What Google Local Services Ads cost per lead and per booked job, by trade

How does Google charge for Local Services Ads leads?

You pay per lead. Google counts these as valid leads: a call you answer or return and speak with the customer, a missed call during business hours where the caller stays on more than 20 seconds, a voicemail (charged on the same 20-second rule), a text or email from the customer, and a booking request.² Business hours are the hours on your Google Business Profile.²

• Repeat contacts are free for a while. Once a lead is charged, follow-up calls or messages from the same phone number or email aren't charged again; after 15 days without contact, a new contact becomes a new lead.²
• Phone menus. You aren't charged if a caller doesn't press a key to get routed, and extra key presses in a multi-level menu don't restart the timer.²
• Price per lead varies with your location, the job type, the type of lead and your bidding mode. Message leads usually cost less than phone leads.²
• Budget. You set an average weekly budget. A week can run over, but you never spend more than the monthly max, and your ad stops showing once you reach it.²

What changed on October 1, 2026?

Missed calls became billable. Google's notice, as quoted in trade press, said missed calls during business hours will be charged as valid leads if the caller stays on the line for more than 20 seconds, starting October 1, 2026.³ Google's own help page now lists the rule.²

For an owner, this turns answer rate into a line on the ad bill. Three things to check this week:

• Your profile hours. If your Google Business Profile says you're open until 8 pm and the office leaves at 5, every unanswered call in those three hours can be billed.
• Who picks up at lunch and in peak weeks. The first heat wave or freeze is when calls ring out. Our Missed Call Check estimates what missed calls cost you in booked jobs.
• Voicemail. A caller who stays on more than 20 seconds and leaves a message is a charged lead, so return those calls fast.

A second change is under way. Trade press reports that Google is moving Local Services Ads into Google Ads as a Performance Max campaign for Search and Maps: a first phase began in August 2026 for selected US advertisers in categories including plumbing, HVAC and pest control, with service-area businesses to follow in late 2026. Weekly budgets become daily budgets, manual maximum cost-per-lead bidding goes away, and historical reports don't carry over.⁴ Google's help pages we read on Oct 19, 2026 didn't describe the migration yet. Export your lead history now.

What does a Local Services Ads lead cost by trade?

The largest recent sample is ad-account data from 888 contractors for February 2026, plus a smaller garage door sample.^1,5 Book rate here means the share of LSA leads that became booked jobs. The last column shows the same lead at ServiceTitan's June 2022 booking rate for all calls in that trade, for a shop whose phones book at the trade average.⁶

Cost per booked job = cost per lead ÷ share of leads booked, rounded. The source reports no pest-control-only figure; use the blended row and your own data. Water heater leads ran $71 in the same data, from only two accounts.¹ The same source warns that a national average can hide $30 leads in smaller markets and $90 or more in competitive metros.¹

What can you afford to pay for an LSA booked job?

Compare cost per booked job with the gross profit a booked call brings. In our trade value model, a booked call is worth about $580 in gross profit on the first job for HVAC, $282 for plumbing, $299 for garage door and $187 for pest control ($288 over 12 months, because the plan carries the value).⁷

The margin looks wide on paper. It narrows when calls go unanswered, when leads are for jobs you don't do, and when you count spam. That's why the number to manage is cost per booked job from your own field software, by source. Put your numbers in the cost per booked job calculator.

HVAC: is Local Services Ads worth it in 2026?

For repair and no-heat or no-cool calls, often yes, if your phones are staffed. HVAC leads averaged $51 in February 2026 with 44% booked, about $116 per booked job.¹ The payoff is the repair that turns into a replacement: our model counts about 4% of booked HVAC calls ending in an $11,000 change-out.⁷

Two things to watch. Peak weeks are when missed calls pile up, and since October those are billable. And a repair lead's value shows up months later, when the system is replaced, so track sold replacements by source in your field software and judge LSA on what it sells over the year.

Plumbing: what does an LSA booked job cost?

Plumbing leads averaged $57 in February 2026 with 44.5% booked, and drain and sewer leads $59 with 39.5% booked.¹ By May 2026, plumbing leads had risen to $69.26 with 43% booked, about $161 per booked job.⁸ Against about $282 of gross profit per booked plumbing call on the first job in our model, that still pays, as long as the calls are answered.⁷

Plumbing's risk is after hours. Set your profile hours to the hours someone actually answers, and route after-hours calls to a person or a service that books. Our answering service guide compares the options by cost.

Pest control: how should you judge LSA leads?

We found no large published sample of pest-only LSA lead costs, so start from the all-trades average ($53 a lead, about $121 per booked job) and replace it with your own numbers within a month.¹ Lead prices vary by job type, so a termite or bed bug lead may price differently from general pest.²

Judge LSA on recurring plans started and kept. A booked general pest call is worth about $179 on the first visit and $404 over 12 months in our model.⁷ Set the service area to the streets your routes already cover, and report cancels in the first 90 days by source. The pest control customer value calculator shows the most you can pay for a plan customer.

Garage door: what do LSA leads cost?

In a small 2026 sample of 12 garage door contractors, LSA leads averaged $49, 37.8% were booked, and each paying customer cost about $198. The same data put the low ticket down to a heavy mix of springs, openers and sensors.⁵ At the 31% booking rate in ServiceTitan's data for garage door and water treatment, a $49 lead costs about $158 per booked job.⁶

Garage door companies also need Google's advanced verification to advertise, and fake listings crowd the category.⁹ Count only real prospects as leads, and leave spam and sales calls out before you judge the channel.

Can you dispute an LSA lead or get a credit?

Not the way you used to. Google now assesses charged leads over time and credits poor-quality ones automatically, usually within 30 days; the original charge still shows on your invoice.^10,11 Google no longer credits leads for "job type not serviced" or "geo not serviced," so a lead for work you don't do is your cost.¹¹ Leads judged invalid or low quality at first contact aren't charged at all.²

What you can still do:

• Rate every bad lead. In the Leads section, use "Rate this lead." Google says it may occasionally credit leads you report as poor quality, and its credits page mentions a bonus credit for leaving feedback.^2,11
• Set job types and service area tightly, because those credits are gone.
• Review leads weekly. Listen to the calls, mark spam and wrong numbers, and compare charged leads with booked jobs in your software.

The money-back guarantee for customers also ended: it covers only services booked before December 7, 2025, and Google now shows a single Google Verified badge.¹²

How do you lower your LSA cost per booked job?

Raising the booking rate does more than chasing a cheaper lead. At $53 a lead, booking 40% of leads costs about $133 per booked job; booking 55% costs about $96.¹

1. Answer every call in business hours, and keep profile hours honest. Missed calls are billed now.
2. Call back voicemails within minutes. Once a lead is charged, follow-up calls with that customer aren't charged again for 15 days.²
3. Trim job types and service area to the work and streets you want.
4. Tag LSA in your field software so booked jobs and revenue from LSA show up by source. Our Housecall Pro vs Jobber guide covers how each one reports by source.
5. Rate bad leads weekly and export your lead history before the move into Google Ads.

Where does Isoline fit?

Local Services Ads is one paid source among several. We judge it the same way as the rest: booked jobs and cost per booked job from your own call and job data. The Booked-Job Audit ($1,500) scores 20 recorded calls, checks how LSA and your other sources show up in your field software, and gives a ranked fix plan; see it under programs.

The free map scan shows where you appear on Google Maps at 49 spots, 3.3 miles apart, out to about 10 miles each way, which is the free side of the same page your ads run on. Your Google listing, Google Ads and Local Services Ads accounts stay in your name, and ad spend is paid to Google from your own account.

Sources

How we compiled this guide: Google's billing and credit rules come from Google's Local Services Ads help pages, read on Oct 19, 2026. The October 1, 2026 date and the move into Google Ads come from trade press, labeled as such. Cost per lead and book rate by trade come from published 2026 ad-account data (888 contractors in February 2026; 12 garage door contractors from January to April 2026); these are vendor platform data, and the sample isn't random. Cost per booked job is our arithmetic: cost per lead divided by the share of leads booked. Booking rates for your own phones come from ServiceTitan's June 2022 data. Gross profit per booked call comes from our trade value model (v1.0, October 2026, base case).⁷

1. Google Local Service Ads cost per lead by trade (888 contractors, February 2026; blended $53, book rate 43.9%). SearchLight Digital, Mar 9, 2026. searchlightdigital.io/google-local-service-ads-cost-per-lead/
2. How leads work. Google Local Services Ads Help, accessed Oct 2026. support.google.com/localservices/answer/7195435?hl=en
3. Google LSA advertisers face missed call charges from October 1 (quotes Google's notice). PPC Land, Sep 25, 2026. ppc.land/google-lsa-advertisers-face-missed-call-charges-from-october-1/
4. LSArespond tops 2,000 users as Google moves Local Services Ads into PMax (migration phases, bidding and budget changes). PPC Land, Oct 12, 2026. ppc.land/lsarespond-tops-2-000-users-as-google-moves-local-services-ads-into-pmax/
5. Garage door Google Local Service Ads cost per lead (12 contractors, Jan 1 to Apr 30, 2026; $49 per lead, 37.8% book rate, $198 per paying customer). SearchLight Digital, May 19, 2026. searchlightdigital.io/garage-door-google-lsa-cost-per-lead/
6. Call booking rates: data from 3,000+ trades businesses. ServiceTitan, Oct 2022. www.servicetitan.com/blog/data-call-booking-rates
7. What a booked call is worth, by trade (Isoline trade value model v1.0: job mix per search, Charlotte-area search weights, sourced tickets and margins). Isoline Growth, Oct 2026. www.isolinegrowth.com/tools/cost-per-booked-job/#value
8. Google Local Service Ad benchmarks (SearchLight, 1,011 businesses). The Data-Driven Trades, May 2026. thedatadriventrades.substack.com/p/google-local-service-ad-benchmarks
9. About advanced verification. Google Ads Help, accessed Oct 19, 2026. support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7167635
10. About automated Local Services Ads lead credits. Google Local Services Ads Help, accessed Oct 19, 2026. support.google.com/localservices/answer/7435486
11. Lead credits for Local Services Ads. Google Local Services Ads Help, accessed Oct 2026. support.google.com/localservices/answer/15100654
12. About the Google Verified badge. Google Local Services Ads Help, accessed Oct 2026. support.google.com/localservices/answer/16498018?hl=en
13. What is a good cost per lead for HVAC Google Ads? (816 HVAC and plumbing contractors, January 2026; non-branded search $149). SearchLight Digital, Feb 12, 2026, updated Mar 27, 2026. searchlightdigital.io/what-is-a-good-cost-per-lead-for-hvac-google-ads/
14. What is a good ROAS for HVAC Google Local Service Ads? (602 HVAC and plumbing advertisers, Q4 2025; median monthly spend $4,277). SearchLight Digital, updated Mar 2026. searchlightdigital.io/what-is-a-good-roas-for-hvac-local-services-ads/