrases: "<trade> marketing", "<trade> leads", and "<trade> near me" (the near-me seed used the homeowner's word for the trade, for example "plumber" rather than "plumbing"). We kept terms with at least 10 monthly searches and a reported Google Ads cost per click, and dropped terms about jobs or salaries.
"Owner-side" figures combine the marketing and leads clusters. Median cost per click is the higher of the two clusters' medians, so the table reports what the more competitive cluster costs. Maximum is the single highest cost per click in either cluster. Searches are the sum of monthly volume across every kept term, so trades with more distinct terms show more volume. Homeowner-side figures use the near-me cluster alone.
Cost per click is Google's reported average cost per click for the term, which is what an advertiser pays for a click, not for a lead or a job. The raw JSON is kept alongside this site's source and the page is generated from it. The numbers will be re-measured on a stated date rather than quietly edited; if you cite this page, the figures you quote will remain the figures published on that date.
About the data.
How much does it cost to market a contracting business in 2026?
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It depends on who is buying the click. Across the 12 trades measured in September 2026, a contractor bidding on homeowner searches such as "plumber near me" pays a median of $39.45 per click in plumbing and $38.54 in HVAC. Agencies bidding to reach those same contractors pay $76.21 and $63.60 per click.
Why do marketing agencies pay more per click than contractors do?
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Because the prize is bigger. A homeowner click might become one repair. A contractor click might become a 12-month retainer worth $2,800 a month or more (Hook Agency's published starting price). Agencies can afford $297.02 for a single HVAC click when one signed client pays that back many times over.
Which trade is the most expensive for agencies to reach?
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By median cost per click, Plumbing at $76.21. By the single most expensive click measured, HVAC at $297.02. Plumbing, HVAC, and roofing lead on both measures.
Where does this data come from?
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From DataForSEO's Google Ads keyword database for the United States, pulled in September 2026. For each trade we measured every search term Google returned for "<trade> marketing", "<trade> leads", and "<trade> near me" with at least 10 monthly searches and a reported cost per click. The raw file is kept in the PayOnJobs repository and the numbers on this page are generated from it.
What does cost per click mean for a contractor deciding on marketing?
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A click is not a call. Several clicks usually produce one phone call, and only some calls become jobs. The useful number is cost per booked job, which is the click cost times the clicks per call divided by your close rate. Ask any agency for that figure for their current clients before you sign.
Can I use these numbers in my own article or report?
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Yes. Cite PayOnJobs and link to this page. The data is published under a Creative Commons Attribution license. The data was measured once and will be re-measured on a stated date rather than silently updated, so a citation stays accurate to what was published.
What this means for your trade, in detail.
Pay per lead marketing agency
How pay per lead marketing agencies charge contractors, what a lead really costs once close rates are counted, and how paying 17% on booked jobs compares.
Hvac marketing agency
What HVAC marketing agencies charge, retainer vs pay per lead vs revenue share, seasonal demand swings, and the missed-call problem draining bookings.
Roofing marketing agency
How roofing marketing agencies bill contractors, storm-driven demand swings, why big roof tickets change the 17 percent math, and an honest tradeoff look.
Hvac leads
Compare buying HVAC leads (shared vs exclusive, real cost per booked job) against building your own lead source with a tracked number and revenue share.
Roofing leads
Compare buying roofing leads (shared up to 16 ways vs exclusive, real cost per booked job) against building your own lead source with a revenue share model.
Angi leads alternative
Looking for an Angi Leads alternative? See how shared marketplace leads work, what they typically cost, and how paying 17% on paid jobs compares.
Pest control marketing
Pest control marketing that charges nothing upfront and 17% only on jobs the customer paid for, including recurring service plans. See how it works.
Tree service marketing
Tree service marketing built for storm calls and emergencies: $0 upfront, 24/7 answering, and 17% of revenue only on jobs the customer actually paid for.
Plumbing marketing agency
What a plumbing marketing agency charges, why the clicks cost so much, and how paying 17% only on booked, paid plumbing jobs compares with a monthly retainer.
Why PayOnJobs published this
We do not buy clicks to find contractors, and we do not charge a retainer. PayOnJobs builds the website, runs the ads in your name, and answers the phone 24/7 for $0 upfront and 17 percent of jobs that book and get paid. You fund your own ad spend at $1,500 a month minimum with no markup. The data above is the reason the fee structure matters more than the pitch. If you want to see whether your zip is open, that takes ten seconds.