Ask most contractors what they pay per lead and you will get one of two answers: a number pulled from their Google Ads dashboard, or a blank stare. Neither tells the real story. The true cost of a lead — and more importantly, the true cost of an acquired client — is almost always higher than contractors think, and understanding it is one of the fastest ways to stop wasting marketing budget.
What Are Contractors Paying Per Lead Right Now
The numbers vary significantly by trade and market, but here are realistic 2026 ranges for Florida contractors:
For roofing and restoration leads via Google Ads, cost per lead is typically running between $80 and $200 depending on the keyword and the city. For HVAC service calls it is usually $40 to $120. Plumbing emergency calls can be comparable. General contractor leads for renovation work often run $90 to $250 per lead.
These numbers reflect what you pay for the click and the form submission. They do not include what you pay in time following up on leads that never convert, or the jobs you lose because your response time was too slow. When you factor those in, the real cost is often 30 to 50 percent higher.
Lead aggregators and services like Angi, HomeAdvisor, and Thumbtack work on a similar cost-per-lead model, but with the added problem that the same lead is frequently sold to three to five contractors simultaneously. You are not buying an exclusive lead — you are buying the right to compete for one.
The Hidden Cost of a Missed Lead
Here is the number most contractors never think about: the cost of a lead that came in and was never properly worked.
If you are spending $100 per lead on Google Ads and you are converting one in five, your cost per acquired client is $500. That is the simple math. But if your close rate drops because your follow-up is slow — because you missed a call, because you sent one email and stopped, because the lead sat in a spreadsheet for three days before anyone touched it — your real cost per acquired client might be $800 or $1,000. You are paying for the lead either way. The difference is whether you collected on it.
Studies on home service businesses consistently show that speed of response is one of the top two or three factors in whether a lead converts. The first contractor to make contact on a fresh lead wins the majority of the time. Every hour you wait after a lead comes in, your close rate drops.
How to Lower Your Cost Per Acquired Client
The fastest way to lower your cost per acquired client is not to find cheaper leads. It is to convert more of the leads you already have.
A missed-call text-back system is the single highest-return tool most contractors can add right now. When you miss a call, the system texts the caller within seconds. Most people reply. You have not lost the lead — you have just delayed the conversation by an hour or two instead of a day or forever.
Automated follow-up sequences for web leads are the second lever. When someone fills out your contact form, they should get an immediate text and email response. Not a form confirmation — an actual message from your business that feels personal and starts the conversation. If they do not respond, a follow-up two days later. Then a third touch a week after that. Most contractors send one message and stop. The businesses closing at the highest rates send three to five touchpoints before they give up on a lead.
The third lever is a CRM that keeps your pipeline visible. If you can not see at a glance how many leads came in this week, how many were followed up, and how many converted, you are managing your business blind. You can not improve what you can not measure.
What a Good Number Looks Like
A well-run contractor business in a competitive Florida market should be targeting a cost per acquired client (not cost per lead) of no more than 10 to 15 percent of the average job value. If your average job is $3,000, you should be aiming to acquire that client for $300 to $450 all-in.
If you are above that, the problem is almost always conversion rate and follow-up consistency, not lead volume or lead quality. More leads into a broken follow-up system just means more wasted spend.
The Bottom Line
Understanding your actual numbers is not just an accounting exercise. It is the difference between a business that scales and a business that stays stuck. If you do not know your cost per acquired client, your close rate by lead source, or your response time average, you are making marketing decisions based on gut feeling instead of data.
If you want to see where the gaps are in your current setup, a free strategy call gives us the chance to audit your numbers and show you exactly what we would change. No obligation — just a real look at what the data says.