How is cost per booked job calculated?
Cost per booked job = cost per lead ÷ booking rateCost per lead is a source's monthly spend divided by its leads or calls. Booking rate is the share of those leads that became a job on the schedule. A $57 plumbing lead booked 43% of the time costs about $133 per booked job.1,2
The calculator does the same math for each source, then adds them up. Booked jobs are leads times booking rate. Revenue is booked jobs times what a booked job is worth to you. Gross profit after marketing is that revenue times your gross margin, minus what you spent. A management or agency fee counts in the total even when it brings no calls of its own, because you pay it either way.
Two habits keep the number honest. Count leads the same way for every source: Google bills Local Services Ads per lead, while Google Ads and your website need tracked calls and forms, minus spam and wrong numbers.5 And take booked jobs from your field software.
What do booking rates and lead costs look like by trade?
| Trade | Calls booked | LSA cost per lead | LSA cost per booked job | Booked job worth, first job / 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HVAC | 38% | $51 | $134 | $1,250 / $1,478 |
| Plumbing | 43% | $57 | $133 | $567 / $613 |
| Pest control | 42%* | $53* | $126 | $340 / $523 |
| Garage door | 31% | $49* | $158 | $676 / $741 |
Calls booked: ServiceTitan platform data, June 2022.2 LSA cost per lead: SearchLight data, early 2026.1,6 Cost per booked job is our arithmetic from those two columns. Booked job worth: our trade value model, base case (see below).7 *ServiceTitan doesn't break out pest control, so the row uses its all-trades rate; its lead cost is SearchLight's blended average across all trades ($53). Garage door lead cost comes from a sample of 12 contractors.
These are starting points. Lead costs swing with market size and season. In 2026 data, Local Services Ads book rates ran from about 38% (a 12-contractor garage door sample) to about 44% (a cross-trade average).6,1 Your own numbers beat every row in this table.
What moves cost per booked job the most?
For many owner-run shops, it's booking rate. In ServiceTitan's June 2022 data, companies with fewer than five technicians booked 24% of calls and those with 25 or more booked 59%. After 6 p.m., small shops booked about 9% of calls.2 Across home services, only 52% of callers reach a person, according to Invoca's 2026 benchmarks.3
Because booking rate sits under the line in the formula, small gains go a long way. The same $57 plumbing lead costs about $133 per booked job at 43% and about $104 at 55%, with no change in ad spend. Use the lever in the calculator to try your own.
The other lever is the mix. Calls from your Google Business Profile cost nothing per call, so every booked job they bring lowers the blended number. We cover both, answering and booking along with reach on Google Maps, in our method.
What is a booked job worth?
More than the repair ticket. A booked call from a search like "ac repair" is usually a $375 fix, sometimes a $1,500 compressor or coil job, and now and then a family replacing a worn-out system. Some of those customers buy a maintenance plan or come back for a replacement later in the year. A pest call often starts a plan that renews for years. So we value a booked call by the jobs each search usually turns into, at published prices, then weight the searches by how often people in the Charlotte area make them.7
| Trade | First job | First 12 months | 5 years | Gross profit, 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HVAC | $1,250$537–$2,739 | $1,478$612–$3,385 | $2,245$875–$5,249 | $675 |
| Plumbing | $567$231–$1,111 | $613$248–$1,229 | $798$305–$1,651 | $307 |
| Pest control | $340$177–$683 | $523$274–$1,003 | $953$466–$1,826 | $288 |
| Garage door | $676$296–$1,155 | $741$317–$1,330 | $930$372–$1,725 | $322 |
Value of one booked call, base case, with low to high cases below each figure. Isoline trade value model v1.0, October 2026, Charlotte-area search mix.7 Five-year values are not discounted.
- HVAC. For repair searches we assume 74% of booked calls are minor repairs at $375 (Fixr's average), 22% major repairs at about $1,500, and 4% an $11,000 replacement sold on the visit.8 We set the replacement price below ServiceTitan's 2025 averages of $17,040 nationally and $15,997 in North Carolina.9 Plans are priced at $200 a year, the most common price in an ACHR News survey of 100 contractors.10 HVAC jobs tagged as repairs in Housecall Pro averaged $1,205 in 2025, so these tickets lean low.11
- Plumbing. Mostly repairs and drain clears ($246 average), with water heater replacements ($1,800) and sewer lines ($3,319) lifting the average.12,13,14
- Pest control. The first visit is small; the plan is the value. We assume about half of general pest calls start a quarterly plan, at about $520 a year.15,16 With 80.5% yearly retention, the rate Rentokil reported for its North American customers in 2025, and a weaker first year (our assumption), the average plan customer stays about four years.17 Judge pest sources on 12-month value or longer.
- Garage door. Mostly spring jobs ($420) and smaller repairs, with openers ($996 median) and some new doors.18,19,20
What's assumed: no one publishes the share of booked calls that ends in each job type, for any trade. Those shares, the odds of a replacement or a plan, and most margins (HVAC replacements and plans, plumbing, garage door) are our assumptions, set against the published benchmarks we could find.21,22,23,24 Pest margin (55%) sits between Rollins and the industry cost study.25,26 Tickets come from consumer cost guides, which tend to run below what a licensed $1M to $10M contractor invoices. In HVAC, each point of replace-instead-of-repair on repair calls moves a booked call's value by about $110 in revenue. Swap in your own install-to-repair mix, tickets and plan sign-ups.
How many booked jobs does a $2,000 a month program need?
Booked jobs to cover a monthly fee = fee ÷ gross profit per booked jobOur Growth Program is $2,000 a month. A booked HVAC call leaves about $675 in gross profit over 12 months in our model, so the program has to add about 3 booked jobs a month to cover its fee.7
| Trade | Gross profit per booked job, first job | Booked jobs a month | Gross profit per booked job, 12 months | Booked jobs a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HVAC | $580 | 3.4 | $675 | 3.0 |
| Plumbing | $282 | 7.1 | $307 | 6.5 |
| Pest control | $187 | 10.7 | $288 | 7.0 |
| Garage door | $299 | 6.7 | $322 | 6.2 |
Isoline trade value model, base case, Charlotte-area search mix.7 Margins are partly assumptions (see above). Ad spend is on top of the fee. The first-job column is the month-one cash test; the 12-month column counts plans and follow-on work from each month's added jobs.
Roughly three booked jobs a month in HVAC, and six to seven in plumbing, pest control and garage door, on 12-month gross profit. Pest is the case where the view matters most: about 11 on first visits, 7 once plan revenue counts. Divide by your booking rate to see the calls behind those jobs; at HVAC's 38%, three booked jobs is about eight calls.2 Our pest control page shows how to value a recurring sign-up. Whatever your mix, put your own numbers in the calculator.
Want a second set of eyes on your numbers?
The free map scan shows where you show up on Google Maps across your service area, and one website check, in two business days. If you'd rather talk through cost per booked job by source, book a 15-minute call. Your Google listing and ad accounts stay in your name either way.
Buying agency help? Our guide to choosing a home services marketing agency lists the questions that get an agency to show you cost per booked job.
Questions owners ask
What's a good cost per booked job?
One your booked jobs can carry. In our trade value model a booked HVAC call leaves about $580 in gross profit on the first job, so $134 per booked job leaves plenty of room. A booked pest call leaves about $187 on the first visit and $288 over 12 months, so pest sources are best judged on plans signed. Compare sources against each other and against your own gross profit per booked job.
Should I count leads or calls?
Count what you can check, the same way for every source. For Local Services Ads, use the leads Google charged you for. For Google Ads and your website, use tracked calls and forms minus spam, wrong numbers and existing customers calling about a job.
Where do I find my booking rate?
If calls are tracked by source, your field software (ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, Jobber and similar) can usually report booked jobs against them. If not, pull 20 recent calls from one source and count how many ended with a time on the schedule. It's rough, but it beats a guess.
Does this calculator save what I type?
No. The math runs in your browser and nothing is sent to us. The copy-link button puts your numbers in the page address so you can share them, and only when you click it.
Sources
Defaults on this page: booking rates from ServiceTitan platform data for June 2022 (more than 3,000 trades businesses); Local Services Ads and Google Ads lead costs from SearchLight account data published by The Valley Marketing Group and Enrich Labs (early 2026); the value of a booked job from our trade value model (v1.0, October 2026: the jobs each search usually turns into, priced from published cost guides and platform data, weighted by Charlotte-area search volume, with job-mix shares and several margins labeled as our assumptions)7; the $1,500 agency fee is the median starting price among the 17 US agencies on Google's page 1 that publish one, from our October 2026 page-one audit.4 Google Ads lead costs are SearchLight's non-branded search averages (2026).27 Gross margins are the model's blended margins for each trade's job mix. All defaults are examples to replace with your own numbers.
- Google LSA cost per lead by trade, 2026 (SearchLight data, Feb–May 2026). The Valley Marketing Group, 2026. thevalleymarketinggroup.com/blog/google-lsa-cost-per-lead-home-services-2026/
- Call booking rates: data from 3,000+ trades businesses. ServiceTitan, Oct 2022. www.servicetitan.com/blog/data-call-booking-rates
- Home Services Lead Conversion Benchmarks Report 2026. Invoca, Jul 2026. invoca.com/reports/the-invoca-home-services-lead-conversion-benchmarks-report-2026
- Who ranks for "HVAC marketing agency"? An audit of Google's first page in four trades. Isoline Growth, Oct 2026. www.isolinegrowth.com/research/agency-page-one/
- How leads work. Google Local Services Ads Help, accessed Oct 2026. support.google.com/localservices/answer/7195435?hl=en
- Garage door marketing guide 2026 (SearchLight sample of 12 contractors). Enrich Labs, 2026. www.enrichlabs.ai/blog/garage-door-marketing-complete-guide-2026
- 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
- How much does AC repair cost? (average $375). Fixr, Jan 29, 2026. www.fixr.com/costs/air-conditioner-repair
- HVAC replacement cost by state (2025 invoices). ServiceTitan, 2026. www.servicetitan.com/toolbox/state-of-the-trades/trends/hvac-replacement-cost-by-state
- Homeowners, contractors mutually support maintenance agreements (survey of 100 contractors). ACHR News, Dec 12, 2023. www.achrnews.com/articles/153922-homeowners-contractors-mutually-support-maintenance-agreements
- Trades Quarterly Pulse: HVAC repair economics. Housecall Pro, Mar 2026. www.housecallpro.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/032026-HCP-Trades-Quarterly-Pulse_HVAC-Repair-Economics.pdf
- How much does drain cleaning cost? (average $246). HomeAdvisor, Jun 17, 2026. www.homeadvisor.com/cost/plumbing/repair-a-clogged-drain
- How much does it cost to install a 50-gallon water heater? (average $1,800). Fixr, Jan 26, 2026. www.fixr.com/costs/50-gallon-water-heater
- How much does it cost to replace or repair a sewer line? (average $3,319). HomeAdvisor, Jun 19, 2026. www.homeadvisor.com/cost/plumbing/repair-a-sewer-main/
- How much does pest control cost? (average single visit $171). This Old House, Mar 12, 2026. www.thisoldhouse.com/pest-control/reviews/pest-control-cost
- Pest control pricing strategies for NC businesses (quarterly service $125 to $150 a visit). Cube Creative, Jan 13, 2025. cubecreative.design/blog/pest-control-marketing/pest-control-pricing-strategies-nc-businesses
- Preliminary results FY2025 (North America customer retention 80.5%). Rentokil Initial plc, Mar 2026. www.investegate.co.uk/announcement/rns/rentokil-initial--rto/preliminary-results/9459207
- Garage door spring replacement cost (average $420). This Old House, Mar 10, 2026. www.thisoldhouse.com/garages/garage-door-spring-cost
- Garage door opener installation cost (median $996, 193,346 invoices). A1 Garage Door Service, Sep 1, 2026. a1garage.com/garage-door-opener-installation-cost/
- How much does a garage door cost?. This Old House, Mar 13, 2026. www.thisoldhouse.com/home-finances/garage-door-cost
- The easiest path to HVAC technician-generated leads (single-company case). Contracting Business, Dec 17, 2015. www.contractingbusiness.com/residential-hvac/easiest-path-hvac-technician-generated-leads-0
- Understanding HVAC profit margins. ServiceTitan, 2026 (body dated Sept 2023). servicetitan.com/blog/hvac-profit-margins
- Plumbing business profitability: margins and KPIs. ServiceTitan, Oct 16, 2026. servicetitan.com/blog/plumbing-business-profitability
- Garage door lead generation: emergency vs. scheduled (repair 50%, install 35% gross margin). LeadGen Economy, Mar 18, 2026. www.leadgen-economy.com/blog/garage-door-lead-generation-emergency-vs-scheduled/
- Rollins Q4 and full-year 2025 results (gross margin 52.8%). Rollins, Inc. (SEC 8-K), Feb 11, 2026. www.boardroomalpha.com/sec/rol-8-k-2026-02-11-0000084839-26-000003/rol-20260211xex991.htm
- NPMA, PCO Bookkeepers 2025 pest control industry cost study (average gross margin 58%). PCT, 2025. www.pctonline.com/news/npma-pco-bookkeeper-2025-pest-control-study