Everybody wants ad spend benchmarks by industry, and they're useful — as long as you treat them as a starting sketch, not a rule. Costs swing with your city, your competition, and how good your website and follow-up are. Two identical businesses can see double the cost per lead just from market density. With that caveat, here's roughly where things land.
Cost per lead by industry (rough ranges)
- Plumbing / HVAC / electrical: $40-$120 per lead — high intent, high competition
- Roofing: $50-$200 per lead — expensive clicks, big job values
- Painting / remodeling: $30-$100 per lead
- Junk removal / cleaning: $20-$60 per lead
- Salons / barbershops / nails: $10-$40 per lead — cheaper clicks, lower ticket
- Auto body / detailing: $25-$75 per lead
- Med spas / dental: $40-$150 per lead — high value, competitive
Why the ranges are so wide
Three things move these numbers most: how urgent the need is (emergency plumbing converts cheaper than optional remodeling), how many competitors bid on the same keywords, and job value (roofers tolerate a $150 lead because a job is worth thousands; a barber can't). A dense metro can cost 2-3x a rural market for the same service.
How much should you spend?
A common working range for local services is 5-10% of revenue on marketing, weighted more heavily toward ads when you're growing. But the smarter frame is target cost per acquisition: if a new customer is worth $600 and you're happy paying $120 to get one, back into a budget from there rather than a flat percentage.
Use benchmarks as a sanity check, not a target
If your cost per lead is wildly above the range for your industry, something's off — usually the landing page, the offer, or the targeting, not the platform. If you're well below, you may be leaving volume on the table and can scale. For industry-specific detail, our starter guides like Google Ads for nail salons and Google Ads for auto body shops break down real numbers.
The number that matters more than any benchmark
Your own. Track cost per lead and cost per booked job for 60-90 days and you'll have a benchmark worth ten of anyone else's averages. Start there, then compare. You can see how we set targets in how Arbor runs your ads, and there are more growth guides if you want to dig deeper by trade.